It has been a long time, 2011 to be exact and it's now 2022, since I have written about my alcohol trials and troubles. I found this blog when thinking about starting a journal about my journey and had to be reminded that I have been on this road before but had buried the memories of that time deep inside my gut and covered it up with denial, pain, and shame. The strangest and most spiritual thing is my date of initial sobriety was May 16, 2011 and my date of my second sobriety is May 15, 2022. 11 years and 1 day apart. There must be some spiritual significance to those dates or numbers but I may never know or understand.
During the past 11 years, I have had sporadic moments of trying to gain sobriety by claiming to wanting to quit and proclaiming I would never again let alcohol control my life, only to find myself in a drunken stupor within a few short hours. The looks of disgust and disappointment became too much to bear, so I evidently just quit looking and soon the family just stopped trying to convince me to stop. I thought selfishly that I had won the battle by beating them down to accepting that I was going to drink no matter what. After all I wasn't hurting anyone or so I had convinced my sick mind of. I had convinced myself that I was a functioning drinker. I didn't miss work, I continued to care for my family, I fed the animals, I cooked, cleaned, entertained company, paid my bills, and occasionally went to church and thanked God for my blessings. Even though I was able to perform most of those tasks sober, alcohol was never far from my thoughts or from my hands and just as soon as I could sneak away from the eyes of my family, I would cling to the cold, hard glass bottle as if it contained my mother 's nourishing milk in a large baby bottle and wouldn't even seek a glass, I would just turn up the bottle to my lips and pour the hot flaming liquid down my throat and cringe as it burned past my chest and soon found it's way to my stomach. I always understood why it was refereed to as 'fire water' in the old westerns that my dad loved to watch because it felt like I was swallowing burning acid that I knew was scorching my insides but I didn't care. Soon my mind would become as numb as body and the roller coaster of insanity would starting clicking and clacking as I climbed the hills of exhilaration and slid down the other side into misery and despair, only to climb another hill, turn another curve, and even sometimes do a loop d loop under the ride ended with my face in the carpet or dirt depending on where I passed out that time. When those times would occur, my family at first would gently cover me with a blanket and put a pillow under my head trying to provide comfort as best as they could. However, evidently they stopped trying to provide those items of comfort and instead would just leave me to my position. Many times, I would be awakened to rain pouring on my back or face depending on the position I collapsed in that time. When I would wake and stumble or crawl my way into the house, I would sleep it off and when I woke, the family just didn't mention it so again, thought I was winning the battle of acceptance in their eyes. Little did I realize, it was the exact opposite. They were loosing faith that I would live very long and all were secretly planning my funeral in case the day came when alcohol won the real battle of stealing my very life.
Over the course of the past 11 years, I lost my dad, my favorite dog SMITTY, my grandfather, step grandmother, several uncles, my father in law, my sister in law, several cousins and the worst pain yet was loosing my beloved husband to lung and brain cancer in 2020 after caring for him for 2 years. All that pain led me down a dark, dank rabbit hole called alcoholism. Over the course of 2011 to 2020 I had some times when there was joy such as when my 2 grand children were born. I was so proud to be a Grammy and I loved when Tony and I would take the kids on vacation and other adventures.
Tony purchased a motorcycle and we had just started our motorcycle journey. It was really good for us since neither of us could drink when we were out riding. During those times alcohol did not invade my thoughts or our lives.
