- Alcohol
- Mental Health
I was born in 1983 in Germany and grew up in a family that suited my needs. In hindsight, I’d call it “dysfunctional,” but at the time it was just the way my life was. I have an older brother who was born in 1981 and since October 2011, I also have a sister-in-law.
Growing up in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s was easy, carefree and fun. I remember a lot of time outside, running around and feeling safe. I had many friends in elementary school and I loved to be in an environment of learning. That has not changed to this day.
When I was 7, my life took a different course from what you would normally expect at that age. My older cousin, age 17 at that time, sexually abused me. My young brain could not deal with the situation and up until age 13 I had no recollection of the event ever having happened. It did change how I perceived the world, however, and instead of being a carefree and trusting child I became good at playing a role I wasn’t. I played the role of the confident kid. I remember telling my parents, at age 8, that I did not want to be hugged anymore. They respected and accepted it, never questioning what would bring on such a sudden change in emotional closeness. They also never mentioned the year between my 7th and 8th birthdays that I had nightmares every night. I was simply told “to deal with it” because they could not help me. I was left to my own devices and had to find a coping mechanism.
Growing up in Germany, alcohol was readily available and never something that was portrayed as dangerous. At parties, my brother and I would finish off the half-empty glasses when the guests had gone home or we would quietly try to sneak some booze away from the bar when no one was looking. I vividly remember the first time I got drunk. It was a sunny summer day, I was 10 years old and my parents weren’t home. I felt restless, itchy, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about concerning alcohol. So I snuck into the basement, decided to take one of the bottles of wine, leaving five others on the shelf, and ran a bath. Armed with a bottle of water and the bottle of wine, I relaxed in the tub, got drunk and countered the effect with water. To my utter dismay something delightful happened. My thoughts slowed down, my brain seemed normal for once and I was tired from the heat and alcohol. I went straight to bed and slept fitfully until the next morning.
As it turned out, I had grabbed the most expensive wine in the collection my parents had and it was bound to be noticed. My mother asked me a few days later if I knew what had happened to the wine and I confessed. She didn’t get mad, didn’t shout, just asked what I had felt and left it at that. She didn’t know the beast that had been set free.
It took only a few tries between that first day of trying alcohol to becoming an addict and an alcoholic. I was hooked on the effect of alcohol from the start, particularly as it helped me get to sleep and calm down the racing thoughts in my mind. I kept stealing bottles of liquor, wine and beer from my parents basement, which was always well-stocked and with plenty of things to choose from.
I remember my mother trying out a recipe for blueberry vodka which involved filling blueberries in long-necked bottles and adding candied sugar and vodka. The concoction was supposed to sit and dissolve for a few months but nobody checked and counted with the dozen or more bottles sitting on the shelves. I brought a bottle up to my room and for a few months – remember, I was only 10 at that time– and was ok with the amount of booze I got. My brain seemed fine when a little intoxicated and I felt I could sleep better (sleep, period!) with some chemical help.
My parents knew nothing of this and even now have no idea about what exactly went on in those years. Although my mother only worked part-time and my father was self-employed and worked from home, they did not see (or did not want to see?) what went on under their roof.
At age 7, I had also joined the local scouts group and although drinking was prohibited, we still found ways to get our hands on booze. In Germany the legal age for drinking wine and beer is 16. With a brother 2 years older and friends between 2-4 years older I was able to get drunk at no cost to me at an early age. When I was 14 my parents advised me how to tell if I was drunk or not: Put your arm out in front of you and look at your index finger. Bring your index finger to your nose. If you touch your nose you’re ok, if you miss – you’re drunk. Until I quit drinking this was my recipe of knowing how drunk I was and determining if I could still drink and drive.
I drank more and more until I graduated high school at 16. It had become my regular habit before school to gulp down a few shot glasses of martini. Only then would I be able to face the day and function in school. Throughout my drinking days I was an excellent student, excelling at every subject except math and French. I loved school, partly because it was a way to get away from home and away from the misery that waited there, and partly because my brain enjoyed school and the challenged of learning. Memorizing, learning, and digesting new material came easy to me; easier still if I had a few sips of martini or whatever else I could find before school.
