Since my last drink.
Since I started my recovery journey.
Since I began finding myself.
Category: Uncategorized
-
6:44am
and I’m crying my poor little heart out because I want a drink or 12 with an intensity I haven’t felt in some time.
Crying because I want to throw away the last 48 days for a fucking 6-pack before it’s even 7am.
Because I want to hold onto the last 48 days more than I’ve ever wanted something in my life.
Because I know I won’t drink, and that I just have to feel this shitty gnawing inside for as long as it lasts.
I want to take the easy way out right now, but my brain won’t let me fuck up and I’m pissed as hell about it.
-
waxing poetic on LinkedIn
Sometimes, when I’ve grown tired of my eleven hundred Facebook groups + subreddits, I like to mosey on over to LinkedIn, where the professionals always have something motivational (+ sometimes completely lacking in self-awareness) to share.
You know the posts I mean? The kid who beat the odds, or the mom who never stopped trying. The CEO who started as a cashier at McDonald’s.
My cold cynical heart has a field day with these because they so often feel like cheap validation or karma grabs. I hate that about myself because we all need uplifting stories to brighten our days, but it is what it is.
This is not a very cohesive post that I’m writing.
Anyway, all the eye rolls while I read, but also a little bit of jealousy. Of wishing I had that kind of reach, that people found me inspirational or thought I have a story worth telling.
Maybe they do. Maybe I’m the only one holding myself back from my success story. I do like to hear myself talk so I could probably write a hell of a comeback tale.
If I had a point when I started typing, I’ve sure as hell since lost it. I’m going to go jot down some notes for my viral LinkedIn post now.
-
excess.
The CDC defines excessive drinking, for women, as 8 or more drinks a week. Excessive drinking comes with a plethora of health risks that have been well-documented. Over 52,000 people died alcohol-induced deaths in 2021, up 34% from pre-pandemic levels. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis were up as well, claiming more than 56,000 lives last year.
A fifth of vodka holds 17 standard 1.5-ounce drinks, costs $7.84, and will get you through the day without withdrawing. If you are me. Were me.
Five days of medical detox comes to $11,000. Plus thirty days of residential treatment at $800 per day, $24,000. $35,000 for a life. My life.
In 2019, less than 10% of people who’d suffered from alcohol use disorder (AUD) in the last year received any treatment.
Why was it cheaper for me to stay sick than it was to get the help I so desperately needed to get well? Who can afford to get better? People are literally dying to get into treatment.
-
Detox (6.11.22 – 6.16.22)
Sweaty, so sweaty.
And oh, how I shake, from the inside out.
I’ve had one 24oz beer in twelve hours. My body tells me this is unacceptable. Every inch of me aches and trembles and screams for alcohol, and I’m excruciatingly sober for it all.
My shaking hands, balled into fists because electrolytes do not exist in my body, can’t grasp the pen long enough to initial the paperwork in front of me. There are pen marks all over the paper where I’ve tried and tried, imploring my hands to work for a single fucking second. My tears are hot and frustrated and I throw the pen across the table. I miss and it hits the wall before my mother picks it up and places it back in front of me.
My roommate is here, in this admissions room with my mother and me. He wraps his hands around my clenched fists and guides them on the paper, marking something that vaguely resembles an X on the signature line. It’ll have to do. We repeat this action for a hundred bajillion more forms and disclaimers and releases, me sobbing hysterically the entire time.
“I can’t do this,” I cry to nobody in particular, knowing damn well I will do it because I’m out of options.
“You can, and you will.” My mom is seated across from me. She’s seen me in pretty bad shape, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the frenzied, vibrating chaos in front of her. I wish I could’ve spared her this part of myself. “Breathe,” she says worriedly. “You’re not breathing.”
I’m not breathing because breathing is dangerous; just the thought of doing it repeatedly makes me nauseous. I take one small hesitant breath and immediately dry-heave into the brown paper bag at my feet. I bury my head in it and squeeze my eyes shut real tight, like I did when I was a little girl in uncomfortable situations.
The sad sack is the hospital’s mental-health friendly version of a trash can. They’re scattered throughout the units. I don’t know how one would commit suicide with a trash can, but I suppose you could get a few good whacks in on someone else with one if you were so inclined. Nothing in this building is sharp or easily picked up or possesses the ability to form a noose. Even the shower curtains are designed to withstand the most steadfast attempt to take one’s own life. My roommate is on suicide watch. The door must remain open at all times and we’re both under constant supervision.
I’m not suicidal though, unless you count my raging alcoholism as the slow descent into nonexistence that it is. I’m here to medically detox off booze before I check myself into inpatient rehab in a few days.
My hair is matted against my forehead from sweat that drips down into my already watering eyes, runs down my clammy cheeks, comes to rest on my lips. The taste of my sweat makes me gag again, but still nothing comes up. It wouldn’t, I haven’t consumed anything apart from rotgut vodka and countless Dos Equis in the last five days. I lean back in my rather uncomfortable chair, shaking in my entirety, my bones creaking and twisting, my sobs growing increasingly louder by the second.
The nurses come back to check my blood alcohol content. Zero point zero. The beer this morning seems like a lifetime ago. I want an Ativan. I need an Ativan. I ask, sniffling, if I’m getting an Ativan soon. I’m assured I will be “given something for my discomfort very shortly.” I want to scream at them, throw my stupid paper bag at their heads.
Three hours, a 45-minute EKG, and a thiamine shot that hurt like hell later, I’m finally given one minuscule pill that I’m told is Ativan, with permission to go to my room and lay down. I give the woman behind the counter an incredulous stare. I consider myself well-versed in pharmacology, being a big fan of using drugs, and I am doubtful as to what I’m holding. I’m also quite sure that whatever measly dose they’ve given me isn’t going to do the trick. I want to be unconscious. I do not wish to suffer through the hell I know lies ahead.
She assures me it’s Ativan, makes no attempts to throw in a couple extra. I realize my brain isn’t functioning properly due to withdrawal, pop the pill, and plod down the hall to my new room in laceless shoes, a grape Gatorade dangling from one clasped hand.
The alkies get as much Gatorade as they want whenever they want, a fact that stirs resentment among those not there for wildly excessive drinking. We also get benzos every two hours if we show even the slightest hint of discomfort. I don’t have to try to pretend I’m in a waking nightmare. My blood pressure is in the hypertensive crisis range as my body realizes what I’ve done and loses its fucking mind trying to function without any booze in it. It’s so high that my vision is affected. I can’t control my eye movements and everything is blurred around the edges. I collapse on the bed and the blur creeps towards the center and overtakes me. I sleep.
Ativan. Sleep. Ativan. Sleep. Ambien. Sleep. This is how I spend most of my first two days until I see the doctor Sunday afternoon. Ten minutes later I step out of his office with a diagnosis for PTSD and an rx for one antidepressant and one antipsychotic.
Ativan. Zoloft. Abilify. Ativan. Ativan. Ativan. Ativan. Ativan. Ambien. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Thursday morning. I emerge. A parking lot, sunshine beaming down at me, warming and welcoming and encouraging me. My mother’s parked a few feet away, playing on her phone, totally unaware of her surroundings. She screams when I open the door. I grin big, a genuine smile. “Let’s go,” I tell her. “I have a rehab to get to!”
I don’t look back as we drive away. I don’t need to. I’ll never forget what it felt like sitting in that little admissions room withdrawing my ass off, praying that God or whoever would end my misery and take me right then, praying that God or whoever would spare my life and let me live through the next few days.
I lived. I’m still living, more so each day.
-
From 5.1.22
I will no longer hold precious space in my heart for anyone who doesn’t also hold the same place in theirs for me.
Playing the victim is leading me nowhere except an early grave from substance abuse.
