dunc88

Day 1

I'd be embarrassed to admit how many Day 1s I've had, if I even knew the number. I first started to think about getting sober in 2015 in the wake of turning 27 and following a particularly party-heavy month in which no drug seemed to be off limits. Up until that point, I'd binge-drunk but drugs had never featured in my life with sufficient consistency to cause alarm. For the first time, I felt scared of where my life was heading and, in equal measure, scared of where it might never head if I continued partying the way I was. A few days after my birthday, I wrote in a Wordpress journal that turning 27 had been the wake-up call I needed to get sober and live a healthier, more productive life. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Things took a turn for the worse, and then stayed that way for a while, when I moved overseas at the beginning of 2016. I found myself in a city with incredibly easy access to cocaine and in the company of people who never seemed to be without it. With a new job, I suddenly had disposable income and dangerously easy access to bank credit. I also had a group of friends that I felt an uncomfortable need to impress. Within months of my arrival, bingeing on alcohol and cocaine all weekend, every weekend had become the norm. Going out mid-week was also not unheard of and more often than not resulted in calling in sick for work the next day. This went on, painfully, for two years.

The incomprehensible, ridiculously frustrating thing about those two years is that when I went out I never planned to have a blow-out. I rarely even planned to have cocaine. I would finish a day of work, on edge from stress and feelings of inadequacy (I never felt good enough at my job), and have an intense craving for a beer and a cigarette. I would reason with myself that I could drink in moderation, would only have three beers, would only stay out until midnight, would not touch coke, or any number of stories I sold myself, and, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I'd believe myself. I'd text a friend, meet, and by the third drink there would be no looking back - without fail, I'd be out until morning having binged on cocaine, alcohol and cigarettes. It felt like alcohol would touch my lips, I'd blink and when I opened them I was in a stranger's living room, buying yet another bag of cocaine and feeling intensely anxious that the 'night' would come to an end and I'd have to step out into the broad daylight, feeling deeply shameful, and face reality. By this, I don't mean that I suffered black-outs - on the contrary, I was horribly aware of what I was doing at every step of the way, but I felt powerless to stop myself, like a driver who has lost control of a car, and can only watch helplessly as he spins uncontrollably towards an inevitable crash, praying that he gets out alive.

After these 12-24 hour long binges, I would find my way home, crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and crash. Waking up was pure hell. As it dawned on me what I'd done my first impulse was to scream at the top of my lungs into my blanket. The most uncomfortable, skin-itching feelings of shame, guilt, regret and self-hatred would erupt over my body. These feelings, along with the physical hangover, would not abate for a couple of days, and while they persisted I would vow to myself over and over that enough was enough, I was never drinking again. Then, by day four or five, after a couple of healthy meals and gym sessions, I'd feel and look better and magically forget everything that I had just been through. And then it would happen again . . .

Why I kept repeating the same failed experiment over and over again I will never fully understand. I am naturally self-destructive, I was trying to escape negative emotions, I have an insatiable need to people-please . . . I have a lot of theories, and all probably have some truth to them. In any case, for two years I felt like I was in trapped in a hellish vicious cycle that was condemned to repeat itself forever.

Fortunately, my parents stepped in at that point and sent me to rehab. Three months later, in March of this year, I moved back to my home country. While things have improved considerably, I have had several binges since rehab which I'm deeply ashamed of. Getting sober once and for all has been a persistent thought this year and I made the decision a few months back that my 30th birthday would be my last hurrah before I buckled down and finally got my life together. Well, my 30th birthday was on Saturday, I had a three-day blowout, and now I'm sitting in my office on a Monday feeling incredibly hungover but committed to achieving sobriety. I can't say I'm excited or feeling particularly positive about it - in fact, today I feel quite depressed about the thought of never having drunken fun again - but I know I need to do this if I'm ever going to have a chance at happiness. The last several years have been extremely painful - I have to keep reminding myself that. I may as well give the alternative, sobriety, a go. It's a leap of faith but I really don' t have anything to lose.

I look forward to using this forum to keep track of my progress!