Blog

This disease we call alcoholism is and was confusing. I often sit and wonder or talk to my husband about how I came to be an alcoholic. If I had married him first, would I have become an alcoholic? If I wasn’t in an abusive marriage that lead me to drink more than I should have. To escape the thoughts of knowing my ex was cheating and not being able to prove it and he making me feel like I was crazy. If I didn’t find him so disgusting that I craved to just get loaded and escape.

I don’t know when it triggered that I lost control of my drinking. I just know wine, beer, whatever booze there was, was my go to and coping mechanism for many years.

Is it possible that I wouldn’t of become an alcoholic if I met and had kids with my now husband instead of what and who I did marry? Is it just in our genes that one day it just hits?

I often wonder, if I could go back with the amazing husband I have now, would it be different? Would I be able to drink like a normal person? Or would I have the same result just in a different way or outcome.

I do know one thing, if I could go back I wouldn’t pick up a drink to test it out.

I don’t like to wonder where I would be now if my husband and kids didn’t save me from myself.

This is Being Me Sober…

Did you ever try diluting your drinks?

If you’ve ever said to yourself and others, maybe I’ll try diluting my drinks so it won’t be so potent and maybe I won’t freak out, black out, or do anything but pass out!

I use to blame it on not eating before/while I drank. It would buy me some time between slip ups and I could still drink. Excuses.

I also thought it was because I was close to my monthly visit from The Lady in Red…

I thought maybe the wine had to much alcohol content.

I’m sure there are some really good excuses out there that I never thought of. They were and are all excuses trying to be in constant denial of not being able to control my drinking.

I finally realized that diluting my drinks was not helping and I eventually came to the same result every time I drank.

Moderation was never for me. Why drink if you aren’t going to get drunk. What’s the point? Why drink?

Diluting, excuses and denial will never help us.

This is Being Me Sober

Today is May 24th 2017 and as I sit in our backyard oasis, I’m reflecting on how far I, we have come in my sobriety and life. I say we because it is a joint effort for all involved with my and your sobriety. They’ve gained just about as much as we have in the journey of being me sober.

Tomorrow marks 8 years of sobriety for me. I can not say enough about how much sobriety ROCKS!!!! 

When I approach another year I always look back and remember where and who I was. Each year however is different, if you dare to believe it,  I become stronger, more self assured, less insecurities, less anxious, more and more complete, and most of all, happy. 

Gosh, 8 years ago I went on my last bender. It was a doozy let me tell ya! I drank, binged, for about 20 hours straight. I fell face first, not the first time, into the garden bed. I made a fool of myself infront of my son, daughter and my now step children. I drank all my daughters friends mom’s rye and yelled at her for telling me to stop drinking, “really? I said, “that’s funny coming from you.” Was I that cruel? I woke up my father at 3am in Florida to come get me. I swore it was over with me and my now husband. I went back home and downed my anti depressant pills. I wanted to die. I needed a doctor. I need help. I want to die. I thought it was all going to pass over. 

It was May 24th 2009 that I checked myself into the hospital to get help. To get away from these people. To get as far away from them as possible. They can’t see me like this, they deserve so much better than me! I’m ashamed of myself, I’m so full of rage, I want to die. I told them to get away from me, that I wanted nothing to do with them. Hope they will listen, I thought, then I can be alone. I want to die. 

I was put in the emergency room with charcoal and a bucket. Ugh gosh, that sucked! I just want to sleep. I’m so exhausted. 

There was a doctor that came in and asked a bunch of questions which I am fuzzy on, but I think I gave him the gist of why and what I was doing there. I was starting to surrender.  I was starting to succum to my disease and allow myself to let go. I want to be sober, I want to be happy, I want to be me again.

I begged my boyfriend to forgive me and take me back and made a promise to our children that I would never drink again, I kept that promise! 

I want to live and be free.

This is Being Me Sober.

EN * A * BLE – To give someone or something the authority or means to do something.

As much as we think we don’t enable , the sad truth is, we all do it in one shape or form. It’s because we care and we think we are doing the right thing. It’s until we finally say, “I, we can’t do this anymore. What do we do?”

As I mentioned, enabling comes from many different situations and sources. And one of the hardest things to do is to change and face the deeper problems there are, and temporarily or permanently walk away.

Where do you start?

If you are dealing with emotional or physical abuse, you need to stand up and take action with whatever it is that is causing you to plead for help. When someone is put in a situation as such, the denial and excuses process starts. Unfortunately the denial and excuses are NOT HELPING. By doing this your not only hurting the most important person who is, yourself, but you are also hurting the ones who are subjecting you to the utter chaos in yours and most likely others lives. As I said, You, are allowing it to happen. Not until you say, NO MORE, will anything change.

Address the situation with the person that is hurting you. Sometimes people may not know what they are doing if it is not brought to their attention. Yes….this is true in some cases. Most people can acknowledge that they have been off kilter but, they too make excuses for their own behaviour. Why? Fear of accountability, memory loss, due to blackouts, associated with alcohol, bipolar disorder, too name a few. They promise to change, and give apologies time after time, buy you things, the list goes on. People make mistakes sure, but if its reoccuring time after time, something is wrong and it needs to be dealt with. If the person chooses not too?  You can seek professional help for yourself for steps to take or ultimately walk away.

We all have made or make choices in our lives that will help or hurt someone. It’s hard to accept that our loved ones are going off the rails or your marriage may end or you no longer can see or help your children, but when you consider the risks involved the only choice we have is too stop it from happening and this may require you to walk away permanently or temporarily. Its not until they seek the help they need and stick to the program that your life along with theirs will change.

Its time to make a decision, will you continue to help dig the hole for your loved one or drop the shovel and say, “NO MORE”!

This is, Being Me Sober

Yesterday as I was scrolling through my facebook and I came across this amazing video that a bar has put into their men’s bathroom. It may seem creepy to some but it has an effect.

Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/WeSaveLives and spread the word to the world and lets do something to decline the rates of Drinking and Driving. It is time people stop and think before they put their own and others lives in their hands.

https://wesavelives.org

We are NOT invincible.

This is, Being Me Sober

When I heard on the radio last week that a women is suing the lottery company for ruining her life after she hit the jackpot, I was ashtonished. Really? Are we that far out of our minds that someone will blame another for the luck of good fortune that comes into their lives such as the lottery?  Well, yes. We all blame others for what is wrong in our lives.

The lottery didn’t ruin her/his life, they did by how they acted and chose to spend their riches. The lottery didn’t say, “With this money you must…..”

No matter what we are not taking responsibility for in our life, there is at one point, when we have to accept and blame only ourselves.

We are quick to lay blame for what it is that has caused us to be where we are today.

It’s easier that way, we don’t have to be responsible in a way to fix it or make it right because well, it wasn’t our fault!

During my drinking days I would always blame those who hurt me for why I drank and became an alcoholic. No! I chose to pick up that glass and refill it every time it was empty or till I had no more booze left. Because I was in a bad marriage wasn’t why I was an alcoholic, that is the way I chose to deal with it instead of leaving 5 years before I did. Of course it was inevitable because it is a disease but if I chose to not deal with it with a bottle I may not have been subjected to as much abuse as my son and I were.

I can no longer blame my parents for the childhood I had that made me an alcoholic. I accepted my fate and dealt with it by accepting responsibility for MY ACTIONS and stopped!

No matter what it is in life that you are blaming others for, stop and look in the mirror and take a really good look at your own actions and choices and then maybe there will be some blame to lay but before you do, make sure it is for good reason.

This is, Being Me Sober