Happy Anniversary

It’s my anniversary…… it’s not really but somewhere around this time between the last few weeks of April to the beginning of May I had my last drink. It was on a Saturday 3 years ago, my youngest and I stopped at Texas Roadhouse for Mother’s Day lunch. It was not Mother’s Day but it was either the weekend before or the weekend after, I never wrote it down because I didn’t think it was important at the time.

I’m not really sure why I didn’t think it was important because it was actually a pretty brave decision I made that day. I’m guessing I didn’t because I had actually been experimenting with alcohol and how it affected my own mental health for weeks before this day and didn’t think I needed to, I probably thought I’d drink again. Experimenting? Why would someone in their 40s need to experiment with alcohol? Let me tell you why I did……it was pretty simple for me. Alcohol is a depressant and I was depressed but I wanted to see just how much it “messed” with the way I felt inside.

I wasn’t an alcoholic, I didn’t have a drinking problem, I had one minor in possession from 1992 as the extent of “trouble” drinking caused me. In fact I was most often the Designated Driver when I’d go out with my friends because I wanted to make sure I got home safe.

When I did drink though, it was as much as I could and most of the time as fast as I could, which makes me sound like an alcoholic. I went months at a time without drinking, so why’d I choose to stop completely?

We can go over some of my drinking stories another time when I feel like sharing those parts of my life but I want to go back to my experiments. I was extremely focused on just how depressed alcohol makes us because my brothers BAC (blood alcohol content) was 0.27 when he took his own life. He was also drinking daily and had been for years, something I could never do but I still wanted to see for myself how it affected me personally.

During February and March 2017, I spent some time in the evenings trying to drink consistently each day. I was only able to drink for 3 nights in row before I noticed a significant change in my mental health when I stopped at the store on the way home to grab some sleeping pills to wash down with my vodka because I was done. I couldn’t tell if it was my depression, the alcohol, being alone or a combination of all of it but I was all done with my experiments with alcohol because I was convinced I was ready to end it all and all I’d done was have 1 drink after work for 3 days in a row. One 20 ounce White Russian with about 15 ounces of vodka in it. I told you earlier I didn’t drink often but I drank A LOT when I chose to drink.

There I was in 2017 with a bottle of vanilla vodka and a bottle of sleeping pills, I went from trying to see how depressed alcohol makes people to ready to end it all in 3 days. I wasn’t successful in ending it that night and I woke up knowing that alcohol and I were never friends and I was going to have to end our relationship because alcohol made me question my existence, so I took a few weeks contemplating if I truly wished to say goodbye when my son and I stopped for lunch and Texas Roadhouses had this really pretty blue drink and I really wanted to try it so I did under the conditions that I would make note of how I felt mentally the next day and then decide my fate with the booze.

Here it is May 16, 2020 and I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since that day at Texas Roadhouse with my son because I again wanted to die the next day and noticed I was actively having suicidal thoughts like I did previously with my “experiments” and honestly I don’t want to die so I broke up with alcohol that day and did it proudly and my life did start to change.

Sometimes I wish I’d written down that date because it was pivotal in my journey but it’s not something I need to know to continue on my journey. Sobriety is a part of me now.

I’m not here to preach to anyone about alcohol or to tell anyone how to live their lives. I’m here to share my story and how I’ve survived some incredibly traumatic experiences and to let others know it’s safe to share their story. It’s safe to change your life, it’s safe to be you, it’s safe to say no.

I’m no professional, I am just someone who wants the world to see all the beauty there is out there through clear lenses. Let me know what you think! Rock on my pretties! 🤘🏻