Surrender – or why does it take what it takes?

I’ve been ruminating on why some of us relapse and others don’t.

What is it that makes us go back to drinking time and time again even after we swore that this time is the last time? Why do some of us go back to it even after we know we are addicted? Why does it take some of us a million day one’s before we really get it?

I open my eyes, I can’t swallow… my throat is raw. I’m still in last night’s clothes and my one boot is still on. I get a text message through… I’m trying to focus with my one eye but I’m still drunk. “Are you ok lovely?” “You had a couple of fall’s by the school gate”

I’m terrified. I can’t remember anything, last night’s events is a black hole…again. I hobble to the bathroom to assess the damage. There is blood in my hair and my head feels swollen on one side. I have deep bruises on my legs and arms. I try to swallow but I still can’t manage it. I start to cry, gin soaked tears are rolling down my cheeks and the sound I’m making doesn’t sound human. I fall to my knees and start to howl, I am shaking uncontrollably. I can’t fucking do this anymore! I can’t fucking do this anymore! There is nothing left of me. I don’t recognise myself in the mirror, the woman staring back at me has been in a fight, she has been in this fight for years. My face is sweaty red and swollen and my eyes are dead. The woman staring back at me wants to die. I want this fucking pain to end. The kids! …They’ll be better off without you; you’re a fucking disaster. What kind of mother are you? You are a waste of space, a disgusting fucking drunk!

That was the moment.

While I was looking at my reflection and those hateful words were shouting in a furious thunderous voice, somewhere else inside of me there was another voice whispering quietly “This isn’t you…you are SO MUCH MORE THAN THIS”

That was grace.

I’ve had many of those types of moments throughout my drinking career but this one was different. I was finished. I had been fighting with alcohol for decades and I was battle weary, tired to the bone. My soul was screaming out to me…SURRENDER. You don’t have to fight anymore. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Accept! Accept! Accept defeat! Accept that you cannot drink like a normal person.

My story is not a straightforward one, there wasn’t just one singular rock bottom resulting in a trip to recovery land with me riding off into the sunset on my sober horse. I got sober for the first time after I was arrested for public drunkenness, I was 19 . I was a student and I drank the same way my friends did but a bit more greedily. There was neediness to my drinking that my friends didn’t seem to have. I attended one AA meeting at the behest of my mother but there weren’t any young people in there, they were all at the NA meeting next door. The meeting was full of 50 years old men who all looked at me as if I were crazy. They kept on talking about being a ‘true alcoholic’ and they made me feel as if I was too young to be one and as if my antics were expected behaviour from a student. I didn’t go back.

I stayed sober for 5 years, white knuckling it as best as I could. I developed an eating disorder & the bulimia took the place of booze.

I met a man and moved to England where no one knew me and there I started drinking again. I had hoped that I ‘outgrew’ the binge drinking issues and that being older would magically help me to drink moderately. It went ok for a while but the drinking soon got out of hand again.

We started a family, I was sober for the pregnancies but as soon as the stress of motherhood hit, I used it to self medicate. The last 7 years I have been on lengthy sober stretches then relapses. 6 months sober 3 months drinking, 9 months sober…6 months drinking an on and on and on…. until last year when I had my moment of grace.

The reason some of us take longer to get there or go back out there is very simple. It’s a combination of lack of self-love and poor coping skills.

Who in their right mind would allow someone to beat them up over and over? Alcohol is like an abusive partner and the only reason we stay is because we think we are worth nothing. People who respect and honor themselves won’t allow someone to abuse them.

For this first time in my life I am really learning to love myself. Not just the ‘self love’ meme type of thing you see on Instagram (selfie time:)… I mean REALLY love myself. To be able to sit and look at myself with compassion and understanding is the only way I can stay sober.

The link between self-loathing and active addiction is obvious I suppose but I never understood it fully. Its only now with the clarity that sobriety brings that I can truly see that love is the only way.

To love and honor yourself every day. You are a divine being worthy of love. We are all divine beings worthy of love no matter how low this addiction takes us. The light inside of you cannot be touched by anything you ever did under the influence. That light…that is the real you and that is pure love!

 

 

One year ago…

One year ago today I had my ‘god moment’ of realisation that alcohol was going to kill me if I didn’t stop drinking.

When I woke up that morning still in my clothes from the night before, confused and battered, I knew something major happened.

I realised that this stuff was playing for keeps. This seemingly innocuous substance that you can buy at the corner shop with your milk and bread, is a deadly poison.

Alcohol knows no class or creed. It doesn’t care if you are prince or pauper. It is the great leveler of men and women. It will strip away your confidence your dignity your moral fiber your values your hopes and dreams and it will damage everyone who you come into contact with.

Alcohol is a liar and a thief, a silver tongue liar that promises to be the answer to all your problems. A thief of time not only a thief of the time that you spend being inebriated but also a thief of the time you need to spend hung over and sick from its effects on the body, mind and soul.

Alcohol is also a great teacher of truth. It promises to make you drunk and it delivers on that promise time and time again. We go back to it expecting different results every damn time and are so baffled as to why we just cant ‘get a grip on this’.

