Thread: A year ago..
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Old 12-18-2009, 10:50 AM
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flutter
Thriving sober since 12/18/08
 
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Orlando, FL
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A year ago..

Thank you Lisa for starting my one year thread.. and per your suggestion and a few others I wanted to share briefly what has happened this past year.

One year ago yesterday, I showed up to work drunk. There's no sugar coating it.. I had crossed the invisible line of "drinking in the mornings" on only a few occasions, this one before a big meeting with the boss. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to even think about now.. but how almost normal to me it seemed then. I was surviving on vodka and sleeping pills. I wasn't eating. I was only sleeping when I passed out. I had already been hospitalized 3 months prior at noon on a Sunday with a .568 BAC, and it didn't stop me from picking back up.

Now I'm shaking as I write this.. I was so hopeless, helpless.. so consumed by myself, in such a dark hell of anxiety, drunkeness, lies, almost utter destruction of my marriage, my job.. my life. "But I never lost my job, my marriage, never got a dui, never slept in a gutter.." ha. I should have died with that BAC level, as most of you just thought when you re-read what I typed. It didn't stop me.

Anyways.. I showed up at work drunk. My boss sent me home with a good friend, luckily my husband had the day off, and I slept it off. I woke to the most shame, embarrassment, self loathing and emptiness I have ever felt in my entire life. It was my bottom.

My work 'forced' me to sign a contract that I would get help. I knew I needed it, I wanted it.. I just hadn't had the kick in the ass yet to do it. I found a counselor.. an addictions psychologist, who happened to be just a block from my house, and ironically right across the street from my 'local bar'. I saw him twice a week, for 6 months. As my sober time added up, and I worked on myself.. my marriage strengthened and to this day is better than it ever was before. I also read..a lot. The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure by Prentiss, which I treasure, and used actively in my therapy. I came here.. daily. Got support as a newcomer, and eventually supported newcomers as well as I could. I actively participated in my life.. I began living again. I exercised religiously, but not excessively. Took the edge off. After not drinking for a week or 2.. I suddenly had no anxiety. I could sleep. I could be 'me' and not need to be medicated or drunk. I could laugh.. and just truly live without the obsession of the next drink. I don't know what the magic bullet was for me.. I was just done. I retired from my drinking career, as my counselor put it. I had nothing left to experience with alcohol. I knew how it felt to be drunk in about every which way there was, and what it felt like to almost lose everything I had. There was nothing left to be "missed" by quitting drinking.

For the first time in years, I have spent the last year living pure, honestly.. no vices, no secrecy. I can breathe deep, anxiety free.. I am in love with my life, my husband, and my now 18 day old baby. Like Lisa said, in the past year, I have had a few major accomplishments. All of which were "in the works" but always on hold as long as I stayed drunk.

I didn't think I could live without alcohol, or something to numb me or 'party' with.. and now I can't imagine how I thought alcohol was something that helped me in any way.

I know this is long, and if you're still reading.. kudos to you. I just wanted to write, because along my drinking career that I've since retired from.. I was every kind of drinker. The party girl, the 'I only drink because it's fun' girl.. the 'it makes me more social', the 'it helps me sleep', the 'it eases my anxiety'.. all the way to the showing up at work drunk 'girl'.

There's hope.. and there's life. There's fun in sobriety, and life's greatest accomplishments just waiting to be found when the cloudiness clears.

Thank you so much for all the support you've shown me. From my first desperate post, until this one.. I have been shown so much support, love, friendship and understanding, it's unbelievable.

WE can do this!
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