i-love-an-alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

This is what 2 months of unemployment does to you

I'm in a bad place right now.

At first it wasn't so bad. For some reason the layoff notice itself gave me a boost of energy and inspiration: I got back to my art and have been making some pretty good stuff, if I say so myself. The problem is, that is about the only productive thing I do at the moment, unless you count housework.

I wake up at the same time as S, but stay at home to scroll my phone after he leaves. I've fallen into so many YouTube rabbit holes that's embarrassing and my screen time is through the roof. Sometimes I spend the whole day inside, only going out enjoy some fresh air through a filter. I smoke too much, drink way too much coffee and if we didn't have a cat I'd probably be hearing voices by now. My life has no structure, I don't get enough excercise and my brain screams for stimulation.

I've also fallen off the wagon. Yeah. Weed and alcohol, to be specific. "No wake and bake" my ass, I've been doing that for a few weeks now and I've also began to drink with S. I don't know what to do.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Tales from insanity, vol. 1

I have a bunch of stories from my previous life. Of incidents, people and everything that comes along with bad life decisions. Some of them are funny, some sad, and some are just bonkers. I previously thought they had little to no value for this blog, but as I've written them down I've come to think that they provide an interesting look into the mind of an addict.

To any members of the law enforcement: have you ever heard of statute of limitations? Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Mail order madness

I always hated buying drugs. They're expensive, quality control is nonexistent and the sellers tend to be very sketchy people. I usually delegated that to Shitty Boyfriend, who would often rip me off when measuring his share. Then I learned about the mail ordering system.

Yes, there was indeed a time in Finland when you could order illegal drugs straight to your home address with little to no risk, since internal mail traffic was pretty much uncontrolled. So I gave my real name and address to unknown dealers without a second thought and had several fun packages delivered straight at my doorstep.

This went on for some time, until law enforcement caught wind of it and began cracking it down. Not only did they catch several sellers, but their clients too. I was fortunate enough not to get in trouble, but I know someone who did, because their name was found on a client list. Whew…

#i love an alcoholic #tw drugs #anti drug

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Via dolorosa

Easter holidays are almost over. We visited some relatives and had a dinner at my father's on Friday. Ever since he moved close to us we've spent most of the holidays over there, and on top of that my sister and her boyfriend came to visit from the other side of the country (which is about 4-5 hours drive in Finland).

The last time S drank was on Monday March 18th. He had a couple of days off in the middle of the week and wanted to have his drinking day then instead of his usual Friday and I was fine with it. I asked him if he really wanted to do it, as he'd have to be sober for two weekends in a row since we had already agreed to no alcohol during Easter. He assured me that he understood and was ready for it.

Eleven days is a long time for an alcoholic.

S began pleading on Saturday two days ago, and proposed we'd go drinking with my sister and her bf. I was pretty sure they didn't want to waste their holidays by being hung over, so I said no. S wasn't happy, but he persevered.

Yesterday he pleaded again and this time tried to use his own brother as an excuse. (He's going through a tough time and S wanted to invite him over to drown his sorrows. What a wonderful idea.) I thought that was shitty, and called him out. He got mad and spent the rest of the day sulking.

This morning S was not in a good mood, but his mind was clear. He had had a hard couple of days, but was able to put his thoughts into words and reflect on his feelings. He wanted to go for a walk which we did, and felt so much better afterwards.

I think the last couple of days have been a fine example how powerful alcohol addiction truly is. Even though S is no longer drinking daily, the psychological addiction is strong enough to make thirteen days of sobriety such a difficult task. I'm going to be the bad guy and make him wait until next Friday (which he'll have to do anyway because of his other responsibilities), and by that time he'll have a whopping 16 days of sobriety under his belt. It may not be the best he can do, but it's progress.

#i love an alcoholic #recovery #addiction recovery #alcoholism

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

The one time I took ecstasy and put my life in danger

My ex, Shitty Boyfriend, once bought two ecstasy pills. He gave one to me and we took them together. Soon SB was high as a kite, but I felt nothing. Like, nothing at all. "Bummer" I thought, "I got ripped off."

Here's what really happened:

At the time I was on anti-depressants, specifically the SSRI-type ones. Now ecstasy works by increasing the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. SSRIs work similarly, which in my case caused the ecstasy pill to have no effect, because my brain was already saturated with those neurotransmitters. A common warning about ecstasy is not to mix it with SSRIs, because that combination can cause a potentially fatal serotonin syndrome. I did not know this, and had I had more than one pill things could have gone south pretty fast.

