800-671-4304
Who Answers?
While others drank and graciously went home, I took it further than the last time, a little more daring, a little more reckless – it was as if I was testing life.
My addiction reared its monstrous head after I left school. 18 and legal, I thought the world was in my hands – like molding putty. It was University, so everybody was drinking excessively, it was the norm. But something about the person I became when I drank was different from my friends, for them it was innocent fun, for me it was reckless and sinister. I could not wake up and continue with life. I lay in bed hungover, filled with self-loathing about what I had done the night before – IF I could remember, which was rare.
The fact that it was University where there were plenty of opportunities to drink, made it harder to resist. While my friends were drinking and waking up the next day to attend lectures, I would lie in bed licking my wounds and inevitably would not attend lectures. This lasted throughout University, while my peers thrived and earned their degrees I became putty in the hands of liquor.
I would drink to drown my sorrows from the night before. I would drink to forget that I was very nearly raped or last night I was assaulted by security guards. I didn’t understand the true monster that lay behind my “fun-times University” drinking. I didn’t know that attempting suicide because I could no longer deal with myself would lead to even more excessive drinking. While others drank and graciously went home, I took it further than the last time, a little more daring, a little more reckless – it was as if I was testing life.
The alcohol was a great distraction, it was great way to be “outside of myself”. My behavior started to stand out more, my peers were not drinking the way I was, my family started noticing. But still I carried on. Drink became my very best friend, drink let me forget, eased the self loathing. Drink was my comfort. My life became a series of binge drinking, reckless behaviour, self loathing, which eventually led to self harm. This behavior continued for years, my parents completely turned their backs on me and friends slowly started rescinding invitations until there was no more communication.
In all that time people judged my drinking, they never asked why, they never knew the pain that I lived with. That every morning I had to force myself to believe that I am worthy…of life…of love. It is only recently that I started to address the pain behind the drinking. I opened doors that were shut so tightly I didn’t think they would ever open, I reached into parts of my soul that I buried so deep I didn’t think I’d ever find them. At the bottom of it all was a sad little girl who had lost her parents far too soon, felt out of place when adopted by new parents and no matter what, could not find the unconditional love she yearned for and the affirmation that she was enough.
To this day I wake up in the morning and say “You are worthy”! Despite the rejection, the abandonment, the unmet yearning for love – I am worthy!