Alcohol is overrated! Being drunk stops being fun when you are addicted you don’t get the same high and so you spend your life chasing it, the only satisfaction you get from drinking is relief of the cravings you had.

Alcohol is dangerous. It’s more dangerous than heroin or crack according to an authoritative study: read more here

The amount of misinformation out there about alcohol is mind fucking baffling! A lot of which is perpetuated by AA! The fact that alcohol is highly addictive for human beings in general and not just a small genetically predisposed percentage of society should be common knowledge but it’s not.

Alcohol is a drug. There is no difference! The fact that society has been conditioned to think of these things separately shows how brainwashed we are.

One year ago today I woke up. I woke up out of my addicted sleep where the denial was keeping me soft and warm. I woke up to the cold hard facts that my addiction and my life had become totally unmanageable.

I would love to say that I stopped drinking after that but I had several lapses since then.
I’m 6 months sober and can honestly say that I am so fucking glad to be rid of it.

I have a lot of work to do, I realise that. I obviously have a lot of anger towards the substance and towards myself for allowing this to continue for so long.

One day I would like to get to point of neutrality where alcohol doesn’t phase me at all. I would also like to fart rainbows and poop glitter, don’t know if those things will ever happen.

It’s just too raw still. I need to just be where I am. I am sober, I am alive and I am so fucking grateful to say those words.

Have a lovely  weekend my gorgeous sober peeps.

xxx

It’s all fun and games till you fall over at the school bingo night

When I woke up it felt like a freight train had hit my head. Something evil had my head in a vice and I couldn’t breathe. My whole body ached and was sore, it felt as if I had been beaten up, my skin was crawling. A message came through on my phone. I couldn’t open both eyes. I read the message: “Hi lovely, just checking that you are ok. you were a little worse for wear last night, a couple of falls at the school gate. Hope you are ok?”

I looked around the room, I was still in my clothes from the night before. Jesus fucking Christ what have I done?

I was desperately trying to piece the night’s events together. Ok, I was at the PTA bingo night, we were all laughing and joking around…and then nothing…a void. Some blurry flashes started coming back…I was on the bathroom floor with my friend. I couldn’t walk. I fell.

I text her back. Fuck!!! Did anyone see me??? All the fucking PTA school mums?

I was in tears, warm alcohol soaked tears that smelt of gin were rolling down my cheeks. Text came back. “No she said, we waited in the bathroom till everyone left.”

It turned out that I was so drunk I couldn’t stand up straight or walk. I fell and knocked my head on the koi pond. I was out cold for 10 minutes while my friend was wondering whether to call an ambulance. Eventually she managed to half carry me to the school shed. She rang another friend to come help carry me over the school gate and put me in a taxi home.

That was it. That was the turning point for me. There is no glossing over that or denying that you have totally lost control over how much you drink when you fall over drunk at your kid’s school.

I’ve had several of those types of moments in my life, and I think it’s true sometimes it takes a couple of rock bottoms to really reach ROCK BOTTOM.

Tonight I went to a quiz night at the school. I really didn’t want to go, but forced myself. I was so nervous, didn’t want to face the memories of that night and I cried all the way there.

As I walked past the koi pond where I fell and knocked my head I saw the lotus flowers in the water.

Something beautiful out of the murky darkness.

104 Days

So, I’m not really into counting days because it’s more of an AA thing, also perhaps because I’ve relapsed so many times it’s actually demotivating in a way:)

All that being said here I am at 104 days. Time to reflect a little…

I am so grateful to be sober. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much to the Universe, God and my Guardian angel!!!!!!!!!  I’m so fucking grateful to be able to say these word and truly mean it!

I am deeply thankful to have been given a second chance at life and to have been given a way out of the pit that I was in. The further I get from that dark place the more I realise how low and addicted I was and how close I came to losing everything!

 

 

Yes I know the blog title sounds familiar…

I hope ‘Hurrah for Gin’ will forgive me.

That’s how it all started for me…Hurrah for Gin! Thank God for alcohol! My friend, my smoother of the rough edges. The magic juice that makes everything ok, lulls me, comforts me, makes me funny, makes me sexy, makes me happy. Makes me sing Que sera, sera into the sunset. And then one day it doesn’t do any of those things, all that’s left is craving so desperately for relief from the hangover from last night’s binge. Ethanol makes me sad, lonely, confused and depressed.

So this is my first blog post about becoming sober. It has been almost two months since I last had a drink. God that sounds like such a serious confession! This ain’t my first rodeo around getting sober either. I’ve tried to stop drinking multiple times before or maybe one could say I’ve been relapsing in and out of sobriety for the last 12 years. I hope to God this is the last time but hey, if it isn’t I’ll just try again.

What else can I do? I can’t go back to drinking normally, if there is such a thing. I can’t go back into denial because I’ve lived there for so long and its fucking painful! It’s the cognitive dissonance toward the end of your addiction that is enough to drive you to suicide. The desperate state where you wish you didnt have to drink but need to drink to ‘survive the day’