Halloween this year! My last breath of drunken fresh air! I suppose it's not the best time in my life but it should've been. My best friend on the right, Hanna, was in desperate need of help. She married a complete *@#hole! Thank god she figured it out now rather than 20 years down the road. They have been together since they were 18 and made it through some pretty rough times together for the both of them. Although I never really cared for him, I supported her because that's what friends do. They got married on a spur of the moment idea in April, 2003 after he joined the Air Force to "straighten up" his life and get on the right track. Of course I hesitated a little but I kept my mouth shut. I even went as far as jumping a plane to Texas to be with her. They got hitched and after an exicting weekend, we headed back home to normalacy. He stayed in Texas to complete his tech school and wait to find out where he and his new wife would be stationed. A couple weeks later, she found out she would be living in Hampton, Virginia. They were set to move at the end of June. Nervous and excited, we anticipitated the arrival of the sad farwell's and dreaded days to come while adjusting to her being gone. End of June came and went. Her arrival in Virginia was so far turning out pretty good. She was able to find a temporary job serving while her and her new husband got settled in their new apartment and their new surroundings. Hanna had recently finished her BA at Sullivian in marketing and began immediately looking for a job in her field. It took her close to a year but she finally found just the career she was looking for. She was hired on as the Sales and Marketing Director of a up and coming corporation that was developing several areas similar to Louisvilles 4th Street Live. She would work for one of the bigger resturants they had. Work began for her and it came naturally. Basically she became a workaholic. She began putting her job and career first in her life and things started to slowly crumble in her marriage. She began to realize they were in completely different stages in their lives and she was no longer in love with him.
But it proved not that easy. She called me one morning letting me know that they were going to get a divorce. I knew with his past he was agreeing to this only because he thought sure she wouldn't really go through with it. She sure proved him wrong! A week later, I headed to Virginia in my mom's SUV ready to move her out of there. This began a long and frustrating 2 weeks. My arrival wasn't very welcomed by her husband at all. With the first night ending in an alful drunkened physical fight between him and I. Next day Hanna and I moved into a hotel and began looking for her apartments. He went crazy! Calling her and cussing her out and me out. Threating me and her. It was no fun at all dealing with him! But we just procceded to drink our worries away! The thing is, she can handle it, I can't. By the time I left VA, I was so dehydrated and delirious from all the consumption of alcohol and lack of sleep, I could barely make it home. I was having extreame anixety and panic attacks. Major feelings of depression. And was feeling physically ill. This was obviously my last bienge.
Needless to say I made it without dying, but now, I'm not sure how. I could've killed myself from all the alcohol I consumed and how depressed it made me! I think this was my last straw. And so it goes............................

Changes

Looking back now at my past has brought me to realize how much my life has changed in the last 48 days. "My name is Allison and I'm an alcoholic," has become a fixture in my everyday vocabulary. Getting down on my knees and praying for acceptance and courage, reading everyday inspirations, and going to AA meetings have become normal routine for me at my age of 24. These things have brought me great joy and gratitude that just a short 48 days ago, I would have never imagined.
My consumption of alcohol began at 14 years of age when I was a freshman in high school. Although I probably only drank 4 or 5 times that year, I should have stopped the first time I got sick. The older I got, I obviously got more freedom from my parents and was able to actually, "go out" on the weekends with a curfew. At this point drinking pretty much became a fixture in almost every weekend activity that my friends and I were involved in. By my senior year, I began feeling grave feelings of guilt and sadness and depression never piecing together what later I realized drinking was the direct cause of. At this point I began to gain weight, cut school, and stop caring about a lot of important things in my life.
By the time college rolled around, I had a serious boyfriend and thought sure college life wasn't for me because I did my partying in high school. I was determined to settle down and get degree and get married and so on and so forth. After 4 long years of this relationship, I turned 21 and got out and realized, I wasn't so ready to settle down as much as I had thought I was. My relationship was ending and going to bars and a "new" life of partying was revealed to me. Bar life grabbed me and sucked me right in! I will say it's a powerful thing. Going out every weekend with my new found freedom was a blast.
This continued pretty frequently for a straight 6 months without any issues. Then I slowed down a bit and got refocused on my own for a while. Then I slowly found myself right back in it as soon as I got a job serving at my first actual bar. I met a lot of people and had a really good time for a while then about 6 months after I started working there, it began to gradually start to go downhill. I began experimenting with other substances and staying up all night and sleeping all day. This began to affect my focus on school and hugely affect my mental and emotional state. I kept telling myself that it wasn't connected. I just thought I was clinically depressed. That it would eventually go away with help of some therapy and medicine. Boy, was I wrong! It just got worse and worse until I found myself having emotional breakdowns when I was drunk, no job, not in school, my house was a disaster, in debt, severely depressed with constant anxiety, staying in bed couped up in my house for days at a time and having no desire to try and change any of it.
It only took about 6 to 8 months of this downward spiral for me to hit rock bottom. This leads back to 48 days ago. I woke up one morning and just couldn't do it anymore. I called and confessed everything to my parents and the next day checked in to Ten Broeck's intensive outpatient therapy. And so it goes................................................