The following is a guest post by Carolyn Hughes, a freelance writer with special interest in alcohol issues. As she described her story, “For nearly 20 years I nearly drank myself to death. Here are some insights into what was going on in my alcoholic head.” Carolyn is currently writing The Hurt Healer, a novel based on her own experiences of abuse and alcoholism, and lives in Northern Ireland with her husband and their two daughters. She celebrates 13 years sobriety and says, “My proudest achievement is that my children have never seen me take alcohol or had to live with a drunken mother.” Carolyn can be reached at carolyn.hughes6@btinternet.com, and be sure to visit Carolyn’s blog, The Hurt Healer, to read more of her insightful posts.

What Was I Thinking? by Carolyn Hughes

From the time I took a drink as a teenager to my final binge at 35 I had never been able to drink  ‘socially’.  I was considered to be an intelligent woman with my whole life ahead of me, so why would I drink to the point where it was ruining my life and promising to kill me? With everything to lose, why wouldn’t I stop? What was I thinking?

For a start I thought I was entitled to drink because of my past. At the age of three my mother abandoned me and I never saw her again. When I did try to trace her I found out that she had told everyone I had been killed in a car crash. My father had neglected and abused me throughout my childhood and I grew up feeling worthless and unloved. So when I found that alcohol dulled my pain and blocked out the nightmares surely it was okay for me to drink? It was my ‘hurt-healer’. I believed I had a right to self medicate because of what I had been through and no one could tell me otherwise because they had never walked in my shoes.

Like most teenagers who sneak their first drink, the thrill and the effect of alcohol in my system was wonderful. It made me feel everything that I wasn’t when I was sober – relaxed, lively, confident and hopeful. I imagined that I was accepted as part of the crowd – popular and attractive. Despite the fact that I was losing friends because of my excessive drinking, I thought alcohol made me more sociable. Of course I would go out with good intentions, but one drink would lead to another and then I would be drunk again. Even getting into dangerous and humiliating situations wouldn’t stop me repeating the process. To me it was all a natural part of being young, taking risks and having fun.

It wasn’t long before I had to consume greater quantities to achieve the same effect and the sinister power of addiction was beginning to take hold. Vodka became an essential part of daily life and although at the back of my mind I knew this was wrong, the physical and psychological need was greater. I assured myself that my drinking was ‘normal’, which of course it wasn’t, but I resented anyone who tried to tell me otherwise. Friends and colleagues would try to talk to me about my drinking, but I dismissed them out of a combination of envy and fear. Anyone who tried to confront me was simply wrong or didn’t understand. I held on to the fantasy that their lives were perfect so they could decide whether to drink or not, but ‘poor me’, I didn’t have that choice.

As I was beginning to use drink day and night, so my behaviour was becoming more erratic and out of character. Work was beginning to suffer, friendships were falling apart, and the amount of money I was spending on drink was leading me into serious debt. I accepted feeling sick and tired and never once considered the long term impact that alcohol was having on my health.  Ironically, the more chaotic my life became, the more I thought I could stop drinking if I wanted to. I was totally convinced that I was in control and that I wouldn’t need alcohol once my life was back on track.

Even though my worries about my health and finances prompted me to read up on ‘drink problems’ and I knew that my behaviour clearly indicated that I was addicted, I would never admit I was an alcoholic. For me an alcoholic was a dirty tramp, slumped on a park bench with a bottle in his hand. As long as I clung to that definition then I could deny the reality that my addiction was exactly the same. Actually I was a lot more deceitful than the man in the street who was clearly drunk for all to see. I made sure I was well dressed with minty fresh breath and most importantly was never seen to be drinking alcohol.

Addiction made me become devious to the extreme and I thought I was doing everyone as favour by hiding my drink. It became customary for me to carry around plastic bottles so that I could buy vodka, head to the toilets and decant it so that it looked like juice. That way I could drink at work or with friends and they didn’t have worry about my alcohol intake because I believed they couldn’t tell. Similarly when I was out with friends I would always hide a bottle of vodka in the restrooms and order a simple cola, justifying this behaviour by blaming the expensive bar prices.

Of course my excessive drinking over the years inevitably took its toll.  I lost my job, home, car and was financially ruined.  Colleagues and friends disowned me as I continued along the path of self destruct. I was vomiting blood, had excruciating pains and horrifying black outs. Alcohol was killing me and I knew it. Yet the thing that frightened me the most was being told I would never be able to drink again.  Nothing is more terrifying for an alcoholic than this because you hear it at the time when you believe you need drink the most. At my lowest point I couldn’t manage without a litre of vodka, a litre of wine and several cans of beer each day.  Yet if I couldn’t live with it then I definitely didn’t want to live without it.

Suicide was my only option or so I believed. Thankfully an alcohol induced attempt to kill myself resulted in me being admitted to a secure psychiatric ward.  I physically detoxed, and  was then offered  six month residential treatment.  Having realised that it was nothing short of a miracle that I was still alive and with the support of amazing staff I started to work at my recovery with the same loyalty determination and creativity that I had used to maintain my addiction.

Alcoholism was for me not just a physical addiction but a psychological disease that radically transformed the way I thought. It sounds ridiculously simple now, but all I had to do to stay sober was to learn how to think again. Instead of living as a victim I dealt with the horrors of my past and became a survivor. Rather than wallowing in what I didn’t have, I focused on what I did have and became grateful for it.  I learnt everything I could about alcoholism, accepted that I had no power over it, and saw drink as a poison. Also essential to my recovery was to discover a faith in God and to accept that I never had and don’t have control over my destiny.

Using positive thinking for a day at a time has helped me keep sober for the past 13 years and today I can appreciate that abstinence isn’t the life sentence of restriction and limitation I feared it would be. In truth, it’s the opposite. Sobriety has given me the freedom to be the person I was truly meant to be and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Guest Author

Latest posts by Guest Author (see all)

• Children of Alcoholics | Guest Author Darlene Lancer - July 5, 2021
• Parental Alcohol Use Disorder Causes Trauma - May 12, 2021
• Opioid Overdose Prevention Tips & Resources - April 26, 2021