Nobody Warns You How Lonely It Is To Be An Alcoholic

Drinking seems to be all fun and games at first but nobody warns you how lonely it is to be an alcoholic.

Mama marjiuana swaddles me like a loving mother, her intoxicating smoke offers a comfort like no other. The sweet smells of sativa and the wholesome earthiness of her sister are the pheromones of an unbridled, unconditional love without blisters. An abundant well of calm and serenity, to stop drinking would feel like blasphemy. But, mark the subtle toxicity. A love like this, abundant bliss, causes one’s priorities to go amiss. And like a child stepping away from their mother, the great big world is full of fears and thunder. The breeze of loneliness sets in and we quickly shutter, “will I be this uncomfortable forever?” And all the while Mamas comfort stands so near, “what’s one more hug in the face of this fear”. The love feels just as warm and cozy as before, and yet again we join the cycle of the deplored. I pass no judgements about my pot head brothers and sisters, but don’t forget, even comfort can be sinister.

Matthew Barta

I think most of us remember that first alcoholic beverage and how it made us feel, rather it be freedom and peace in the mind for once, or a loss of control of who we are and never wanting to feel that feeling again. For me, it was the former. I finally felt like I could be that outgoing, happy go lucky, “exciting” girl in front of everyone instead of just around my family or close friends. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and it gave me hope for the future that maybe things could be easier than I thought they would be, just as long as I was under the influence of something. Which I didn’t really click in at the time that this wasn’t any kind of life to live.  

But the anxiety eased when I was drinking, I stopped feeling every movement I made, every heartbeat, every tendent in my body, the blood flowing through my veins. My mind stopped racing, the thoughts stopped controlling me, but instead I controlled them. Or so I thought at the time.  

It wasn’t too long after my first drink at 15 that I became reliant on it, felt lost or unlike myself without it even. I was also smoking weed heavily at this point in my life, as well as taking any pills or drugs I could get my hands on. When I didn’t have something to alter my state of mind I felt so alone, so lost in this world. Little did I know at the time that alcohol as well as weed are huge downers and in the end, all they were doing was making my anxiety and depression way worse than it ever was.  

The anger progressed as well. I couldn’t go a day without screaming at a loved one or self-harming myself, in need for desperate attention from the people I loved that “should have known” that I was suffering, that I was suffocating in my own mind and that I needed help.   

I spent most of my days sleeping and all of my nights up all night in my room alone with my snacks, my books or tv shows, my oxys and mdma which were my drugs of choice at the time mostly because my boyfriend sold them and I could get my hands on em whenever I wanted. He also sold booze so whenever I could get my hands on that as well, I did. I was trying to escape reality.   

I hated being awake during the day because that was when you were expected to not be lazy and get things done, work towards those future goals. But I was too overwhelmed by everything, I wasn’t smart enough, outgoing enough, fun enough, loud enough, cool enough to live a productive happy life. I knew I had talents but I would rather run from them because it was all too overwhelming. But at night time no one expected anything of you, you could be whoever you wanted and not feel like a lazy, good for nothing addict while doing so. Plus when I was under the influence I was cool enough, smart enough, outgoing enough to live a productive, happy life. So, I kept telling myself that tomorrow I would get out there and try but when the next day came and I was sober I lost all my confidence time and time again. I was stuck in a cycle.  

The relationship I was in at the time was also very toxic and abusive but to me at the time it was the norm, but it was making me even more miserable day by day, making it easier for me to see no hope in my future, making it easier to want to escape the world I was living in. Anything was better than the feelings in that world. After high school I finally had the guts to leave him after all the cheating, hitting, bullying, mental turmoil. I was done convincing myself he loved me as he kept proving to me that he didn’t time and time again. I didn’t tell my family for a long time after about the abuse. I retreated into myself even more and really never left the house. 

My parents kept telling me I needed to get out more, go do something productive or make friends or get a job, anything. For years I stayed in the same cycle until finally they convinced me to go up north one summer and get out there, have some fun. They sort of forced me to do so, despite my attempts to stay at the house alone that summer as they all went up north.  

