I suppose I will start my blog with my story. It's scary because people will actually read my thoughts.
I remember driving my 4-wheeler to the lake, downing a 6 pack of beer and then driving back to my house to do the dishes before my mom got home from work. My dad was in the living room oblivious to my drunken state. Then I drove back to the lake for more drinks after my chores. This is just one of many memories of drinking. I was 14...
Always the first to pour another shot and the last one to quit drinking.
I was the life of the party. Or so I thought. I love drinking!! I thought everybody else should love it as much as me. Why wouldn’t they? It will mess you up. It will make you brave. It will make you so smart. It will bring you out of your shell. It will make you speak your mind. It will make you fight. It will make you forget. It will make you fat. It will make you sad. It will make you quit caring. It will make you secluded. It will make you addicted...
I was such a bad influence on some good people. I suppose they were at the party for the same reason I was, but I was the instigator. Drink more!! Shot time!!
Many weekends were spent partying at my house. Super awesome things happened. Like, people stole from us, people got into fights, somebody passed out in the yard and we thought they were dead, somebody was almost sexually assaulted, there was streaking, someone got fired from their job, we yelled, we screamed, we sang, etc. etc. etc. and all the while, I thought we were cool. Livin' the dream. No cares in the world.
I was almost always the last person to go to sleep, usually around 6-7am the next morning. I usually woke up a few hours later to 3 or 4 people hungover ready for lunch. We may repeat this again for the next evening to finish out our whole weekend of partying.
This went on for quite a few years. I started out just drinking on the weekends with an occasional week day drink. I was always looking forward to the next weekend, ready to get wasted again. After a couple of years of this, I was drinking a few extra nights in the week. Margaritas maybe.
But then I started drinking wine. I was never a wine drinker before. I would have rather had a shot and got it over with, or chugged a beer. But wine!!! Wine is “socially acceptable”. You are allowed to drink wine every day of the week and you don’t have a problem. Yeah. Well, drink every evening I did. Started with a couple of glasses a night. That was a nice head change. It quickly got to where I was rushing home to get a glass and start my drinking. I was exploring different wines. Red, white, dry or sweet. I didn’t really care as long as it got me drunk. But I did end up settling with dry, red wine as my go to.
I was now to the point when I got home, I hurriedly got a glass of wine, chugged it down, then refilled it and pretended it was my first. I found myself doing this between refilling my cup. A quick chug, nobody knew, and now I had a better head change. So what others thought was a couple, maybe even a few, glasses was really more like 8. I was buying almost a new bottle of wine every day.
So now I buy a box instead, because nobody can really see how much you drink inside a box. Now my 8-12 cups a night is going unrecognized for sure. Very soon, 12 cups was child’s play. I found myself drinking, and drinking, and drinking, wine, wine, and more wine. I was drinking boxes of wine so quickly, I would buy another and sneak it in, hide the old box in the trash can outside before my husband got home. Or if he was home, I would practice my ninja skills and sneak new boxes in.
My husband knew I drank, he even knew it was a lot, but he had no clue. I was a master manipulator, liar, sneak, drunk. Now that I was polishing boxes of wine almost every day, I was running out of money, $20 a day is expensive. Vodka!! Hey, that is ridiculously cheap!! What?!? Why didn’t I think of this sooner? I could have saved thousands I’m sure. Oh well, can’t be sad about the past. At least I’ve discovered it now!
Oh vodka. That clear, cheap, odorless liquid courage. Go ahead and keep that box of wine in the refrigerator, we don’t want anybody to think you quit drinking. But now they will think I’m drinking less since I won’t need as many cups to get dizzy. Perfect. I’ll just hide this bottle here in the closet...
And also, this vodka doesn’t take as much to get me drunk. Extra bonus. Let’s get this straight in an alcoholics mind: you can now drink all day and nobody will smell it on your breath!! You were having to hide the bad red wine breath. Yes, that’s right, I am drinking in the day now. Might as well, it helps with the hangover, crappy feeling.
Now that all my life was going to pot, it just felt right to start my morning off with a few swigs of, practically, rubbing alcohol. This wasn’t just to help get over the crap feeling of drinking past midnight and waking up at 6 to get my kids ready for school, it was to stop the shaking that happens when I’m sober...
The only reason I’m sober is because I slept. If I was awake I wouldn’t get to the point of shaking. Man, alcohol just took care of all of my problems. It may have taken so much from me, but I didn’t worry about any of it. Because ol cheap vodka had my back. We were best buds.
Skipping work to stay home and drink was becoming more normal. Some days it was a necessity because I was too drunk to function and needed to sleep it off. Most days I knew my limit (right on the edge of being drunk and wasted) but every now and then I accidentally crossed the line. That’s when I would be “sick” and go home and drink a lot more before I passed out. Wake up, get rid of the shakes, and keep on chugging along.
My kids suffered, my husband suffered, I suffered.
My body was now being poisoned by the amount of alcohol consumed daily. It wasn’t fun anymore. There was no party at 11:30 pm while I lay awake, crying, writing notes for God to help me. It wasn’t cool to be 80 extra pounds of a swollen human, slowly dying. I lost my friends that used to come party with me because they weren’t controlled by the bottle.
