I’m ready to try
Hi everyone. I haven’t posted much here so please forgive me for any editing mistakes.
I (26m) have been a covert alcoholic for about 8 years now. It started when I was in college and I would consistently blackout at parties and thought it was a quirky part of my personality.
When COVID hit, it became a “bottle of wine every night” type of situation and I had thought I was still just being a normal college kid. After I left college, I got a job in restaurants in LA and going out for a drink every night became a staple in my life. When I lost my first job, I coped with alcohol. At my next restaurant, I stole wine every night and drank on the shift. I just thought I was too cool and too good to ever get caught. Cut to two years later, I’m managing another restaurant and I get fired for drinking. Not even on the job but after.
I spiral into a deep hole and live for 4 months in LA with no job and no support. It was rough. Every amount of money I make goes into alcohol, even when bills and rent aren’t paid. Eventually, I decide to move back home to the East coast to just survive.
I thought this would help but it didn’t. My mother was an alcoholic who lost her teaching license for child endangerment. My father, after driving a truck for decades, finds his middle age comfort at the bottom of a bourbon bottle. I find myself spiraling into the same pattern.
I get a job early on as a manager of a local restaurant and within two months, I get fired for stealing booze from behind the counter during a shift. I don’t know why. I wouldn’t think I’m that kind of person, but there’s this evil inside me that just comes over me in these moments and wants nothing but the burn of liquor on my lips.
Thanks be to God, I found myself in a job I love. I’m living with my younger sister, paying the bills and supporting myself as an actual adult. I’m paying back years of debt from my Cali years but I still find myself drinking daily. I can’t wake up without a swig from the bottle. I can’t sleep without cradling a bottle next to me. I leave work every day to go to the liquor store to make sure I never run out. It’s exhausting.
My sister barely drinks. Without going into too much detail, I basically had to raise her due to my parents’ negligence and alcohol abuse and she has a nasty relationship towards alcohol. She hates that I drink and I want to be better for her but I still can’t stop.
All of that said, I’ve decided I’m making a change. I bought one last bottle of my favorite liquor and I’ve decided once it’s gone, I’m done. I got one of those sobriety tracking apps and I’m telling a close friend for support but I’m ready to make the change.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I would love any advice on how to make this a permanent change. What have you done to make sure this sticks? I want to be a better person. I want to go into public and be lucid and comfortable. I want my sister to see that people can make this change when it actually matters to them.
Anything helps. If anything, this is an accountability post so I don’t look back in a year and laugh at how naive I was.
I don’t know how to end this so I’ll just say thank you in advance and wish me luck! 💕