Later on I actually experienced something that I suspect was a serotonin syndrome, albeit with a different combination of substances, and it was not fun. It's always the best to just say no to all drugs, but if you don't, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE educate yourself about the possible interactions with other drugs, medicines or foods. It may save your life.

P.S. I would like to know if this is common knowledge or not. Please leave a comment and feel free to share if you think it would help somebody.

#i love an alcoholic #tw drugs #anti drug #ecstacy

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Paranoia and weed

Your co-workers talk nice and smile at you, but you know they trash talk you behind your back. The strangers walking past you on the streets look straight into you and know what you've done. They see your puffy, red eyes, dilated pupils and they judge. The cashier hates you: you can hear it in her tone of voice. Your parents call and ask you how you're doing, but they call you crazy when you try to tell them how you really feel.

It's hard to describe paranoia when you have it, because it becomes your truth. You're constantly on the edge. After the day is done you go back to your hiding place where you keep the pills, weed and powder that take those feelings away for a moment (or make them worse, whichever it is). You put yourself to sleep with substances, get a full night of poor quality sleep and wake up in a paranoid haze.

But now you don't have those drugs either and you have to face the fear, anxiety and paranoia head on with no relief. You can't sleep at night, counting hours to the alarm of doom: that's when you have to go out and put on a facade of normalcy you can barely keep up. The enemy is everywhere, it knows where you live and it's coming for you. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I've recently watched a lot of video essays on drug and alcohol abuse, and the ones that hit the hardest were the ones about the adverse effects of weed. As I've written before I used to buy into the "weed is harmless" narrative. I believe the paranoia I experienced was largely caused by my exessive weed smoking. I've also experienced short, transient amphetamine psychosis, but it was nothing compared to the long-lasting, almost subtle and very insidious state of paranoid confusion caused by the fat-soluble psychoactive components of weed slowly leaving my body (did you know your brain is mostly fat?).

I used to be a vocal supporter of legalization, but now I'm against it. I know weed has medical applications and I do support that, and I think it should be decriminalized, but the adverse effects are very real and very scary. I don't think it is the worst drug out there, but "it's just weed" is an understatement of this last decade.

Just keep it safe, you hear?

#i love an alcoholic #recovery #addiction recovery #anti weed #cannabis

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

What a week...

8 days ago I was drawing again when I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick, got up to go to the toilet, and the next thing I know I'm lying on the floor, held by S, bleeding from my mouth. According to him I just fell face first on the stairs (not down them, just on them). He called an ambulance and I was taken to ER to be checked. They didn't find anything wrong with me, so I was let go after 5 hours of monitoring.

I got away with a busted lip and a broken tooth. No concussion, no bad wounds and the tooth turned out to be an easy fix. Didn't even break my glasses. I've taken it easy: eating regularly to keep my blood sugar stable, staying hydrated and being careful on stairs.

My guardian angel was on duty.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Furloughed

Just like the title says, I'm unemployed for the first time in my adult life. I don't mind: my finances are good and I could use a little time off. There's also a good chance I'll get called back in a few months anyway.

I've been doing a lot of art this week. Drawing has been my outlet for a long time, and I've had a lot of inspiration lately after a long dry spell. I don't think I created anything in '23 because of things being as they were, but now I've done some works I'm really happy with. A gallery show has been a lifelong dream of mine, and it may very well become true one of these days.

My works have a strong connection to my past life: it's almost like therapy. At times the creative process takes me back and gives me anxiety, even nausea (I'm not kidding, one particular work almost made me puke). I've also been writing a lot for this blog.

I'm also decidedly sober. No alcohol, no "wake and bake just because I can", no nothing. Just tea, water and mindfulness. I'll try to get S along, we'll see how it goes.

#i love an alcoholic #addiction recovery #recovery #healing

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Melody

One of the sobriety Youtubers I follow made a video about his drunken alter ego (link below), which was very thought-provoking for me. Let me introduce you to Melody.

Melody was very friendly and chatty: she could talk to complete strangers just like that. She was smart, insightful and had great self-esteem. She was usually in a positive mood: the only thing that could bring her spirits down was not having enough money for more drinks, and if that was the case she would turn moody and would snap at her friends out of the blue. As Melody got more drunk she began to lose her eloquency and became loud and obnoxious. When she got really wasted she became even louder and lost all common sense: every idea she had at this stage was usually a bad one and she unfortunately had a tendency to make those ideas into reality.

I've always struggled with low self-esteem. I've never been a people's person: as a child I had only a few friends, needed a lot of me-time and didn't like talking to strangers. The adults in my life thought this wasn't normal and would often chastise me for these traits, which made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I'd have to essentially change my whole personality or I would never get ahead in life (joke's on them: nowadays everything can be done online and grocery stores have self-checkouts). Since Melody had no problem socializing, I began to prefer her to my real self: surely nobody would like the clumsy, awkward loner who barely got a word out of her mouth. They didn't want me, they wanted Melody.

