Journey to Sobriety pt. 1

6 years. 

6 years of sobriety.

I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. 

Let me tell you a little about this journey, there is so much I want to share but this would be a 10-page essay if I did. I have always been an addict, someone who would get hooked on something, someone or a substance and do it until it offered no more purpose. My life as a child was very controlled; everything was chosen for me, including what I ate, drank, bedtime, clothes, extracurricular activities etc. I recall very vivividly throwing absolute temper tantrums and crying and lashing out because I did not want to go to piano. I hated piano, the teacher smelled like body odour and she cut my nails too short. The only good thing was she had a dog. I hated going to school, I faked sick almost weekly but my parents saw right through that. I hated ballet class, but because my mother's dream was to be a dancer I was forced to go even though the girls were rich snobs who had perfect feet and all went to the national ballet school for summer ballet camp in toronto and I didn't. 

Needless to say I took my first drink in the summer between grade  5 and 6. My best friend Lama was about to leave to move back to lebanon, I can't remember how we did it because I know we were not left alone in my house but we snuck a 6 pack of Vex from the basement fridge up to my bedroom. It was soooooooooo good. Lemonade with a little bite. I remember we both had one, I can recall the warmth that came over my body, how when I layed down on the floor my body felt heavy like it was sinking into the ground. I remember laughing a lot and I remember that feeling was the best feeling in the world.

Quick aside. That feeling was the feeling I was missing; you see my brain at a very very very young age was never wired for intimate relationships, warmth or acceptance. My brain had been formed through birth trauma and abandonment. I never understood why I was considered ‘cold’ in relationships, or why I hated hugs, and felt like I didn't belong anywhere until I started to unpack what ‘trauma’ was. Oftentimes we think trauma is only the most horrific definition of it. However there is a spectrum and it absolutely has an effect on our brain wiring. 

The following years after that first drink, I can't recall any other times I drank, I do remember being angry, unhappy, restless, class clown, inattentive and overall a big pain in the ass in school and at home. That summer of that first drink was the last summer I spent with my best friend. This is a factor I now can connect the dots to why I avoid close relationships. My closest relationship ended at a critical point in my life as a pre teen. My best friend moved so far away and I only realize now through clear vision that my abandonment wound never closed as people I get close to often die or leave. I now know I have no control over these things and it has nothing to do with me, it is just life.

3 years after that first drink I started my dark spiral down into the pits of mental health and addiction. The short version is this. I was angry all the time; I self-harmed a lot, I would use scissors to cut into my skin when I felt emotions bubble up that were so strong, I would even heat up the scissors with a lighter and burn my own skin. To this day I can’t quite figure out why I did this other than the feelings I felt inside my being were so strong It felt like my soul was on fire. I just wanted to stop feeling things. Then I started raiding my parents ‘bar’. It was a cupboard filled with rum, vodka, cognac, wine and other obscure alcohols. My parents were not big drinkers, sure my dad had a beer with dinner but that's it. The only time alcohol was out was wine for entertaining. I often would bring vodka and orange juice to school in a ‘sippy cup’. Remember those clear rubbermaid kinda square drink boxes with the turquoise lid and gray sippy straw? Yeah those things. When the alcohol was gone and I was still at school I’d buy some weed and smoke it down by the canal before going back to class. 

I have a lot of stories to go with this but again i’m trying to just kind of paint the picture of short periods in my past. I loved alcohol more than any other substance. It literally felt like a warm hug every time. In my late teens/early 20’s I was out almost every night. Mondays were usually the one night I didn't go out. Tuesday was barristers, wednesdays zaphods, friday club 56s and saturday/sunday often Babylon, Barrymores and Zaphods. I can still smell the mix of booze and vomit and the sticky floors. I can taste the jigger bombs, vodka redbulls and jack shots. I was a petite young woman and always impressed the guys with my ability to keep drinking. When most people were turning to cocaine to get through the night I just kept drinking. This trend continued all through my 20s until I met my now ex fiance. Let me tell you about this relationship very quickly.

I met C. in 2011 a year after my mother had passed. I didn't know it at the time but I was in the stage of ‘grief’ where you are numb and are just trying to find any spark in life. I met C. and became obsessed. We were both infatuated with one another highly driven by our sexual appetite and for me, my alcoholism. We very quickly bought a house and moved in together living in this fantasy of ‘love’. Within the first year my anxiety had tripled. I was having panic attacks every few days and the only thing that helped was booze. Let me clarify, I didnt drunk at work, if I had a day off I would get drunk but at this time I was a personal trainer starting at 6am and often finishing my day at 8pm, cracking a 2l bottle of red wine and smashing that until I passed out. Now like I said within the first year of our relationship I started having major panic disorder and managed it through alcohol. There were many factors contributing to this but the major one was the relationship. I was trapped. We did everything together, whenever I tried to do something solo, or try to pursue someone of my own I was often shut down with a ‘well what about me’ mentality from him. We were never apart, one weekend he left to visit friends for 2 days and the whole time texted me ‘i miss u’, I did not feel the same but of course typed back ‘i miss u too’. I stayed in that relationship for 5.5 years. I tried to get some a few times but not seriously, and I only tried because he would say how embarrassed he was by me, or say ‘You're an alcoholic’. I would get through Monday and Tuesday but by Wednesday I needed that drink. There was another big part of this relationship that is very hard to talk about but I need to share because maybe it could help someone in the same situation. 

While in active addiction and in the peak of it I was very depressed and anxious. I became a shell of myself, I had no self identity and I became my boyfriends ‘property’. Here's the thing, I was no longer attracted to him, in fact he disgusted me; likely it was a reflection of my own self hatred. I had no self esteem and therefore I wasn’t feeling very sexy in the later years of our relationship. C. would often bring up the fact that we hadn’t had sex in a few days or maybe a week because I had my period and was never comfortable with it, often he would just suggest the shower and I would oblige as to not make him leave. There was a lot of forced sexual behaviour, I would drink to get black out so I wouldn’t have to remember. I would do this because I was so scared he would leave me for another woman, why? Because he has left his wife for me. When we talked about marriage I pretended to be on board. I pretended to love him because the alternative of being alone was scarier. I actually love talking about this because I was so sad and broken back then that I couldn't see this for myself and I write this in the hopes it resonated with even just one person to get out of that toxic relationship, to pick yourself up and start over.

After that relationship ended I started to party very hard again. I moved into the city and just gave ‘er. I got involved with another toxic male who partied just as hard and it was him that ultimately scared me straight. I’m not going to share the exact event that made me get sober but I can tell you at the time I thought to myself. I can’t believe I'm not dead. On Monday, November 13th, 2017 when I got up to go to work at 4:30am I chose to never drink or do any drugs ever again. I was not prepared for what was ahead……