I have looked at so many profiles and it is amazing to me how many people have used hard hitting drugs and were addicted to them. Not to say alcohol is not hard hitting because it knocked my ass to the ground (not once but twice) I grew up in the sixty's and seventy's. Drugs were just a way of life for so many people I knew. I watched people use them. I studied their behaviors (with my bottle in hand) but I couldn't see the beauty in them.Qualudes,acid, valium and benzadrine were among the favorites at the time. Shrooms were a recreational special occasion drug. People would tell me about their trips and colors etc. But it seemed the bad trips outweighed the good.
I did try pot and I had a few good times but during the seventy's a lot of dealers began cutting the supply with angel dust and a one time experience with that shit was one too many. I haven't had the desire to try it again and that was in 1978.
I was a hardcore drinker. My first taste of alcohol was at two years old. My dad put it in my bottle to make me go to sleep. I also snuck home made wine when my family was in bed. I was around six when I was doing that. I began drinking more at the age of ten. My parents divorce and my grandfather's death was a little too much for me to handle. My Mother had not been much of a drinker until the divorce and it seemed she found alcohol to ease her pain so I thought maybe it would ease mine. It did. For several years I could get it freely in my Mother's cabinet.But the pain got worse when I realized, without it, I was nothing. What a crock of shit!
At my last bottom, I was drinking Lysterene. Not because I couldn't afford the alcohol but to try and hide the fact I needed it.I had blindly tried to control drink for most of those five years.
My husband's Mother was a long time sober alcoholic. I knew,he knew I was getting out of controland if I drank Lysterene, maybe I could get by without him noticing. He was a little too smart for that.
I was sober ten years and within five years of a relapse, I was drinking Lysterene? What were the chances of that? I fucking hate Lysterene! Before…even the smell of Lysterene on someone's breath made me nautious.Gees! Cunning,baffling, powerful is sometimes an understatment.But alcohol was my God.
I am greatful I chose not to do drugs. (YET) I am greatful I never put a needle in my arm. (YET) I have so much respect for those who have and been able to live and tell their stories. If not for the stories of the “drug addicts” I may have taken that path when the alcohol quit working.
Thank you for your stories, your strengths and your hopes. I know a drug is a drug (including alcohol) but recovering from “alcoholism” seems (in my opinion) a “tad” bit easier to deal with than the quote, unquote use of narcotics and all the other substances.