When I quit drinking for the first time Melody went dormant for a while. But as I've written before, I didn't stay sober for a very long time, and Melody made her way back into my life. But she was not the same: depending on the substance I was on, she could be a lot of things and was even more unpredictable than the drunk Melody was. For most of the time she was dull and passive, but for some weird reason had a really short temper and could get mad at every little annoyance she faced. Since I was on something for most of the time, Melody and I kind of merged together, eventually morphing into someone that was neither her nor me. I lost my real self and became something hard to describe: almost like I had no personality at all and was just an undescribable cloud of chaos.

I have mentioned earlier how I got in trouble at my former job. I got into a screaming match with my boss, who thankfully realized she was dealing with someone off their rocker. She gave me a hug and said: "You're a sweet girl who's lost". She was right: I had no idea who I was anymore and my horrible behaviour was my desperate cry for help (I'm not trying to avoid responsibility by saying this: I have a lot of regrets and I owe a lot of apologies).

I highly doubt my former boss will ever see this, but if you do, I'm really sorry about all the trouble I caused.

I am well aware that Melody was not a separate person, but an exaggerated version of me on drugs and alcohol. Of course I try my best to keep her away, but she and I will, in a way, always stay connected. I hope my friends and family will never have to see her again.

#i love an alcoholic #recovery #addiction recovery #anti alcohol #anti drug #Youtube

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Yes, it has come to this again.

I keep a bottle of Antabus in my medicine cabinet just in case. Last time I took it was in November 2019, when I thought I could live without it (I had been taking it for about 2 years at that point). It doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me, and now's the time to start again.

Two days ago I drank a lot of alcohol against my better judgement. Figuratively speaking, I went on a date with my horrible, toxic ex and was promptly reminded who's the bitch in that particular relationship. I got too proud and was humiliated in return.

A bottle like this costs about 55€ if my memory serves, which is a small price to pay for my integrity. For comparison, I blew about 200€ on booze and other crap on Saturday (I had to bribe a person so they wouldn't call cops on us…). I got to be better than this.

#i love an alcoholic #addiction recovery #recovery #anti alcohol

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Damn...

Yesterday I had plans. I would meet a friend whom I haven't seen in ages, have a dinner, maybe some wine, maybe some drinks afterwards. Just something that regular people do when they meet their friends.

I ended up getting absolutely shitfaced and the night ended with a good old-fashioned disaster (thank God my attempts at buying some drugs were unsuccesful). I swear I won't ask for a numbing shot the next time I need to have a tooth filled.

I believe this serves as a fine reminder that one should never act too high and mighty. I still have my alcoholic tendencies, and need to be careful with alcohol, even though I dared to call myself recovered. Before I can help anyone else I need to be able to help myself. I think I'll be helping myself towards the toilet soon…

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Story of S

I haven't been able to get S to talk about his life or think about drinking in a deeper level. The only times I've gotten something out of him on those subjects he's been drunk, which isn't very helpful or productive. The following is based on my own observations, conversations I've had with S' siblings and those handful of times when S has been in a mood to talk about it.

S is the oldest of five children. His family was dysfunctional, and he would often escape in his room to play guitar whenever his parents were fighting. He has always been shy, and was bullied in school at times. When he became an adult and graduated from trade school he had several jobs, but was unemployed for various lengths of time in between, during which he drank heavily. When I asked him about his friends, he said he never had any, just drinking buddies. He didn't know how to approach women and never had a serious relationship with anyone, just random hookups. I'm actually his first girlfriend.

His daily life was limited to work, sleep and whatever. He was bored and lonely, but there was a convenient dive bar close to his tiny apartment, that he affectionately called his pit stop, (the apartment, not the bar) full of alcohol and other day drunks. S has always been a hard worker and took pride being able to provide for himself, but spent all his money on alcohol and alcohol-associated expenses.

S has said he doesn't remember when his drinking became a daily thing, but his family was hit by a tragedy in mid-2010s when one of S' younger brothers died. His whole family was devastated, and I believe S began to drink daily around that time.

Oddly enough, S has never denied being an alcoholic. When we first met it was obvious, and he even said it out loud. However, he was (and still is) in denial about the negative things alcohol has caused to him: health issues, stunted personal growth, and a somewhat strained relationship with his family (to name a few).