I know I am smart. I also know I’ve beaten other drugs in the past that have consumed my friends and took them down the wrong path. So, because I’m the smartest woman alive! I will beat this legal drink when I’m good and ready. Just not now. Not yet. I’m still enjoying not having to think about, and deal, with my problems. Maybe one day I will but for now, just leave me alone. I’m still functioning...kinda.
Okay, so I’m not really living anymore. I’m pretty dead but you don’t know that. I am a master of disguises. I’ve even tricked my own husband. Yes, the man that I am supposed to talk to when I have a problem. He has no idea.
I’m a full blown alcoholic.
My birthday is coming up soon. I’ll be 34. This isn’t what I thought 34 was going to look like. I’m supposed to be that awesome wife that loves her husband and gives him everything he needs and he’s so happy with his life. I’m supposed to be that mom that patiently helped little Johnny and Suzy complete their homework projects and when they were turned in, all of the other parents were jealous. I’m supposed to be that entrepreneur that has built up a business so big and successful that people are begging to work for a boss like me. I’m supposed to be ...
But I’m not any of that. I’m an almost 34 year old drunk that is killing herself now, faster than ever.
I know I have a problem. It’s bad. Like really bad. Nobody has any idea how bad, but I feel like I’m literally dying. My body is swollen.
What do I do now?
Die?
I’m going to give it one more try. I am smart and I was raised right. So I can do this!! Right??
As a kid, you’re always told to make a wish before blowing out the candles on your cake. So this year, that’s exactly what I did. I’m pretty sure it’s the hardest wish I’ve ever wished! I truly, sincerely needed it. For my birthday present I just wanted to stop drinking.
I was FINALLY to that point!
I drank so much that night. Like so much. Because, why not? I knew I was quitting forever right? Drink all of it so there’s not any tomorrow to tempt me. So I drank.
Maybe it was me practically blacking out, or I think more than likely, it was God, but something made me just tell all to my husband. I admitted for the first time. I AM and alcoholic. He chuckled, “Yeah right, you’re not an alcoholic. Psssht”. Then I really started telling him. All of it.
I also told him he was my enabler and didn’t even know it. He was my sweet husband that would stop by the liquor store to grab me a new box of wine since it was a Friday night and we weren’t doing anything. Or the guy that took care of the kids when mommy was “sleeping”. I was a horrible wife and mother but I tried my best to pretend I wasn’t. After talking until the next morning some time, he saw how bad off I was. I asked him to please not buy me anymore alcohol and he agreed.
I made it a week without alcohol. Deep down I knew it wasn’t going to last. This is what I have been doing for a few years now. To just quit all of the sudden was a shock on my mind and body but I was ready to quit. So I kept pressing on. So after a week of no drinks, I was cured. I could now have a drink a day and that would be okay.
So I had a bad day, it was a Friday. Woohoo the weekend. Maybe I can just go back to weekend only drinking? That’s a good idea. So I had a drink. Man that felt good. This week sucked without you buddy. Don’t leave me again please.
So after buying a new big vodka bottle and hiding it in my kid’s closet, I drank all weekend. Just like I had never stopped. Heck maybe I was trying to prove something because I crossed that line from drunk to wasted...but not too wasted. Man, this sure feels good.
Saturday...Sunday...Monday, June 12th, 2017.
What a day that was!! I honestly don’t remember too much about it. I don’t know if I started the day with a drink, I’m assuming so since that was the norm. I don’t know when I crossed the line but I did at some point that day. By the evening I was once again a sloppy mess. My husband knew. He still didn’t see the magnitude of the problem I told him about the week before.
So this time, I told him I was dying. Literally dying from alcohol. I told him all of the ways he enabled me. Not to make him feel bad but to, hopefully, show him that I was manipulating him to get what I wanted. I begged him to never buy me a drop of alcohol ever again. And don’t be okay with me having even 1. 1 more could be the end for me. He finally saw...
So, I put one foot in front of the other and marched on, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Then the next week and the week after. I was mentally strong and ready for the fight of my life. And it was truly a fight to save myself.
I researched and reached out to a friend that was open about being a recovering alcoholic. It’s hard to start that conversation but I did. That was such a smart thing to do. She has saved me many times from my brain.
Once about a year and a half clean, I almost went into a liquor store. This was after circling the block. The store was 2 blocks from my house and you must drive by it when you turn down the street to my house. My husband was supposed to run by the grocery store so I knew I had some time to run in...if I was going to do it. I was tempted. So much so that I put my blinker on to turn into the parking lot. Right then, I saw my husband coming (for some crazy reason, he didn’t have his credit card with him so he couldn’t go to Walmart) I panicked. I pretended the blinker was to turn down the road to my house. I went home and I text my friend. She just so happened to be available right then and calmed me down letting me know it was normal for my brain to trick me.
Your brain can say some messed up stuff to a recovering alcoholic. Like, “you’ve been sober long enough that you can start to casually drink again. Just use moderation”. Ha! Moderation isn’t in my vocabulary.
Almost 2.5 years and I’m still the same. Sober, but craving every great once in a while. Maybe I will always be like this. Even if that’s true, I know I don’t want to go back to who I was before. God willing, I will get through this.
