fibiray
08-10-2006, 01:30 AM
Where do I begin, I guess I found myself drinking in pubs from the age of 13yrs and thought at the time that it was wonderful. I loved the environment because everyone seemed so nice, but deep down inside I was there because I was escaping a violent homelife, although i would not have admitted to that. My drinking started off as a weekend thing but over time had developed into 4-5day binges. Being a bender drinker I could drink copious maounts of alcohol at one time until eventually my binges got closer and closer together. Initally I use to simply shake off the hangovers but in the later stages I use to get so sick that I could not get out of bed for days at a time. What started of as some high kicks and fun times turned into a nightmare that I seemed so powerless over. Eventually people stopped asking me to their parties, I was never invited out with them and I could not understand why. I could not see that when alcohol was in me that I reacted differently. I had watched many of my school friends gain their educations, jobs, clothes, cars, boyfriends and even husbands and a home, but I was incapapble of achieving these things in life. I had always suffered from bouts of depression and even the most sincere attemtps to get my life on track always failed. When I was 15yrs old I left sydney and moved up to the mid north coast and joined the hippies on their pot farms and thought this was great. I last for 12 months before returning home to my parents house, out of money and out of luck. Returning to my old watering hole many of the old crowd had now moved on with their lives while I was still searching for something that I didn't know what it was. It was at this time that my drinking began to take another turn for the worse. Now entered the fights and arguements and everytime that I went drinking some sort of altercation would arise. I was also now coming home with bruises and markings on my body that I got from fallingover, being hit and so forth. I now could not guarantee my behaviour when I drank but I kept on putting this down to a pass phase. I could reason and rationalise the most insane behaviour. Never would I hae considered alcohol as being the problem, it was always somebody else or some circumstances that was to blame. I hated these situations arising and hated myself profoundly, and there were plenty of people out there that were prepared to use and abuse me.
My friends had slowly gone their seperate ways washing their hands of me (and who could blame them really). I had become very egotistical and arrogant by now and even I didn't like myself. I had become everything that I despised in a person. I had only ever suffered from blackouts a couple of times thoughout my active alcoholism and it was the most frightening thing. I had always thought that blackouts were where you passed out until I found out that you can still be conscious and have no clues to what you are saying or doing. I remember going to a party on a beach at Botany one night and I had been drinking heavily for days by the time I had arrived. I am not exactly sure what happened but I had made a joke or said something that these people took offense to which resulted in them chasing me off the beach. Had they caught up with me they would have given me a pounding. This was one of those b/out times where I had slipped into b/out when I had made the comments to emerge to find that I had a linch mob chasing me off the beach and I had now clues as to why at the time. My drinking was to not stop there and eventually several years later I had met and married my husband. 12months after I had married in 1987 I had hit one really bad rock bottom and sought help through my local doctor. He referred me onto another doctor who treated alcoholics. It was there that I was to learn of the true nature of what I was dealing with. The last thing that this doctor told me was:- "Fiona there is one of three things that you can do, you can continue to drink and end up in a straight jacket, continue to drink and die or you can go to AA and learn to live some sort of reasonable sort of life." I remember when he told me that I was a chronic alcoholic, I found this unpallatable truth about myself a bitter pill to swallow but when he told me that Iwas insane I was outright offended. I laugh at myself now because there is no other way to describe my behaviour but insane. I went to my first aa meeting and to this day I have never forgotten the human kindness that was shown to me. So powerful affect it was that it is something that I try to bring to all newcomers when they arrive for their first meeting. Nevertheless, I had to learn a hard lesson about resentments and I struggled with the god concepts of the program because I had always felt that god had abandoned me when i was growing up. I was that sick that I could not fully understand the concept of regular meetings and thought that once a month would suit me until I got well and I got over the hangover that was still plaguing me. Needless to say the program doesn't work that way and after 6 months dry drunk I picked up a drink and did not return to aa for another 18months. By the time that I had hit my second rock bottom I had moved to the central coast. While my rock bottom this time was not as physically demanding as what it had been the first time, mentally and emotionally I was shattered and it was the most frightening thing because I thought that I was