When we began talking about moving in together I made it clear that I expected him to cut down his drinking, which he promised to do (I know I know…). A couple of days before the moving day S had a major setback in his life which sent him spiraling, and he ended up in ER. I managed to talk him into going to detox, and he spent some time in a psych ward. While in there he was given medicine for withdrawal symptoms, painful vitamin B -injections in his skinny butt, and had plenty of time to think about his life choices.

S has been able to cut down his drinking significantly, but the battle isn't over yet. He has said it took about 6 months for him to adjust to lesser amounts of alcohol, and he still has a problem with cravings. I remember well how depressed he was during those times. Alcoholism is one hell of a beast, but I know from experience that it isn't unbeatable. There is hope for him.

#i love an alcoholic #addiction recovery #recovery #tw alcoholism

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Earlier this week S and I received news that our friend has lost his 18-year-old son. We're all devastated, and there won't be a blog post this weekend. I'm at loss of words.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

My worst experience with drugs

Content warning: Sexual violence

Two people, whom I'll call A and B have decided to spend some time together playing video games and smoking weed in an apartment. But the substance that was sold as weed is not in fact weed, but some unknown synthetic cannabinoid. B takes a couple of hits, realizes this and warns A. A doesn't care, and smokes that shit anyway.

A ends up overdosing. She lies on a bed having the scariest hallucinations she's ever had. She thinks she's going crazy and will never be the same again. After the worst is over, she's unable to move and just lies where she is.

B, who's on the same stuff comes to the room and wants to have sex with A. A manages to say a weak "no", as she's still recovering from her horrible experience. "Yes" says B and forces himself onto A.

B is on drugs so he can't keep going for a very long time. After the deed is over A is still too messed up to move or properly understand what just happened.

Since no protection was used, for the next month A is terrified she might have gotten pregnant. She does two tests that come out negative, gets her period on time, and is relieved.

Despite this, A and B stay in contact with each other. A tries to forget about it, but it still comes haunting her every once on a while. Years later A confronts B, who claims not to remember anything like that. A thinks about things: there were drugs involved, details are hazy, it was a long ago and B seems remorseful. So A decides to forgive B.

A is me. I couldn't bring myself to write in first person for some reason.

#i love an alcoholic #tw drugs #anti drug

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Whew

It's February. S was sober for 32 days straight, which is his personal record (I think?). It was not easy for him: there was a lot of pleading, bargaining and even anger. But he did it, reluctantly but nonetheless. It may have been easier if he hadn't gotten sick.

S got off at around noon on friday and began drinking immediately. We had made plans for going out to eat pizza after I finished work at 4pm, and we met at a restaurant. S had had at least 8 drinks and I had to coax him to eat a little, because when he drinks he doesn't want to eat. By 8pm he was already getting sleepy and went to bed. I hid his leftover drinks and followed suite as I was also getting tired. Gonna pour those down the drain soon.

Wait until he hears about sober October...

Edit:

This is the amount I poured away (I counted 14 empty cans, in addition to the drinks he had while we were dining). Also, say hello to our cat.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

No-drink January is about to be over. S is absolutely miserable: he's been sick for a week and suffering from cravings on top of that. We can't go on walks or hit the gym together and I've been doing all our shopping by myself. S hasn't been able to even smoke because of his bad cough, which is really something.

S tried to plead with me, saying that he would get better if he got to drink. Nope, he may feel a little better for a while but as far as I know, alcohol doesn't really help with recovery from the flu and won't "kill the infection" as he claimed it would.

I'm a little disheartened. I am very well aware that S is a dry drunk, but his lack of progress is getting frustrating. I have been following a couple of sobriety-related channels on YouTube and my plan is to be a bit of an asshole and listen to those videos without earbuds. I think S needs to be exposed to things he doesn't want to hear.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Week 3 of no-drink January and S has obvious cravings. He is grumpy, unmotivated and tired all the time. Earlier this week I woke up in the middle of the night to an NHL goal horn as S couldn't sleep and was watching live hockey. He also tried to plead with me, but I told him no.

I also caught a bug which caused me some very mild cold symptoms (not enough to stay off work) but as it moved to S, he got a full-blown man flu. He has lied on a couch the whole weekend while I tend to his every need. It's fine: I'd rather nurse him back to health from a cold than a hangover.

#i love an alcoholic

[i-love-an-alcoholic]

Hi everyone.

It's the second weekend of no-drink-January and it's going better than I expected. Usually S gets cravings after two weeks or so, but he's committed to the cause and hasn't pleaded even once. He seems a little down and complains of being tired, but that is to be expected. We went to theatre yesterday and had a dinner afterwards (which set me back 153€ but that's okay) and today we went swimming.

I have a good feeling about this!

#i love an alcoholic #recovery #soberlife