Rws177 - My Story
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 638
Rws177 - My Story
I could type for days but I will keep this brief......
Background / What it was like
Well I’m 27yr old and had my first beer in 5th grade and smoked pot for the first time in 7th grade. It was by no means a daily habit or even a weekend thing but that is when I started experimenting. As middle school progressed I was probably smoking pot more than anything but not so much drinking. Once high school came around I was pretty much getting drunk every weekend and getting stoned almost daily. I kept up descent grades and my parent’s really didn’t suspect much. I would get in trouble for smarting off to teachers and basically being a little ******* but nothing to serious. The weekends were fun and I very much enjoyed garage hopping or using fake ID’s in order to get some beer or liquor with my friends. Then when I was 17 it was a snow day and I saw my school’s name on the news so I went into my mom’s room excited to tell her I had the day off. She was laying there and could not move, I called an ambulance and in the middle of the night she had several strokes (no warning 39yrs old) that would leave her right side paralyzed. I didn’t not know it at the time but that moment would force me to grow up quickly and in turn leave me with a lot of emotional baggage that I did not handle so well. Now drinking on the weekends was more of an escape from feeling the pain of what was happening. I was not only smoking pot several times a day but selling it to support the habit. I would get high before helping my little brother with is homework, grocery shopping, doing laundry and pretty much any activity of the sort. My family was very proud of me “stepping up” and being a man but in reality I was not handling things well. On the weekends I was getting completely wasted with my friends. I’d always seem to drink a little bit more than them, it was the alcoholism taking control but at the time I was 17 and it was just “fun” so no one thought much of it.
Well fast forward a few years and I’m drinking a few times during the week and still binge drinking on the weekends. I have acquired one DWI and my friends are all off in college. I’m in my home town still taking care of my disabled mom, working full time and going to school at night. I pretty much feel bitter and hate my life. On the weekends I am going down to Mizzou were most of my friends went off to college. I go down there and drink heavily see my friends and fantasize about how I should be down there getting my degree, being care free and having the same hope that my childhood friends have. This goes on for a few years kind Idle, I am not missing work but drinking at the bar a night or two during the week and partying hard on the weekends.
Then when I am 23 my friends are graduating from college and my dad is diagnosed with cancer. Six month later I am at a bar on a Friday night having my second beer when my sister calls me and tells me he has passed. I went home and saw his lifeless body in his recliner and touched his cold skin. The funeral home came, put him in a body bag and wheeled him out of the house. At this point I go out and buy a bottle of vodka and come back home. I proceed to look at pictures of my dad and I and drink from the bottle. When I wake up I am in the front yard with scratches all over my chest and no clue what had happened. It’s the first time I drank alone and I am kind of freaked out. When I go inside and up to my room only 1 inch of the clear liquid remained, I drank almost the whole bottle in one night. From this point on I feel completely hopeless and it is routine for me to buy bottles of vodka and drink alone at night. Even when I am partying with my friends and roommates and having a good time I feel the need to secretly take shots and get beyond drunk. I am starting to miss work more and call in “sick” once a month. I also quit going to school at night. At one point my roommates called an ambulance for me because they did not know I was passed out drunk and thought something was seriously wrong. After this I enrolled in Brazilian Jiujitsu to slow down my drinking. It helped and took my mind off things but enviably I still kept drinking. Finally I went on a 4 day vodka binge and my family and friends staged an intervention and then talked me into going to an outpatient treatment program. Ironically my step mom said that if I were to find a nice girl that might settle me down….
Then I began talking to a girl on myspace that I had gone to middle school with and she told me she was like 60 days sober. I thought holy **** that is amazing and we started hanging out. Before too long we were dating and then officially going out. During this relationship I would have “slips “and so would she but we never drank together because we decided if we did then we would be “toxic” to each other. I started seeing a counselor and after a while I fell in love with her and we moved in together. Being in love was great, especially for someone who had never felt it before. However it was not enough to stop me from relapsing once a month and missing work during one of my insane binges. Then she would eventually slip and this cycle would continue. I loved her with all my heart and after a while I knew that I had to leave her. So I moved back home and it was one of the hardest things I had to do. Now I am back at home with my disabled mom. At night I cry to sleep thinking about being in bed with her and the happiness we once shared. I’m still talking to her everyday though but then I realize the only way to move on is to stop communication. After a few days I get a text that was along the lines of “you promised to never leave me and you did” then they stop. My step father says he wants to meet me at my counselor’s office and I have no idea why but I agree. When I arrive my sister is there along with my step dad and counselor. The counselor asks if I know why I am here and I tell him it’s because I have been drinking lately and everyone is concerned for me. He tells me that is not the reason and that he has been in counseling for 18yrs and what he is about to say is going to be the most difficult thing he has ever done and is going to hurt me greatly. He gets down on his knees, grabs my hands and tells me that Heather passed away this morning around 9am. My heart sinks lower than it has ever gone before, I begin to tear up and asked what happened. He informs me that she committed suicide and jumped from the roof of her college. My sister drives me to her house, someone else takes my car. They all know that I want to drink. My friends come over to my sister’s house, the same ones that stood by me when my father died. I’ll make things short but I held on for about a week with no drinking. Heathers family did not hold a service for her so I organized one; even spoke in front of a bunch of people which is hard for me.