So, in the summer of 2015, I got a job up in Wasaga beach. My family has been staying there every summer before I was even born. In a trailer park called Bell’s Maple park where we have made so many great memories at over the years. This summer was the first summer that our parents gave my two sisters and I the trailer they bought a few years back and we had to start paying the lot fees to stay their every year, it was ours and it was so exciting for us at the ages of 19, 20, and 15. My parents bought another trailer in a different park about 15 minutes from us so they were still up there if we needed them.  

So, that summer my older sister and I got a job cleaning the bathrooms on the beach and the tables at the little strip on the main beach with the burger king, ice-cream shop, sushi shop and convenient store. It sounds like a dirty job and trust me it was, but it was the most thrilling job I ever had. It really helped me break out of my shell and climb out of the rabbit hole I had dug foy myself for years. I was working but I hardly felt like I was, I felt like every day was a party. I could drink all the time, I had freedom and it felt amazing. I met so many cool people along the way.  

My sister and I would bike from the trailer park to the beach, do our shift and get ready to go party afterwards. I met other people who worked at the shops on the beach who were all around the same age as me and I ended up going to some of their villas and cottages, having fires, drinking, staying up till the sun came up. Drinking made it so much easier to be comfortable in my own skin. If it wasn’t for the alcohol there is no way I would have guts to make a single friend that summer.  

We also have a lot of friends we grew up with in our trailer park and we spent so many nights staying up with them until the birds started chirping, then we would do it all again the next day. Drinking every night was glamorized and I loved it. I was having the time of my life for the first time since I was a child.  

Then the guy I met that summer, started dating and fell in love with, started to stay with me at our trailer instead of going home to Vaughan where he lived. No one has ever made me feel the way he did, I finally felt complete. But he wasn’t much of a drinker but he was having fun with us too staying up all night, drinking beer with us and having a great time. When the summer was coming to an end, I was not ready to go back to Cambridge and back to reality. I was living in my little fantasy world and going back to the real world terrified me. I stayed up there until the park closed for the season at the end of October and he stayed with me. My sisters went back home and so did my parents but I stayed until the very last day.  

The job on the beach was finished in September and it was supporting both of us so the money started running out pretty quick. But I still managed to get a few beers every day, most of the time for both of us and the times I couldn’t afford it for both of us, I got enough just for me or took it from a friends trailer that left their door unlocked and always had beer. Not caring at the time about how I was going to replace it, I just wanted to drink. I always ended up replacing it though. I asked my parents or sister to borrow money or my boyfriend would ask his parents and I would go buy more beer to replace the ones I took. Which I ended up taking again, just to replace again. It was a cycle.  

When I first starting drinking it was an escape thing, then just a social thing, I could be funny and cool and people liked me when I drank, things were easier. But then summer was over and it was time to get back to reality, get out in the real world and start making a name for myself, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I was scared to say the least.  

I went back to Cambridge and my boyfriend went back to Vaughan to live with his parents. I was so miserable. After such a fun summer I thought maybe the depression and anxiety were gone and it would be easy for me to get out there again. But it wasn’t. I just wanted to escape again so I went back to my lonesome with my drugs when I could get em, my weed and my beers whenever my parents gave me money to get some. I would just steal from them rather it be my mom’s pills, or money if they didn’t give it to me so they did most of the time.  

They were scared I was going to hurt myself or someone else so they walked on eggshells around me most of the time and gave me what I wanted. They finally got me to go to a doctor where I was prescribed depression and anxiety pills and put on the waiting list to talk to a psychiatrist to see if there was any other mental health issues going on.  

When my parents stopped giving me the money I needed to get my fixes I became very irritable every day, throwing fits, having temper tantrums. They called the cops on me more than once in fear for their safety but mostly my own. I treated my boyfriend like shit at the time, unaware that I was slowly pushing him away. I needed a change so finally I put on my big girl pants and started applying for jobs. Anywhere and everywhere in town.  

About a couple weeks later, I got a job in a kitchen and very quickly moved my way up to supervisor and then manager. At first I was an anxiety filled wreck starting in a kitchen with people who have done it for so long and had no patience to teach a new person. But I have always had this thing where I felt like I had to prove myself because a lot of the time people look at me as a little shy girl who has no balls or guts, which I really didn’t at the time but I knew I was a hard worker and right when I started working in a kitchen I knew I had a knack for it and that this is what I could see myself doing my whole life and being happy doing so. I again felt as if things were falling into place and that maybe I did have hope for a bright future. 