going to comit suicide. I was ready to get honest, I was ready to go to any lengths to get sober and if that meant swinging nude from the monkey bars then so be it. I turned up at meetings almost every night. Even though I didn't know anyone after a time they got to know my face and I got to know theirs. I listened carefully to those who shared and for ideas on how to not pick up that first drink as I needed to develop a defense against that first drink, because it is not what I drank or how much I drank or where I drank that was the issue, it was the fact that I drank period. As they say one hundred is not enough and one is too many. Once I was able to get past the spiritual aspect of the program I came to embrace it fully and have experience that psychic change that is talked about in the big book. I hear people share from the floor of a meeting saying that drinking is not an option, or that it is no longer an issue of drinking and while I can understand where they are coming from with that, for me it will always be about drinking because if I am not coping or not practising the principles of the program then I do what every other alcoholic does and that is drink until death intercedes. thats me:11:
My friends had slowly gone their seperate ways washing their hands of me (and who could blame them really). I had become very egotistical and arrogant by now and even I didn't like myself. I had become everything that I despised in a person. I had only ever suffered from blackouts a couple of times thoughout my active alcoholism and it was the most frightening thing. I had always thought that blackouts were where you passed out until I found out that you can still be conscious and have no clues to what you are saying or doing. I remember going to a party on a beach at Botany one night and I had been drinking heavily for days by the time I had arrived. I am not exactly sure what happened but I had made a joke or said something that these people took offense to which resulted in them chasing me off the beach. Had they caught up with me they would have given me a pounding. This was one of those b/out times where I had slipped into b/out when I had made the comments to emerge to find that I had a linch mob chasing me off the beach and I had now clues as to why at the time. My drinking was to not stop there and eventually several years later I had met and married my husband. 12months after I had married in 1987 I had hit one really bad rock bottom and sought help through my local doctor. He referred me onto another doctor who treated alcoholics. It was there that I was to learn of the true nature of what I was dealing with. The last thing that this doctor told me was:- "Fiona there is one of three things that you can do, you can continue to drink and end up in a straight jacket, continue to drink and die or you can go to AA and learn to live some sort of reasonable sort of life." I remember when he told me that I was a chronic alcoholic, I found this unpallatable truth about myself a bitter pill to swallow but when he told me that Iwas insane I was outright offended. I laugh at myself now because there is no other way to describe my behaviour but insane. I went to my first aa meeting and to this day I have never forgotten the human kindness that was shown to me. So powerful affect it was that it is something that I try to bring to all newcomers when they arrive for their first meeting. Nevertheless, I had to learn a hard lesson about resentments and I struggled with the god concepts of the program because I had always felt that god had abandoned me when i was growing up. I was that sick that I could not fully understand the concept of regular meetings and thought that once a month would suit me until I got well and I got over the hangover that was still plaguing me. Needless to say the program doesn't work that way and after 6 months dry drunk I picked up a drink and did not return to aa for another 18months. By the time that I had hit my second rock bottom I had moved to the central coast. While my rock bottom this time was not as physically demanding as what it had been the first time, mentally and emotionally I was shattered and it was the most frightening thing because I thought that I was going to comit suicide. I was ready to get honest, I was ready to go to any lengths to get sober and if that meant swinging nude from the monkey bars then so be it. I turned up at meetings almost every night. Even though I didn't know anyone after a time they got to know my face and I got to know theirs. I listened carefully to those who shared and for ideas on how to not pick up that first drink as I needed to develop a defense against that first drink, because it is not what I drank or how much I drank or where I drank that was the issue, it was the fact that I drank period. As they say one hundred is not enough and one is too many. Once I was able to get past the spiritual aspect of the program I came to embrace it fully and have experience that psychic change that is talked about in the big book. I hear people share from the floor of a meeting saying that drinking is not an option, or that it is no longer an issue of drinking and while I can understand where they are coming from with that, for me it will always be about drinking because if I am not coping or not practising the principles of the program then I do what every other alcoholic does and that is drink until death intercedes. thats me:11: