- Alcohol
Hi, I’m Krissy and I’m an alcoholic. I grew up on the East Coast in a small mill town in western Massachusetts. It was a pretty tough environment but it taught me street smarts and how to take care of myself, or so I thought. My upbringing was far from normal as my household was filled with anger, hostility, drug addiction and alcoholism. At the age of 15, I found myself living in my own dirty little apartment, working three minimum wage jobs and desperately trying to finish high school. I truly relied on the relationships that I had with my friends to supplement the absent relationships with my family members. At this age, I only drank with my friends on the weekends. To me, it was an outlet and a way for me to bond with new people even though I felt like I never fit in. And since I grew up around alcoholism this behavior was very normal for me. We all drank. That’s just what we did.
At age 18, I wanted a better life for myself. I saved every penny and I moved to Virginia to stay with a couple of friends and go to college. This was when I was introduced to the world of drinking intertwined with the restaurant business and the college atmosphere. Needless to say, my drinking progressed rapidly. Living in what was considered to be a resort area, daytime drinking and partying all night was the norm. I slid right into the environment effortlessly. By the time I reached the age of 21, I had tons of friends, a job bartending on the oceanfront and every excuse to drink to excess. Drinking cocktails at lunch was a common occurrence, and then the blackouts began. During this time I was still maintaining my job and my financial responsibilities and I had graduated from a wonderful college. Therefore, it didn’t occur to me that I had a problem, let alone a disease. At this stage in my life, I was drinking every night to the point of functioning blackouts. I can remember being filled with severe depression and anxiety when I had to call friends the next morning to find out what happened the night before. I later realized that the stress and anxiety of those experiences kept me in the clutches of my disease. As I continued down this path, I found myself suffering from legal complications due to my drinking, such as being arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, fighting and DUI. I soon started to realize that I had a problem with alcohol but didn’t realize that I was an alcoholic or know what that even meant. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up alcohol and had no intentions of stopping.
When I reached the age of 25, my mother suddenly passed away. Without the proper coping mechanisms to deal with this situation, I turned to alcohol once again, and this was a catalyst for my true destruction. I have learned in recovery that at some point we cross an imaginary line when we cannot go back to normal drinking. This period was when I crossed my imaginary line. My mind, body and spirit were dominated by a sense of hopelessness. I consumed alcohol around the clock, 24 hours a day for two years. I would roll out of bed and drink red wine for breakfast. I would continue on until I woke up from a blackout and then start all over again. I didn’t care about myself and I damaged many relationships in this process. It took my boyfriend threatening to leave for me to put down the drink. But at that time I didn’t pick up recovery.
I truly believed that I could just put down the drink and my life would go back to normal. I would just be a non-drinker and that was going to be the end of it. I didn’t pick up a drink for two years but in the back of my mind I knew that it wouldn’t be the last time that I would consume alcohol. I obsessed about alcohol constantly. I thought that later in life I would be able to have one or two drinks and be fine. I now realize that this was alcoholic thinking and a byproduct of my disease. After two years of not drinking, I picked up again and I drank like I had never stopped. My disease had grown stronger and I consumed just as much alcohol as I did in the past. I immediately experienced excessive drinking and blackouts. Within a week, I found myself at the hospital with alcohol poisoning. For the next eight years, I went through four relapses, each being two years apart. Each one lasted only a day or two and every time I woke up in the hospital for injuries and alcohol poisoning. This is when I started to realize the true insanity of repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
On September 8, 2012, I decided that this was my last visit to the emergency room and I was ready to admit total defeat and surrender to my disease. I realized that I was truly alcoholic and that I had to accept it because half measures availed me nothing! With the help of a wonderful friend who is more like a sister now, I was introduced to the 12 steps. I accepted that I had to work a program of recovery to keep me free of the mental obsession from alcohol and to regain my spirituality and emotional wellbeing, but it was not easy. Actually, I tried to find every reason in the world why I was different from everyone else in the program and why I needed do this on my own. But I still pressed forward and was willing to take guidance from a wonderful person who had walked the road of destruction and recovery just to see if it was possible. I put as much effort into my recovery as I once did chasing the next drink. And to my surprise, friends and family members noticed a miraculous change in me before I did. I was healthy, happy, spiritually fit and free from the mental obsession of alcohol. I was even smiling again. As I continue to work my program, I am grateful to be an alcoholic and I am thankful for my recovery. I now know that I had to walk my path and have my experiences in order to feel the difference between just putting down the drink and being in recovery. Having that awareness embedded in my recovery is a gift, and I am truly grateful.