I’d like to go into detail, but I also don’t want to share too much of a very personal and emotional experience because I want it to stay mine. What I can tell you, is the night I had my last drink of alcohol was an awfully intense one. I don’t remember it all, and I’m glad. I know that doesn’t coincide with what my last post said about wanting to be alert through it all. . . but this would’ve never happened without alcohol in the first place and it was on a level I hadn’t gone to before. It was a Saturday. It was probably about 10am when I started drinking for the day, and as usual, I was itching to cook. I was always cooking something on the weekends that would take a long time so I could drink and drink and drink and prep my food and drink more and baby sit it. . . gulp, gulp. I always felt so fancy at first and thought I was making some pretty sweet dishes. I’d start by getting my kitchen all set up and I’d just booze it up and pretend like I was Martha freakin’ Stewart (but younger, cuter and without the criminal record). Looking back know, I’m ashamed at what a sorry excuse my drunk ass was for a chef. How many times I ruined supper and how wasteful I could be. This wasn’t on purpose, of course. This was just because whatever I did to the food – be it adding too much of or the wrong ingredient, to over-cooking it, to making way too much of it that we couldn’t stretch it into that many leftovers. I don’t mean to ramble, but I’d like you to get the idea of what a moron alcohol could turn me into. And did. For sure. That night, I was attempting to bake some bread to go with our supper. I rarely baked and more or less considered myself better at grilling. As my alcohol-induced rump used to say “I’m the grill master”. (nerd.) So turns out, I was just buzzed up enough that I apparently didn’t measure ingredients correctly because this loaf of bread was more like a brick of grains. I was bummed out and my husband was beyond annoyed. I know he was looking forward to it and he was also pissed off that I had just wasted tons of ingredients and basically hours of my time. At the drop of a hat, shit went South real quick. I don’t know how or why or in what order. It got bad, and it got sad, and I lost a pretty cool baking stone because of it. This is where I’ll leave it up to your imagination (don’t get too crazy) and tell you that my husband ended up taking off to a bar when he in no way, shape or form should’ve been behind a wheel. Even more so, I took off on my own, in probably worse shape, I ended up at the gas station. Where I found myself buying a pack of cigarettes. Where I lit one in the parking lot after having been smoke free for over six months. Where I stared smoking, and crying, and falling over in the parking lot at this gas station. God knows how many people witnessed this and probably thought I was a total freak show. I can’t believe someone didn’t call the cops on me . . . and maybe they did. . . But if you read my post on quitting smoking. This was just one of the most devastating things I could’ve done to myself. I hated myself for it immediately. And the night just got worse from there. When I woke up the next morning, the guilt and shame and disgust was overwhelming. I’ll give 50% of these emotions to the smoking and drinking and the other half to the way my husband and I had treated each other. In the many years we’ve been together, we had never gotten this out of control and treated each other so awful. This feeling was crushing me. It was like all the drunken nights over the last couple of decades and all the missing pieces of my past and the cold hard realization that if I don’t fucking stop, I might not have a future – came crashing together and just exploded inside of me. That was it. My body was spent, my mind was exhausted and my heart felt like it was on the verge of giving up on me all together. It was this moment that I knew I had to fight myself for my life. I had hit rock bottom. I knew it, because there’s only one other time in my life that I felt worse. When I lost my twin brother.

Looking Ahead . . .

I’m excited to stay sober and that is something I look forward to every day. I don’t do it enough, but I try to express my gratitude for it when it comes to mind. Freedom from an addiction is something that makes me giddy and I just cannot get enough of it. When I take a moment to think about what I won against, it makes me smile. I see some people on the street or in public and they look like they may be having a rough go – and not in the sense of addiction per say, but just because their face or their expression tells me so. I often find myself wishing for happiness for these people. I so very much just want everyone to be happy. It’s one of few true emotions and feelings that for me, rises above the rest and makes everything else tolerable. I hope YOU are happy!