I met some of the coolest people I’ve ever met along the way but also realized that a lot of them had the same problem I did. Although at the time I really didn’t think of it as a problem. But it’s weird because when I started to get to know people in the restaurant I worked at and I heard their stories and I seen them relying on alcohol or drugs to get by, I did see it as a problem but never put myself in the same category as them. I thought I was the exception, that I could stop any time I wanted. When I started to observe these people and their habits of not eating all day, rarely getting sleep, drinking at work, ruining every good relationship they have, I didn’t click in that I was exactly like them and that I too, had a major problem. I am now 27 and I can say I really didn’t realize it was a problem until about two and a half years ago when I started drinking for breakfast lunch and dinner, every single day.  

Shortly after I got my job at the restaurant, my boyfriend came to live with us in Cambridge and I felt happy and that I was finally getting my life together. I could afford all the alcohol I wanted and for me at the time that felt like an accomplishment. But my boyfriend wasn’t a huge drinker like I said and wasn’t too fond of me wanting to drink all the time, so I didn’t drink a whole lot around him at home.  

So, sometimes I stayed after work and had a few drinks with coworkers. Sometimes we walked across the street to the lcbo on break to grab a bottle of tequila or vodka and we would hide it behind the dumpster out back and go take shots whenever we had a moment to do so. Sometimes I would bring bottles home or a couple beers and no one ever seen it as a problem, including me. I was young and experimenting with alcohol like a lot of people do.  

A couple years lately I finally pushed away the love of my life for good. He was slowly retreating from me over the years but I didn’t think he would ever leave for good. I guess we were just two different people and eventually I stopped trying to be the person he wanted me to be, I was just me and that wasn’t enough for him. I loved him so much but my wanting to drink made me not too good of a person in his eyes. I got angry too often, I fought with him more than I should of. I told him he should just know how I feel and know that I love him and that I didn’t have a problem. That I spent so many years being lonely and sad and that I should be aloud to go have fun and drink whenever I wanted. It wasn’t a lifestyle he wanted to be a part of so he left and I was heart-broken. Way more than I ever had been in my life. I started drinking more. But still didn’t see it as a problem. 

About a year later I sort of jumped into another relationship although I was still deeply in love with my ex and never took any time to heal the heart break but instead just drank it away. I still had coffees in the morning with a big breakfast, I still ate lunch and dinner, the alcohol didn’t fully take over my life yet at that point. So, like I said, I really didn’t see it as a problem. But when I started dating this new guy Steve, it became easier to drink all the time because he also liked drinking and had for years. So, we enabled each other opposed to helping each other realise that it was a problem.  

We fell in love and shortly after I moved in with him and his daughter. Now I had the freedom to drink whenever I wanted and again things started to feel like they were falling into place. Little did I know, I was digging myself deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, every single day. A six pack each a day, turned into two six packs each a day when covid hit and we were stuck in the house all the time. We were buying 24 beers a day, sometimes 30 and rarely ever had one left at the end of the day.  

After months of getting used to this routine, we started telling ourselves we have to slowly go back to just a 6 pack each a day and make it last. We kept saying it but never did it. Then it was time to go back to work. But we were so used to drinking all day we couldn’t imagine going to work for 8-10 hours without a beer. We were so miserable when we didn’t have it. We would wake up, drink 2-3 before work even though we worked at 10 am every day. Breakfast would ruin the buzz so we didn’t eat in the morning. Then when the buzz wore off at work we would grow so miserable. So, it got to the point where we started bringing a few to work every day. A few turned into a few more, then turned into 10-11 a day at work…..it was bad. This went on for about two years before Steve started being scared of dying. He wasn’t eating… he weighed about 100 pounds and looked like death would arrive on his doorstep any day. He was drinking every day for years before me too (he’s 11 years older than me.) 

My boss, which is his former boss that he worked for for 10 years was also an alcoholic and a little over a year ago got into the AA program and it changed his life. He knew that Steve and I had a problem so he tried to help us get on the same boat. At first we brushed it off and ignored his preaches but eventually Steve knew it was time and if he didn’t do this now he was going to die. One Saturday he decided it was going to be his last night drinking. I am not going to lie, I had absolutely no faith that it was going to happen. I assumed he would make attempt after attempt to stop but not actually go through with it. But he was ready, and it has now been a little over four months since he has had a drink. And that Saturday was actually the last day for him. I am so proud of him. 