After a week or so I was finally alone and at home. I began to start up a crazy binge, was drinking more than I ever have before. I was polishing off bottles of vodka while looking through pictures of her and me together. I’d play some of her favorite shows and movies while slamming the liquor. My step dad who is also my boss threatened to fire me after I missed work for about three days. I did not give a **** and told him to go ahead. Then after I ran out of vodka one day I decided to drink a bottle or rubbing alcohol simply because it had the words “alcohol” on it. Then I woke up in a hospital bed with my family there looking upset and crying. The doctor informed me that I was lucky to be seeing or even alive. Apparently the type of alcohol in rubbing alcohol can cause a person to go blind or even die. He said my body was resilient, most likely from training jiujitsu for years and being in shape. Then he asked why I tried to kill myself. Ironically at no point did I want to die, I was just drinking so much because I didn’t want to feel any more pain. From there I went to a treatment for 14days. I stayed sober for 3 months and had one relapse, which was a little over a year ago.
What it’s like now
Now I have been sober for around 13 months and life feels amazing. Part of me still blames myself for Heathers death, I’d say maybe 5-7% and hopefully one day I can feel like it was not my fault but I am getting there. Upon leaving the treatment center I decided that I wanted to live and made up my own game plan. I enrolled in school at night while continuing to work full time. I started doing jiujitsu even more than ever and stopped hanging around people or places that reminded me of drinking. I would just read books about addiction and did my own kind of thing. Every day I would think about what I don’t like in my life and how I can strive to change it. Now I am on honor roll, have three stripes and three medals in jiujitsu, an absolutely amazing girlfriend, and have not missed a day of work in over a year. I’m aware that today I could break my arm and no longer do jiujitsu or that my amazing girlfriend might decide to end the relationship but nothing would cause me to go back to drinking. Around 10 months sober I joined AA and have acquired more tools to stay sober. I like the little things in life that I used to take for granted such as sleeping in, food, a good movie, time with ‘real’ friends and family. For the longest time I felt like I was missing out on life since I was no longer going out and drinking with my friends on the weekends. After around 6months sober I no longer felt that way. Ultimately terrible things are going to happen in life but all I can do is change the way I react to them. I’m only 27yrs old and looking forward to living the rest of my life sober and being a descent man that my father would be proud of, however I am just living for today, and today I am sober.
Background / What it was like
Well I’m 27yr old and had my first beer in 5th grade and smoked pot for the first time in 7th grade. It was by no means a daily habit or even a weekend thing but that is when I started experimenting. As middle school progressed I was probably smoking pot more than anything but not so much drinking. Once high school came around I was pretty much getting drunk every weekend and getting stoned almost daily. I kept up descent grades and my parent’s really didn’t suspect much. I would get in trouble for smarting off to teachers and basically being a little ******* but nothing to serious. The weekends were fun and I very much enjoyed garage hopping or using fake ID’s in order to get some beer or liquor with my friends. Then when I was 17 it was a snow day and I saw my school’s name on the news so I went into my mom’s room excited to tell her I had the day off. She was laying there and could not move, I called an ambulance and in the middle of the night she had several strokes (no warning 39yrs old) that would leave her right side paralyzed. I didn’t not know it at the time but that moment would force me to grow up quickly and in turn leave me with a lot of emotional baggage that I did not handle so well. Now drinking on the weekends was more of an escape from feeling the pain of what was happening. I was not only smoking pot several times a day but selling it to support the habit. I would get high before helping my little brother with is homework, grocery shopping, doing laundry and pretty much any activity of the sort. My family was very proud of me “stepping up” and being a man but in reality I was not handling things well. On the weekends I was getting completely wasted with my friends. I’d always seem to drink a little bit more than them, it was the alcoholism taking control but at the time I was 17 and it was just “fun” so no one thought much of it.
Well fast forward a few years and I’m drinking a few times during the week and still binge drinking on the weekends. I have acquired one DWI and my friends are all off in college. I’m in my home town still taking care of my disabled mom, working full time and going to school at night. I pretty much feel bitter and hate my life. On the weekends I am going down to Mizzou were most of my friends went off to college. I go down there and drink heavily see my friends and fantasize about how I should be down there getting my degree, being care free and having the same hope that my childhood friends have. This goes on for a few years kind Idle, I am not missing work but drinking at the bar a night or two during the week and partying hard on the weekends.