By age 13 I was a functional alcoholic, stealing from my parents to get enough booze to make it through the day and always pushing my brother and his older friends to buy me bottles of beer, wine and tequila. Tequila in and of itself became the quintessential flavor of a summer and my first love. I was tragic, drunk, high on endorphins, and haunted by the thought that I wouldn’t be able to exist without alcohol.
Alas, I had to exist without alcohol. After my graduation in 2000 I went to Utah and was an exchange student for a year, learning the English language and American culture, ingesting words and sights and smells and memories. But I couldn’t drink. At age 16 I had suddenly become “underage” again and while living with Mormons even coffee was suddenly not available anymore.
In many ways this was the year my life came apart, or started to come apart, at the peculiar seams no one seemed to know about. I was happy as a kite, flying high, completely absorbed in the moment. And I was also down, depressed, self-doubting and scared of myself and of life. Nightmares started and I started cutting myself in earnest. A habit I had developed in 9th and 10th grade but not really pursued suddenly became the center of my day. I needed to cut. I needed to feel. I NEEDED to see the blood.
For someone who has never experienced this sensation of wanting to cut your own flesh simply for the sensation it creates, for the definite sign that one is alive, it may seem strange. For me it was a logical, foregone conclusion. I didn’t have alcohol but I needed to numb my brain and emotions at the same time that I needed to release them.
In 2001 I returned to Germany wiser, heavier, scarred, and with a hunger for alcohol. After 3 years of sexual abuse by my brother I was also finally freed from his grip as he had started dating a girl while I was abroad. So…I was free? I was 17 but could drive with my Utah drivers’ license and also had a car at my disposal. And I had money.
I wish I could say I never drank when I drove but that would be a lie. Although it had been drilled into me from an early point in life and I knew the extent of car accidents (my best friend had died riding his bike, being killed by a truck driver turning a corner. I was riding next to him). I still couldn’t stop drinking. I just couldn’t. My mind was about to explode, the restlessness was excruciating and my mood swings finally landed me in the hands of a psychiatrist.
Nevertheless, nothing changed. I drank before school, and then I drove to school. I finally brought my liquor with me to school in my coffee mug disguised in a thin liquid of coffee. In hindsight I am lucky nothing ever happened. I was drunk most of the time. I rode my bike across the border and obtained pot, legally, smoking it with friends before pedaling back. I had sex when I was drunk, on drugs or both. The experience wasn’t the greatest, given the fact that there were about ten people around us snoozing heavily and blacked out from too much alcohol. This was to be a repetitive scene in my life throughout the years: Alcohol, a fascinating woman, sex in places that reeked of booze and were occupied by other people as well. I didn’t care. I was hypersexual, I was drunk, I was… happy?!
By 2004 when I graduated the German high school after 13th grade with a very good GPA of 2.0 (the best being 1.0, the worst 4.0) I wanted to enroll in medical school but was rejected because of my GPA. I would have needed a 2.9. That was okay. I got on the waiting list and decided to study English for fun while I waited for my spot to open up. I needed to get out from “home” since my parents weren’t speaking to each other and communication with my father was only carried out in shouting matches. They hadn’t reacted well to my coming out as a lesbian. But at 18 I thought it was finally time to reiterate what I had said at age 12: I love women. Get over it. It took them a while to get over it but eventually they did.
I moved to Bochum in September, ready to begin my studies in October. I had decided I would wait and see what kind of people I would meet and see where things would take me. I was only drinking moderately by then, at least for my standards: A bottle of martini a day.
During the first week of school fate dealt me a hand I am thankful for. I met Nicole, Stephanie and Astrid, who I became friends with instantly. Astrid and I spent three months in South Africa a year later doing an internship, while Nicole has remained one of my closest friends. I joined the “Fachschaft” which is the student body organization for each department. The English department had a very active and very… social… group. I remained a part of this group and took leadership positions until I left Germany in 2009, making it 5 years of wonderful experiences (and some not so wonderful ones) during that time. A lot of things revolved around alcohol. We always had alcohol around and thus it was easy for me to be drunk during the day and in between classes.