I was a victim but I don’t have to continue to stay in that position. From here on out, I will try my best to address my traumas in only healthy ways to give myself the chance at life that I deserve, instead of engaging in dangerous coping mechanisms that are only fleetingly self-serving, but will happily see me lowered into the ground before I hit 35.
-
No, the dates aren’t backwards.
Alcoholism is just a sneaky deceitful bitch that will break you down completely in what feels like a second, but was actually the last decade of your life.
2012: “I am happy now, yes, but I am also sad and confused and still searching. I can’t tell you that, typing this, I am completely okay with my sobriety or that it is always easy. It is never easy; on the contrary, sometimes it is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. But it is better than going back to the self-destruction that I set out to accomplish before. It is better than drinking.”
— It’s always better than drinking.2021: I relapsed on December 12th and spent that whole week drinking mercilessly. I became a monster, screaming in the faces of people I loved, almost physically aggressive at one point. Cops were called multiple times over domestic altercations. Everything I’d been storing up in the ol’ resentment jar labeled ‘Mom’ got thrown in her face. [I’ll write about that in the future – my behavior was so shameful that thinking about it makes me actively want to hurt myself, and self-harm has never been an issue for me. For now, I’ll just say I’m lucky she didn’t hit me or call the police on me herself. Had I been her, I would’ve done both of those things, in that order, because I deserved them.]
I am terrified of who I became that week.
Terrified of a next time and who I’ll be then.
Terrified I’ll destroy myself and the people that I love and the little else that I love and have left as of this writing.
Terrified of myself.
-
Just an incoherent rant
Lemme start by apologizing for my language & talk of sexuality if any family happens to see this but other than that I couldn’t care less.
I am so goddamn tired of the paradox of sexuality that women are subjected to & expected to navigate from the day we’re born. This isn’t new & my take on it certainly isn’t; I’m just fucking fed up.
I wish I could go out in public without at least one mediocre ass man leering at my chest, telling me how sexy I am, &/or cornering me into conversation until I’m able to extricate myself with another bullshit lie about a nonexistent boyfriend because “no thank you” never fucking cut it. I shouldn’t have to wear a goddamn turtleneck to interact with other humans, nor should I have to critique my selfies before I post them online because God forbid a tiny bit of cleavage shows.
News flash: I have huge boobs. I can’t help that anything I wear looks slutty. It’s so fucking dehumanizing to spend half an hour trying on clothes, crying the whole time, to find something that is work-appropriate, or comfy yet functional, only to receive comments thanking me for blessing the world with my tits.
And don’t even get me started on OnlyFans. I was in a dire situation financially, so I figured at least from the safety of my own home, I could control how my body was seen by others while making money for something that gets me unwanted attention every single day anyway.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Boy the incessant messages, the finding me on & following me to other platforms, the outrageous requests, the borderline stalking, not to mention the absolute disdain finding out who some of your clients really are.
This is such an incoherent post, sorry. Brought to you by a previous boss, a former hookup that is fully aware I’m uncomfortable with anything sexual, & an acquaintance who thinks it’s okay to access someone’s nudes without consent.
-
Opinion piece on why Satan is responsible for psoriatic arthritis
My opinion is that PsA definitely was a tool sent to earth from Lucifer himself to punish the poor unfortunate humans with weird immune systems.
This opinion (fact) comes amidst a particularly bad flare up where my body is literally attacking itself because it’s broken. PsA is double the fun because not only do you have arthritis that nobody will take seriously because you’re 32, you also have this gross ringworm looking rash all around your joints that people will side-eye until you reassure them it’s not contagious, just disgusting, at which point they’ll uncomfortably nod & slowly move away.
The silver lining is that I finally get to see a rheumatologist next month & get the biologic I need to make my immune system calm the hell down. Until then, I’ll leave you with this., & hope whoever reads this (if anyone) will get my poorly made reference.
I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable 