You Are Normal - Pain Doesn't Define You

My Experience With Alcoholism.

Sent in by anonymous.

CW: alcoholism, addiction, overdosing, self-harm, graphic description of rape

I'm six and a half months sober.

Maybe that sounds like an achievement to some of you, but most of the time it really doesn't feel like it. The more sober I become, the more I remember. And the more I remember, the more it hurts.

Back in the summer of 2020, I was 15. Most mornings I would wake up and drink a bottle of vodka to get me sane enough to get out of bed. And then I'd go out and do some rather irresponsible things. Not that I actually remember what I did most of that summer, sometimes other people feed me scraps and I'm shocked by who I'd become.

Every day would pass in a daze, doing everything I could to get hold of any pills or alcohol. Sometimes foraging through bins and skips, or stealing from friends. It didn't matter what it was, so long as I could stop remembering. Life has always been difficult, but I really don't know what happened that summer. It's like the pressure built up and up and just burst. Wrong place, wrong crowd, wrong crutch (again).

The autumn after that summer, I was raped for the first time. It was only in the last 6 months that I realised that. I just remember not being able to breathe and trying to get away, but she carried on. And then the darkness flooded over me. When I came to, she still had her hands around my throat. She didn't care. We were out of control. My life was out of control.

What changed? Nothing, really.

I just got sneakier.

I realised it's far smarter to go it alone when you're breaking apart. So that's what I did. By day I put in hours to get the grades I needed so I could leave school. By night I would cut myself and overdose to take away the ache.

And that's how I carried on until I left school. Drinking and drinking, just one more for the lads. Knocking it back even while it burned and I was sick. One day some blood came out (I won't say where from) and that was it. It was a slap in the face. I thought that that was it, I'd done it, I was dying. It hurt so much, like something inside of me was being torn apart and I was just going to rupture.

Slowly, I quit. I didn't want to (most days I wish I hadn't). But if I died I wanted to die in my own way at my own hands, not slowly through whatever the alcohol was doing to me. Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did. I cut off so many friends, my whole life has had to change. I can't hang out at the pub, or be around other people drinking. I have to explain myself again and again when people invite me for a drink.

Now I remember. And, man, it's bad. It's the worst it's been since I can remember. This last month, I've realised my most recent partner raped me time and again. They pushed my boundaries every time until I was taught that you just do things for your partner, even if you don't want to. I can't believe how desensitised I have become. I hold so much guilt over what they did to me. I'm supposed to know better, to be the one who tells others about consent. I just... I just can't believe I let it happen again. I can't believe they fetishised my first rape and then did it again. I can't believe I fell for it. I'm just in shock.

I'm still sober, by the skin of my teeth. I'm not actually clean by any means but I'm sober. I don't know if it's good to remember everything, it really doesn't feel like it. But now I remember. And no one can take it away from me.