In Germany, alcohol can legally be sold on campus and I took advantage of that. I thought I needed the booze to stay sane, though I wouldn’t have admitted it. I just drank. Period. I didn’t see a problem with it. Nobody else did either. And nothing ever happened. I got drunk so many times that I would wake up in strangers’ beds wondering if we had had sex (mostly yes), I would find myself in a puddle of vomit in my bedroom or hallway and not remember what had happened. In short: Things got worse and worse and worse. And I knew they needed to stop. But I didn’t know how and kept drinking. I knew that on a deeper level alcohol was something for me that nothing else ever could and had done. It kept me sane.
Two incidents remain in my mind and I am glad they didn’t turn ugly. After a huge party our group had given to raise money, I was the only driver left (and not the sober one) and drove other people home. I made it to the next city, taking the high-speed Autobahn and maneuvering through the city, and parked my car. The next morning I couldn’t remember where I had parked and my girlfriend was puzzled over how I had gotten home. I never told her the extent of my drunkenness.
The other incident was a couple of months later when we had our Christmas party at a Greek restaurant. Because we had to wait so long the waiter brought us a bottle of ouzo. And a second one. Only four of us drank and I drank the most. We then went on to a few bars and drank other shots and beer. I don’t remember any of it. I woke up with a headache on the floor of Nicole’s apartment. We both dragged our sorry behinds to class and decided after 10 minutes we couldn’t do it. I still reeked of licorice and Stephanie told me to stay at the other end of the room when she smelled me… I was humiliated but not ready to admit anything yet.
Instead I experimented with growing my own magic mushrooms (imported from the Netherlands) and had some wild trips that left me disoriented and frightened. My mind couldn’t take it. I needed alcohol. I tried to stay away from it but lost every time. A week without booze was the maximum I could take.
Fast forward to December of 2010. I was living in South Carolina with two fantastic roommates and nothing should have been in any way bad. Life was good. School was good. I was in the US where I wanted to be since I first visited in 1998. But something was wrong, truly and utterly wrong. At first it was me hiding drinks in my room. I bought another bottle of wine and hid it. Then I started cutting again. I stopped speaking to my roommates who were my best friends and who I loved dearly. Something was just not right with me. It’s like my mind wasn’t right. I was stressed by personal, academic and interpersonal challenges and turned to more and more alcohol. Ever so slowly, instead of helping calm me down, it made me feel even lower, even worse. I got depressed and more depressed. I drank and got depressed and in order not to feel, I drank even more which made me more depressed and at last suicidal.
I found myself in the hospital in the spring of 2011. I was released although I probably reeked of booze. But I got released. The suicide attempt that I tried (or had imagined– I don’t even know anymore…) was unsuccessful. The next morning I was to meet with my counselor. Instead, I found her and my psychiatrist in the same room. No more going home. Straight to the psychiatric ward without a way out. I was utterly scared but with no alternative I spent ten days on the locked ward of the local hospital. I became one of “them”.
After I was released I knew at least what was wrong with my mind. Bipolar disorder. Manic depression. The mood swings weren’t my fault! I could be cured! Or so I thought. But first I had to pick up the shambles of my life. My roommates had moved out while I was in the hospital. To this day (2014) they have not spoken to me and when they see me on the street they ignore me… But I had to pick up and move on. I was saved by someone who I worked with but hadn’t really known. He and his family took me in, became my safe haven and were there for me. But I still drank.
It took until the summer of 2011 before I realized that drinking wasn’t only a problem but THE problem in my life. Medication is one thing but alcohol is another– especially when one deals with bipolar disorder. Alcohol is a depressant… But I continued to drink and lied to my psychiatrist when she asked me about it. At the time, I didn’t consider it lying. I would tell her I had a couple of beers and mostly I had. But “a couple” constituted different things for both of us. She suspected it but never said anything for which I give her a lot of credit. Instead she was present, listened, tried to help and was a source of comfort and safety.
