Q&A: Meet Olympic gold medalist Carrie Bates, who says recovery is her biggest win of all
This was originally published for Hazelden Betty Ford’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update. If you’d like to receive our advocacy emails, subscribe today.
When Carrie Steinseifer Bates, a three-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer, recently celebrated 10 years of sobriety, she wrote on Facebook that recovery was “the biggest and most important ‘WIN’ of my life.” She went on to share: “Recovery has allowed me to not just accept, but to embrace my failures, pain, imperfections and complete brokenness. I didn’t love or respect myself, but today I do. My freedom is in my truth, which is why I share my story publicly. Stigma still exists in the words ‘alcoholic’ and ‘alcoholism.’ We change stigma with our faces, voices and stories of recovery. Wreckage and redemption!”
Carrie is not just an Olympic champion and recovery advocate but also an outreach manager at the nonprofit Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, where she helps others initiate their journey to recovery every day. She also has played a key role in Hazelden Betty Ford’s partnership with Sports Video Group, bringing her message of hope, healing and education to the large professional community that relies on video, audio and broadband technologies to produce and distribute sports content around the globe.
We were happy to catch up with our superstar colleague and learn more about her recovery and advocacy, and — with the 2022 Olympic Winter Games under way in Beijing — what it’s like for her to watch the Olympics today.
Q: Congratulations on recently celebrating 10 years in recovery! What has recovery meant to you?
Recovery has meant everything to me over the past 10 years. Everything is my life today exists because of my recovery. My marriage, my relationship with my children, my friendships and my career just to name a few. Recovery has given me grace, humility and dignity. Perhaps most importantly, recovery has given me freedom. Today I am free to experience true joy and complete peace. I have found everything I have ever wanted on this journey.
Q: How did you come to be a recovery advocate who shares your story of hope and healing publicly, and what have you experienced as a result? What keeps you sharing?
It took me two years into my sobriety to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I was so full of shame that I still felt the need to be invisible. I was four years sober when I first shared my story publicly on social media and I was terrified. I was so afraid that people would judge me, but I had gotten to a stable enough place in my recovery where I decided that I had hidden in my active alcoholism, and I was no longer going to hide in my recovery. In the first post, I had a picture of one of my Olympic Gold Medals and my four-year AA coin. The response I received was overwhelmingly positive and supportive. That was the moment I realized I had a platform in which I could share my story and help others not feel as alone as I did. I have experienced so much love, support and encouragement since sharing publicly the first time. Our faces, voices and stories not only change stigma, but they can save lives. My passion and purpose have finally connected, and I continue to share in order to help reduce stigma, help people know they aren’t alone, and to share our Hazelden Betty Ford mission of hope and healing. Being of service to others in one of my life’s greatest joys.
Q: What role does sport and physical activity play in your life and recovery today?
Being active athletically has played a vital role in my recovery since I was in treatment. I had been sedentary while in active addiction, so by the time I got to treatment in 2012, physical activity was non-existent. I started using the gym the day I got out of detox. I went every single day for the 90 days I was in treatment. When I returned home I told my sponsor “if I haven’t been active for more than two days, be concerned.” Being active gives me so much natural serotonin and just helps me set my day with good intentions. Because of my athletic background, working out has always been my “safe place,” a place I could work out any frustrations, fears and worries. As a swimmer, I spent five hours a day staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool. Lap after lap. It’s no surprise that my activity of choice today is running. That same one beat motion, somewhat mindless and safe. I believe that moving our bodies can be so beneficial in our recovery for both the obvious physical benefits, but also the mental benefits. To this day it’s where I feel most “at home.”
Q: What are the things you want the whole world to understand about recovery?
I have been a part of a lot of teams in my lifetime. Some of the best in the world. None of which I am more proud of than this team of people I travel the road of recovery with. I have seen the world from a view very few ever get, and I have also lived in hell on earth. The strongest people I have ever met are the ones in recovery. We are people that see tremendous darkness, but we scratch and claw our way into the light and to this amazing and fulfilling life. There is no shame in being in recovery. I wear it as my badge of honor — my superpower, really. People in recovery are not bad people trying to get good. We are sick people trying to get well. We suffer from a progressive and fatal disease that has no cure, but there is a solution. Recovery isn’t a straight line, just like recovery from anything isn’t without its ups and downs. With resources like treatment and community, we can and do recover.
Q: As a former Olympic champion, what is it like for you to watch the Olympics today? (Any relevance to your work today as a recovery advocate?)
As an Olympic Gold Medalist, watching the Olympics today not only takes me back to that feeling of complete elation standing on the highest platform in the world and having that Olympic Gold Medal placed around my neck, but it also reminds me of all the other feelings I had that day. I had no idea who I was. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt less-than, insecure and lost. Like with many things in life, there is a very bright side, and a dark side. No different for elite athletes. I feel so incredibly grateful for the athletes out there today who are putting their faces and voices toward the discussion of mental health, and the importance of it. They are telling the world that athletes are humans beings first, and we are not immune to life’s challenges. I always like to say that I am an ordinary person with an ordinary disease who was able to accomplish some extraordinary things in my life. I would not have the platform I do today to talk about substance use disorder and recovery without my Olympic success. They go hand-in-hand. I’ve been on a lot of teams in my life, but the one I am most proud of is the Team of Recovery! There is no I in team.
