Angel1555

Since I have quit drinking memories have been popping up of things that I did while drinking that I am ashamed of. I have never told anyone about this but I had a black eye on my wedding day because I hit my face on the toilet while drunk and throwing up a few days before the wedding. Tried to hide it with makeup but you can guess how that turned out. I look like sh*t in my wedding photos.

HeadLump

Oh, MindfulLiving! You need to forgive yourself and move on, head held high. Black eye aside, I bet you still looked radiant - your husband still said 'I do' so you can't have looked that bad

I know it's a cliché, but we can't change the past. But we can learn from it and change our future.

Maybe as a one or two-year sobriety present, you could renew your vows and take some new pictures?

GracieLou

On my wedding day I was pregnant.

My husband's best man was a woman dressed as a man. Said "man" insisted on driving and hit a parked car 1000 feet from the where we were married that was on the opposite side of the street.

She had no license and bolted. When the police showed up I took the blame. I sat in the back of a police car and said I was driving so the insurance would cover the other car.

We spent the rest of the evening chasing her down. We got home and there was a bunch of people at our house.

What a honeymoon!

Anyone else want to swap stupid drunk wedding stories?

The man I married is now dead from alcoholism.

My point is, that is the past. It is over, I can't go back and neither can you.

Carlotta

That's the past but since people probably assumed that your groom gave you the black eye the best way to make things right is by doing a living amend to your husband and also to yourself by staying sober.
Another suggestion is to bring your wedding photos to a professional photographer and have them retouch them so your great great grand kids don't find a picture of their ancestor sporting a black eye in the attic.
I have no drunk wedding story to share but I missed the funerals of a dear friend because he passed away and was buried while I was on vacation (meaning that I was locked in my house in the dark with the phones and computer off and drinking myself into despair). No one was able to reach me and I did not get to say goodbye.
The steps of AA helped me deal with that.

HeadLump

(((((Carlotta)))))

GracieLou

I understand this but instead of staying home I went and acted like an A$$.

When the man I married in the previous post died I want to his funeral but I was still drinking and in denial.

I drank before, during and after. I told many people at the funeral that he drank himself to death to make myself feel better because I was still walking around and felt that I could control my drinking.

This was the father of my children, I acted all high and mighty instead of caring, loving and understanding.

I did not get sober until four years later and his funeral haunts me. I have made amends to both of my children about it but it still grinds me sometimes.

I also made amends to him as well but I wish I could do it in person.

A living amends is the only way to handle that one.

FreeOwl

these sort of memories are fantastic opportunities to live mindfully - how grateful we can be in those moments when we're blessed with a vision of how far we've grown.

SoberHoopsFan

Memories of dumb, shameful things I did while drinking still pop into my head a bunch. I suppose they will for a while. Sometimes they are buried memories that were borderline blackouts that come to the forefront again out of nowhere. I can't dwell on these things though, as they are in the past and un-changeable. What I can do is make sure I never drink again so I don't have any new ones.

Like your wedding photos, I have a physical reminder of my drinking past. I have a metal plate under my left eye that holds my cheekbone and eye socket together. It's invisible to the naked eye (had a good surgeon), but I can feel it every day. The price I paid for mouthing off to the wrong person while blacked out. Not going back to that, ever.

PurpleKnight

Many years ago I was attending a Xmas party in London and got completely hammered, so much so that after the party I decided to go in search of something stronger than alcohol.

Being the aggressive type at times when drunk, I decided to argue about the price of the substance that I was trying to procure, it ended with me getting a bust lip, that if you look very closely, I can still see the slight remnants of a scar, I doubt anyone else can see it, but it's there!!

You would have thought that would have been a wake up call, but I continued to drink for many years afterwards, that night still crops up in my mind from time to time!!

Thankfully we don't have to go back to those places ever again!!

SoberHoopsFan

This rings so true. Like you, getting my face busted in half didn't lead me to stop drinking, I continued with crazy binge drinking for another 2 years. When my face was healing, my thought was "I'll show them once I'm healed up, I can keep drinking like nothing even happened." Well, needless to say, I suffered through many, many more low points during those 2 years. I'm happy that I don't have to return to that ever again.

DoubleFelix

I have two scars right in the middle of my face that I got while biking home from the bar. Almost hit a guy crossing the street - thankfully I stopped in time to miss him but went flying over the handlebars. I'm just lucky I didn't suffer a concussion or any other serious head injury. I use to hate the scars but am now trying to accept them - they are little reminders to do better now than I was then.

P.S. - always wear a helmet when biking!

gettingsmarter

Recently the best thing I could have done for myself is to make a list of all the really stupid things I have done because of my alcohol use. A lot of them are so idiotic I can't believe it was me. Not being drunk I can actually laugh at a lot of them. If I think about them when drunk they make me feel horrible.

Angel1555

I don't know why I posted this, just feeling melancholy today. There are things that I have done that are much worse. I just don't know you well enough yet, lol!

gettingsmarter

I have many physical scars from falling into stationary objects. Each has a story about how cool I used to be.

Carlotta

GracieLou

Everyone should do this and then burn the list. Let it turn to ash and dust and put it behind you.

Don't bury it because then it can get dug up again, burn that sucka!

chickippo

i have photos on my phone of me after i fell down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night in blackout.

i have no recollection at all of the fall. it seems i didn't even try to put my hands out to break my fall - i gathered momentum going down the stairs and landed hard on my face.

two black eyes, a broken nose and a bitten-through bottom lip. three loose teeth in the front of my mouth which ended up needing a double root-canal.

it didn't stop me drinking. i happily went to the pub the next night and after a couple of beers it seemed funny. of course, i blamed it on the medication i was taking. nothing to do with being blind drunk.

i could have died. choked on my own blood or had a heart attack from the shock. i just woke up in bed the next morning with blood in my hair and didn't have any clue where it came from.

i am 96 days sober today. i can never, ever go back to drinking. i need these reminders though, for when my head whispers to me that it might not be so bad.

Tonymblue

I ran a drill through my hand when i was drunk. But now i ice it down with a ice cold soda rather than an ice cold beer.

EndGameNYC

A man met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked.

"I am weeping for my sins," said the lad.

"You must have little to do", said the man.

The next day they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why
do you weep now?" asked the man.

"I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad.

"I thought it would come to that," said the man.

The Penitent, From Robert Louis Stevenson, Fables.

anchorhold

I have a 1" scar on my chest from when I lost my balance drunk and fell into our fireplace glass door! Doh! I nice reminder though as to why I've quit drinking :-)
>AH