Yet that summer I also told her about something else that was “wrong” with me: The eating disorder that had been nagging me since I had started college at age 19. I was now 26. I had lost and gained and lost weight again and again. After the hospital I was down to a meager size 6 from the usual size 10 or 12. I starved myself. So she suggested a group for eating disordered people on campus which I attended during the summer. It was there that Annette came up to me after a meeting, handed me her business card and introduced herself. “I’m an alcoholic and I think you may have a problem with alcohol. Shoot me an email or call if you want to come to a meeting with me sometime”. That summer I started going to 12 step meetings, at first hesitantly but then convinced that they could help. After a few months my psychiatrist asked about the change in my life and I told her about my 12 step program. At that point I wasn’t totally sober but at least drinking less and at fewer occasions.
It still took a few months until in January 2012 I could say that I was sober. For good. I went to 12 step meetings, I did my steps, I felt guilty and wanted to make amends to my roommates. I wanted a lot of things and had to learn slowly how my 12 step program can help me heal, can help others heal and can help to bridge the wounds that separate us. I wouldn’t say I’m finished with that– far from it– but I have taken some steps.
The best day came for me when my psychiatrist asked me if I was interested in helping another student set up a Collegiate Recovery Community at the University of South Carolina. Yes! I got in contact with the appropriate people and we started putting together what was already planned and what we wanted to do. I was able to meet Hillary at the UNCC CRC in Charlotte and was amazed by her enthusiasm and dedication to recovery. That’s what I wanted for USC! In February 2013 I was lucky to go to the CRC Conference in Texas at Texas Tech where I met new and old people and could hear what other resources are available. That’s what we wanted at USC: A CRC that would help students stay sober and provide opportunities to network and have a sober space for activities. Things seemed to be going well and we started our first 12 step meetings in April of 2013. We kept it going throughout the summer and by the fall semester we had about 9 people, mostly students, attending regularly.
Sadly, that is where the success meets its sudden end. For no apparent reason the CRC meetings were cancelled. One week everything was ok, the next the doors were locked and we were standing outside in the cold wondering where to meet. I wish I could say that we have kept the CRC going but unfortunately we (the other student and I) haven’t. I am saddened by this but due to recurring mental problems had to refocus my energies on keeping my brain away from mania and depression to do much with and for other people. I wish I could and I hope that the CRC will start again at USC sometime. It was what my psychiatrist wanted to start and had a great interest in, yet with her leaving the university it seems no one wants to keep it going.
I know I wouldn’t be here without recovery today. Without the help I received and the success in staying sober I would be in yet another hospital, on another psychiatric ward, getting overly medicated and not being able to move. As it is, I have just successfully passed my comprehensive exams and defended my dissertation prospectus. If everything goes as planned I will be finishing up my PhD on time in 2015. I hope I will be sober and I pray that I can keep what recovery has given me and pass it on. I want to teach at a university after I graduate and I hope I can get a job despite and because of my abilities and limitations. My work in recovery with the CRC will be on my CV and I will not hide that I have a mental illness. Both my addiction to alcohol but also my manic depression make me who I am. I don’t think I would have become an alcoholic if it hadn’t been for the soothing and medicating effects of alcohol. Recovery has made me aware of my surroundings and the problems that college students have to deal with. I want to make a positive impact as a teacher if I can, either supporting existing CRC’s or stepping up to creating a recovery community at the college/university where I will get a job.
I am glad I never got into legal trouble despite my drinking. I never caught an STD while being drunk and having sex, I never got pregnant. I am thankful most of the people around me don’t know the extent to which I was a slave to alcohol. While it ruined my life in some areas it also led to more insight and help in others. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without AA, without my wonderful psychiatrist Dr. H. and her ability to share how alcoholism affected her own life, without my Dietitian D.Z. who bravely shared how the alcoholism of her (ex) husband affected her and her children. I am glad both of them trusted me with their stories. I wish I could be better, more, different than I am to make them proud of me. But I think I know just staying sober another day is all it needs for them to cheer me on and be proud.