November 19, 2021 | kandi
Moving back to my hometown was just like taking an animal from the zoo and temporarily letting them into the wild to be happy. They become so happy in the wild, only to be dragged back to their cage.
I have this theory that our lives are like big portfolios. Each page is different. One for your friends, another for family, a career, education, a boyfriend or girlfriend, working out, hobbies, and so on. The whole Idea is that you want to diversify your portfolio. Don’t invest your time into one thing or one person, because if you rip that page out, there’s nothing left.
Back in the day my portfolio looked like this: I had my apartment, my two best friends with me at all times, and a social circle in every class I took. I was going to professional social events, I didn’t need a car because I could catch rides with any of my friends at all times, I did yoga on my balcony most days, I was skinny because of my diet and how much walking around I did. My portfolio was layered and diverse.
But last year I made the worst decision of my life, and all of those pages got ripped out of my portfolio. That decision was moving back home. Afterall, there’s nothing attractive about living in your parent’s basement – under their rules, with no car, and your mom texting you at 10pm to come home. No wonder I’m not attainable. I have nothing going for me. There is nothing in my portfolio other than a maybe career that may not even work out anymore. It hurts my soul to see everyone going back to their normal life and me just staying the way I am. Once so happy in the wild, only to be caged up again.
There’s not much my friends can do to help me either. People grow apart when they don’t see each other. I have seen this story play out. All my friends are going to be living in apartment complexes next to each other again, seeing one another EVERY single day. Doing Sunday family dinners, club hopping on Saturdays, morning workouts, daily chats, doing homework at the study halls.
Back at home, the first year of Zoom meetings were cool – I felt like I was getting ahead in my career and doing good things. But then that guy assaulted me and it felt like it was really letting me know that he saw me as someone with nothing to them and took advantage of that.
I was really hurting, and I didn’t know what to do. My idols at the time were people like Mac Miller, Lil Peep, and Juice Wrld. I empathized with their music because it helped my soul feel less lost. It was Mac Miller who said that when you’re in a room, it’s just a room, but when you add alcohol, everything changes. The way you are feeling will temporarily change, and that is when I got hooked.
That’s when exploring red wine turned into buying boxes.
One glass a day turned into 1 bottle a day.
Getting so drunk I would almost go on dates with bad guys again because I felt confident for a brief moment. I would do all my school work while drinking some sort of alcohol. From the moment I had my morning orange juice, followed by adding vodka to my water bottle while coughing on bong tokes.
There was obviously a problem.
The idea of facing all the hometown issues I had been avoiding my whole life made me crave drinking even more. When I finally reached out for help the first time, I blew off my first meeting because I was already drunk and too scared to go. I remember popping into another meeting in those early days, only to get scared, and leave immediately.
I was too ashamed to even admit my drinking problem, so I initially said I have an addiction to smoking weed (also true but not as problematic).
But eventually, being an alcoholic made me feel as if I was in solidarity with the other hurting souls in the world, and today, I am beyond grateful for my recovery journey. Quitting drinking continues to be a choice I am proud to make. Sure, the idea of its sweet escape always lingers in my mind when it’s near me. Truly, it is a temptation for everybody, alcoholics or not. Whether people drink for social reasons, the taste, or whatever else, they know that drink will affect how they’re feeling. Even if it’s a little bit. Truly a numbing sensation.
I think the reality is we all need a sweet escape sometimes. I just got lost in it.
I think that’s what happened with Lil Peep, Mac Miller, and Juice Wrld too. They got lost, I mean. As talented as they were, they all lost their lives to addiction. I understand now that this is neither something to idolize nor something to live in solidarity with.
My life is nowhere near perfect and I have many demons I still face. There are still no hot skater boys around me, but I’m starting to feel good about how my career is going again, and I’m slowly starting to believe that I don’t need anyone’s company to make me whole (aside from my dog Myla, she is my soulmate). I’m thankful for what my recovery has shown me, and I’ve found purpose in dedicating some of my life to helping others along this same path.
If there is one take away for anyone reading this – know that we all have the courage inside of us to face whatever makes us want the sweet escape of alcohol in the first place.