My Sobriety

I haven’t shared much of about my sobriety on my blog as I just haven’t known exactly where to start or how to begin my story. How do I go back to the day it all started on September 10th, 2016? It has been one amazing and incredibly challenging journey that has brought about so much growth that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I’ve gained self-love and found true happiness that resides from within. I was numbing myself for so long I no longer knew who I was. I was lost. I shared the below post on Facebook October 6th, 2016. By sharing this post, I became committed in a way I may never have been without sharing it. By sharing my journey, I was potential helping others, but in all honesty, it was helping me hold myself accountable to my word and desire to truly be sober.

October 6, 2016

"Because I feel the need to share...

In roughly two months I’ll be turning 33 years old. It has taken me until now to finally realize I need to wake up, grow up (as a person) and find myself, and as hard as it is for me to say out loud, sober up. First and foremost, I want to personally apologize to people within my life that I may have hurt or put off (especially this year) because of who I am and what I personally have been struggling with.

If you don’t know me, maybe you can relate. If you do know me, maybe you will learn something new. When I was younger I knew I was different. The repetitive thoughts, the anxiety from them, the giggles and extreme happiness or the screaming and the crying. I didn’t understand it at the time. Every year it seemed my parents received letters from the schools I attended letting them know I could not miss any more days. I stayed home often because I didn’t feel right mentally. The anxiety and thoughts took control.

I constantly struggled to calm my mind in so many ways. When my dad was diagnosed with cancer and with the combination of the awkward high school years everything eventually got the best of me. I ran to the other side. I ran to control something. That control was food and partying. Food became my enemy; it became my life for the next 10 years. I could control what I put in my mouth, and what eventually would come back out. It was the only way to quiet my mind. It was the only way I didn’t break down. Partying became my escape from the binging and purging. It was a perfect cycle.

Eventually, a few people in my life pulled me aside and mentioned they had been diagnosed with bipolar or knew someone that was. My thoughts at the time “OK, what does it have anything to do with me?” I wish I would have listened better or asked more questions.

After racking up a good amount of debt, you know those impulse purchases you just had to have to make you feel happy, or the breast augmentation you get on a whim without really thinking about it… I started to hit rock bottom. I could no longer control my eating disorder, I could no longer cover the thoughts, and the partying only made me an angry and mean person. I sank into a depression. I finally reached out to my parents. In tears, I told them I was sick. Their reaction at first wasn’t the most comforting as they didn’t understand, but they supported me in my desire to get better. My dad eventually gave me a hug and said: “we got sick at the same time, we will get better together.”

I saw an eating disorder therapist and saw a psychiatrist. I was soon diagnosed with bipolar and started to take the medication prescribed to me every day for the next 8 years. The medication controlled the thoughts. It was what I needed at that time in my life. I can honestly say, it saved me.

The thoughts stopped. The eating disorder stopped, but the partying did not. As many times as my doctors told me not to consume alcohol while on the medication, I continued anyway. My dad passed 5 years ago come December 2016. It was most definitely the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life, but being on the medication probably saved me once again. Not probably, I know it did.

Fast forward to this year. I woke up one day and told my husband I wanted to finally get off my medication and figure out who I truly was. I missed my creativeness. I missed my true happiness. With the help of my psychiatrist, I was able to get off my medication this year. It took two full exhausting months to detox my body of the chemicals it had known for so long.

Recently, after a fun and amazing girls weekend getaway in Cancun, in which I got to spend with a good friend as our husbands believed we deserved time away from our lives, I have been sober. Cancun was a blast, however full of too much sun and equally too much tequila. I came back with a broken toe in which I vaguely have memory doing and had to get x-rays, an incredibly odd huge red mark on my leg in which I had to see a dermatologist to find out that lime margarita juice will give a “sun tattoo” when spilled on one’s leg, and I don’t even want to mention the excruciating sunburn all over my body from not remembering to reapply sunscreen. I was miserable when I got back when the tequila wasn’t flowing, and the beach wasn’t there to distract me.

Another good friend of mine made a comment to me in which I was dying laughing. She said “if you were blackout drunk and the world tried to end I’m pretty sure you’d somehow survive it and not remember. Lol.” I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart because with everything combined, it made me really think, I don’t want to be that person anymore. She woke me up.

As of today, I am almost four weeks sober. I can honestly say I am finally really ready to experience the true me again. I don’t even know when the last time I was sober for four weeks, let alone not have a drink for a day. I have recently seen all doctors needed for yearly exams, teeth cleaning etc. and am ready to continue on this healthy track. I have been going to bed at a decent time and waking up early feeling refreshed. I am working more, I do more cleaning around the house and my husband and friends claim they have never seen me smile or laugh like this. I have started a probiotic and I am anxious to try new ways to continue down this path. I have never felt happiness like this before.

Thank you to all those who have given and continue to give me daily direction and motivation to keep going."

After sharing this post, I received lots of positive feedback and encouragement. Several acquaintances of those I hadn’t heard from in years even sent me private messages sharing that they too were on their own sobriety journey. After receiving so many words of encouragement I knew I had to continue the fight against my addiction.

My last drink as I sat in the Cancun airport on September 10, 2016