what it took from me...
...is very much exactly what it took from you. I'm 8 days sober and i'm hopeful that i will EVER find myself. My mom died suddenly when i was 19, and i was already a big drinker. Her death ruined me. I drank instead of grieved. I still don't think i've properly processed her death, 31 years later. I never went to junior or regular college, and so I never gained insights to what is out there in world of education that might guide me toward interests and passions. I have no hobbies to speak of. Drinking has always ALWAYS been my #1 hobby. I gravitate toward people who party. I need the drinking buddies. I look for those who might even be into recreational drugs. thankfully I don't have my own connections for that sh*t, but if it's there, hey - sure! why not! But alcohol has taken away my ability to know how to live outside of the bottle. I have always had good jobs, paid my bills, paid my rent, moved up in the companies where I've worked. I'm bright, but kind of a dunce. No real ability to carry on conversations because my ability to retain information is stunted. Pretty sure that's because I started drinking at 13. I can't even tell a joke, much less reiterate a story I heard earlier in the day. Alcohol has taken a lot from me. It's taken my life in so many ways. I can tell that after 8 days, my memory is already improving. I am not getting drunk and hanging w/ my family, only to forget entire conversations from the night before. "Mom, you already told me that..." Can't tell you HOW many times I've had to endure hearing that from my 13 y/o. How humiliating.
I'm tired of being a forgetful mom, and I'm tired of not having a life I can truly live in. 8 days ago, I didn't have a plan. It was more or less to see if I could get through 7 days of not drinking. What alcohol took from me, I plan to get back, in some form or another.
thanks for posting this. it's given me so much to think about. <3