Then when I am 23 my friends are graduating from college and my dad is diagnosed with cancer. Six month later I am at a bar on a Friday night having my second beer when my sister calls me and tells me he has passed. I went home and saw his lifeless body in his recliner and touched his cold skin. The funeral home came, put him in a body bag and wheeled him out of the house. At this point I go out and buy a bottle of vodka and come back home. I proceed to look at pictures of my dad and I and drink from the bottle. When I wake up I am in the front yard with scratches all over my chest and no clue what had happened. It’s the first time I drank alone and I am kind of freaked out. When I go inside and up to my room only 1 inch of the clear liquid remained, I drank almost the whole bottle in one night. From this point on I feel completely hopeless and it is routine for me to buy bottles of vodka and drink alone at night. Even when I am partying with my friends and roommates and having a good time I feel the need to secretly take shots and get beyond drunk. I am starting to miss work more and call in “sick” once a month. I also quit going to school at night. At one point my roommates called an ambulance for me because they did not know I was passed out drunk and thought something was seriously wrong. After this I enrolled in Brazilian Jiujitsu to slow down my drinking. It helped and took my mind off things but enviably I still kept drinking. Finally I went on a 4 day vodka binge and my family and friends staged an intervention and then talked me into going to an outpatient treatment program. Ironically my step mom said that if I were to find a nice girl that might settle me down….
Then I began talking to a girl on myspace that I had gone to middle school with and she told me she was like 60 days sober. I thought holy **** that is amazing and we started hanging out. Before too long we were dating and then officially going out. During this relationship I would have “slips “and so would she but we never drank together because we decided if we did then we would be “toxic” to each other. I started seeing a counselor and after a while I fell in love with her and we moved in together. Being in love was great, especially for someone who had never felt it before. However it was not enough to stop me from relapsing once a month and missing work during one of my insane binges. Then she would eventually slip and this cycle would continue. I loved her with all my heart and after a while I knew that I had to leave her. So I moved back home and it was one of the hardest things I had to do. Now I am back at home with my disabled mom. At night I cry to sleep thinking about being in bed with her and the happiness we once shared. I’m still talking to her everyday though but then I realize the only way to move on is to stop communication. After a few days I get a text that was along the lines of “you promised to never leave me and you did” then they stop. My step father says he wants to meet me at my counselor’s office and I have no idea why but I agree. When I arrive my sister is there along with my step dad and counselor. The counselor asks if I know why I am here and I tell him it’s because I have been drinking lately and everyone is concerned for me. He tells me that is not the reason and that he has been in counseling for 18yrs and what he is about to say is going to be the most difficult thing he has ever done and is going to hurt me greatly. He gets down on his knees, grabs my hands and tells me that Heather passed away this morning around 9am. My heart sinks lower than it has ever gone before, I begin to tear up and asked what happened. He informs me that she committed suicide and jumped from the roof of her college. My sister drives me to her house, someone else takes my car. They all know that I want to drink. My friends come over to my sister’s house, the same ones that stood by me when my father died. I’ll make things short but I held on for about a week with no drinking. Heathers family did not hold a service for her so I organized one; even spoke in front of a bunch of people which is hard for me.
After a week or so I was finally alone and at home. I began to start up a crazy binge, was drinking more than I ever have before. I was polishing off bottles of vodka while looking through pictures of her and me together. I’d play some of her favorite shows and movies while slamming the liquor. My step dad who is also my boss threatened to fire me after I missed work for about three days. I did not give a **** and told him to go ahead. Then after I ran out of vodka one day I decided to drink a bottle or rubbing alcohol simply because it had the words “alcohol” on it. Then I woke up in a hospital bed with my family there looking upset and crying. The doctor informed me that I was lucky to be seeing or even alive. Apparently the type of alcohol in rubbing alcohol can cause a person to go blind or even die. He said my body was resilient, most likely from training jiujitsu for years and being in shape. Then he asked why I tried to kill myself. Ironically at no point did I want to die, I was just drinking so much because I didn’t want to feel any more pain. From there I went to a treatment for 14days. I stayed sober for 3 months and had one relapse, which was a little over a year ago.
What it’s like now
Now I have been sober for around 13 months and life feels amazing. Part of me still blames myself for Heathers death, I’d say maybe 5-7% and hopefully one day I can feel like it was not my fault but I am getting there. Upon leaving the treatment center I decided that I wanted to live and made up my own game plan. I enrolled in school at night while continuing to work full time. I started doing jiujitsu even more than ever and stopped hanging around people or places that reminded me of drinking. I would just read books about addiction and did my own kind of thing. Every day I would think about what I don’t like in my life and how I can strive to change it. Now I am on honor roll, have three stripes and three medals in jiujitsu, an absolutely amazing girlfriend, and have not missed a day of work in over a year. I’m aware that today I could break my arm and no longer do jiujitsu or that my amazing girlfriend might decide to end the relationship but nothing would cause me to go back to drinking. Around 10 months sober I joined AA and have acquired more tools to stay sober. I like the little things in life that I used to take for granted such as sleeping in, food, a good movie, time with ‘real’ friends and family. For the longest time I felt like I was missing out on life since I was no longer going out and drinking with my friends on the weekends. After around 6months sober I no longer felt that way. Ultimately terrible things are going to happen in life but all I can do is change the way I react to them. I’m only 27yrs old and looking forward to living the rest of my life sober and being a descent man that my father would be proud of, however I am just living for today, and today I am sober.
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