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I picked up my first drink at the age of 12. I grew up in an alcoholic home, but I don’t think my environment made me an alcoholic. I sense that even if I had been adopted out at birth and raised by non-drinking parents, I would still have become an alcoholic at some stage. This is my personal story of alcohol recovery, a path I feel I was destined to take.
Having an alcoholic parent just gave me access to a sneaky supply of booze earlier than most, I suppose. I was born with the disposition of an alcoholic. I describe myself as having been born with a raw nerve in pink booties. Full of fears, some of which were grounded in living in a chaotic home, but many had no basis in reality. Certainly, living with an unpredictable and often violent drunken mother was bound to cause fear and anxiety, but there was more to it than that. I felt out of my depth and struggled with an innate sense of impending doom constantly.
I cried myself to sleep every night that I can remember. I was awkward, uncertain, and on edge.
My first drunk was the spark that ignited the disease that nearly destroyed me, but at the time, it felt like sheer magic. I will never forget how that first drink felt. It lit me up like a Christmas tree. I was ten-foot-tall and bulletproof. I had no idea how tense I had felt until I gulped down that first drink and every part of my physical and mental being relaxed.
I thought I had found the solution to feeling like a square peg in a round hole. It was my resting place and my sanctuary, and I wanted to feel this blessed relief all the time… so I drank constantly from that day on, chasing that feeling. Within a week of that first drink, I was stealing flagons of cheap wine from a large store of booze my family had stashed in our garage. My father also brewed his own beer and never seemed to notice missing several bottles a week.
My whole focus was making sure I could procure enough alcohol to drink every day. It was like medicine to me, and without it, I felt I couldn’t cope.
I hardly ever suffered from hangovers in the early days. That was probably because I never really sobered up. I always had a bottle hidden within reach to top up, just so I could get through the day. I had discovered early that the shakes and that sick, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach could be eased by having a few mouthfuls of alcohol any time I woke during the night. I was literally drinking around the clock and trying to fly under the radar.
At 15, I left school and started working. This gave me an income and some legitimacy to my drinking. I sought out people who drank hard so I wouldn’t stand out, but alcohol made me notorious for all the wrong reasons. I had a reputation for doing outrageous and dangerous things before passing out and needing assistance to get home.
I was having fun, but not everyone agreed that what I was doing was enjoyable. I was blessed to have people bail me out of sticky situations, but my friendship circle was getting thin.
I was raped in a laneway leaving a pub one evening. I was alone, and my drinking was putting me at serious risk. I thought I had found a solution to these dangerous situations in the shape of a guy who took a fancy to me. I was looking for someone to protect me, and there he was standing outside the Royal Hotel with a schooner of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Little did I know that he too was looking for someone to save him. It was a disaster in the making. Alcoholics often don’t make healthy relationship choices, but I thought I loved him, and we got married when I was only 18.
Married life was a blur of boozy parties and pretending to be a good housewife. My husband was a heavy drinker, but he had no idea what I was up to when he was at work. With the aid of prescription drugs, I could usually pull myself together just before he got home from work.
This continued for a few years until I fell pregnant at 20. I was determined to be a good mum. I gave up drinking immediately. I have never been so sick or so scared in all my life, but I wanted so much more for my child than what I had growing up, so I didn’t touch a drop the whole time I was pregnant and breastfeeding. I didn’t want to do anything that might harm this precious baby.
I had no idea that I was an alcoholic and that one drink would be all it took to send me back to daily drinking. I thought that abstaining from alcohol for almost a year was proof that I could control myself finally. I thought my wild drinking days were behind me, but the day I took a drink after all that time set the wheels in motion for more of the same.
Only this time, I hated myself for not being able to be the kind of mother I desperately wanted to be. I repeated this a second time when I had another baby, but this time I knew that I was doomed once the powerful motivator of wanting to do no harm to an unborn baby was removed.
I found AA at 23. I don’t know who gave me a card with AA’s number on it, but I had been carrying it around for a long while. Something told me not to throw the number out.
I had one friend left at the end, and after embarrassing her one too many times and upsetting someone she loved with my foul drunken mouth, she told me that I had to do something about myself, or I was going to lose everything. I knew she was right. I knew I was unable to change without help.
I didn’t get sober from my first meeting. I tried, but I was so ill on so many levels that I couldn’t get past being newly sober. People assured me that I would feel better in time, but to be honest, I didn’t believe this would be true for me.
I would stop drinking for periods and start thinking I was never going to feel better without a drink. I quit trying five minutes before the miracle each time. And each time I drank, I felt worse afterwards.
The only thing I did right during this time was I kept going to meetings. I was never judged. I was always welcome, and despite feeling like a misfit, I felt at home with these people.
One day I was given the gift of surrender. My last drink was the loneliest I have ever felt. I remember sculling half a bottle of vodka, and nothing happened. I got no buzz. No relief. Nothing! It had stopped working for me for the final time.
I felt like an empty shell. I was done. I said the first honest prayer I had ever uttered. “God help me… I’m getting too old for this shit!” and that was the prayer that saved my life.
It’s been 28 years since that last drink. I thank God every day that I stayed alive long enough to give in. Relief wasn’t instant, as I had always hoped it would be, but it happened gradually and graciously.
I left my marriage. I had to admit the hard truth that I was never going to stay sober living in that relationship. I had to learn how to navigate life without feeling like every little setback or obstacle was a complete disaster.
By doing the Steps, I was able to discover how I ticked and put the past behind me. I thought I’d always feel like I did growing up, but I discovered peace. I unearthed parts of me that I had buried, I discovered my sexuality, my worth, and my authenticity and realised that I wasn’t really born a raw nerve in pink booties.