I wasn’t ready at the time and the program tells you that you need to be ready to do it on your own terms, someone can’t force you to do it or else it won’t end up happening. Well, I guess I am still not ready because I still drink for breakfast, lunch and dinner, every. Single. God damned day. And I know it’s a problem but I don’t know how to stop. AA says you need to find the underlining reason what drove you to want to drink every day to escape reality in order to fix those issues and not need the drink. Well….. I have never been a happy person, and alcohol makes me happy, so how do I find happiness without it? I feel so hopeless and so alone these days because I am on my own in this sinking ship. 

Steve and I used to laugh and joke and drink together all the time. We were in the same boat and I didn’t feel so bad. Although I am so proud of him and so happy that he stopped… I sort of feel like I lost my best friend.  

My mom and sister also have huge substance abuse problems and Steve helped my mom get into the program as well, she was doing well for 2 months and then she relasped one night but went right back to sobriety again the next day. She’s going on a month now I believe. My dad was never a big drinker so now whenever I go visit them I am sneaking off alone to go chug a beer, and then another, and another. At home it’s the same thing. I keep the beer in the room so I am not drinking in front of Steve in the living room. I get up every 10 mins or so, chug one and go back to hang out with him. It’s becoming more and more lonely and I’m beginning to hate myself more and more with each passing day. I know I have a problem and I know I need to stop.  

I don’t even like going out for long periods of time because I can’t drink. So, I have isolated myself from anyone I was ever close with just so I can sit at home and drink alone all the time…. this drinking thing started as a social thing to make me more outgoing and entertaining…… so that I could make more friends and live a fuller life. Now, it is the loneliest feeling in the world to sit there by myself chugging beers back. They glamorize alcohol in so many songs, in commercials, at bars, at clubs but they never warn you how lonely it could be when you start to rely on it.  

This is my first time writing this all down and putting my problem into perspective for me. I know why I started and how good I felt when I did, now it doesn’t make me feel good, I do it just to do it, because it’s become just a habit and I truly can’t imagine my life without it. Everything I do I need to have a buzz going on first. Gotta do the dishes? Let’s chug a few back first. Gotta make dinner, lets chug and few and drink 5 more during the cooking process and then not eat once the food is made because God forbid I lose my buzz. I usually eat like once a day, at the end of the day right before bed. And some days while drinking at work all day and running around for 10 hours like a crazy person in the crazy busy kitchen I work in, I feel sick at the end of the day and can’t even imagine stomaching any food so instead I just come home and sleep. 

I have become boring, lazy, lacking of creativity, rarely doing the things I love like writing or drawing, because I lack motivation to do so, instead I would rather zone out in a book or a tv show. Or sometimes zone out staring at a wall or the trees outside while I chug them back. I don’t know how I am going to break out of this cycle but I know I need to before I lose myself all together. And yes, I am drinking right now as I write this but should be cooking dinner, I think I am on my fifth.  

Hopefully very soon it is my time to “be ready” to quit. Apparently all alcoholics get to that point and I can’t wait for my time. I don’t think waiting around for the magical anti-alcohol fairy to put a spell on me telling me it’s my time, is the best plan but at this point I really am unsure what I am supposed to do and I want someone to guide me, or even push me full force in the right direction. I can say as of right now though, I truly don’t know what my life looks like without being drunk all the time. I want to thrive on life like I did when I was a little girl and had so much ambition and goals for my future. I just don’t know where to find that girl anymore or if she even still exists somewhere inside me, the alcohol might have drowned her altogether..

“Shes broken, why would they try to cure her with pills and potions? Never really a whole person if you stay silent. There is always something that needs to be said, something that is hidden within, the need and the want for it to be spoken aloud will make you run hotter and hotter until one day, POOF it punches you from the inside, as if to say “let me out!”“

If you took the time to read through this whole thing, first of all I want to thank you and secondly if you have a little bit of spare time to leave a comment either explaining your experience with addiction, a loved ones experience, success stories and/ or struggles, or advice would all really help. Thank you in advance and I will get back to every comment, as well as check out your site if you have one as well.

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