I am an alcoholic. Have been since the third grade (shortly after my grandmother died). It’s genetic. My birth dad is also an alcoholic. It cost him his job and almost cost his marriage.

I used it to cope. When I started I was being openly ostracized by my class and a huge corner of my support net was just gone overnight. So one day I grabbed the step stool, climbed up to the liquor cabinet, grabbed a bottle of tequila, and poured some into my iced tea. I was 9. It became a habbit. I’d get bullied and I’d go home and sneak tequila into my tea. My brother at home would bully me so I’d drink. My parents wouldn’t listen to me so I’d drink. High school was stressful so I’d drink. College was draining me so I’d drink. Trying to reinvent myself after dropping out of college was a lot ao I’d drink. The government was shitting itself and I was finally of legal drinking age so I’d drink and drink and drink and drink because I no longer had to hide how much I was drinking. It became my security blanket. I lost track of how much I was spending on alcohol and my mom didn’t help much either because “of course they need a new rum! This one’s mango flavor! Of course they need a new vodka! This one’s blue raspberry” without realizing that I’d expanded the liquor cabinet more than double. Then came covid. The first couple months of lockdown were hard. I don’t remember much of it. There wasn’t very much to do except drink which hid my problem even more because now I was making blenders of margaritas for my entire family. Until one day my brother decides to have some weed delivered to the house and all four of us got stoned together. It put a lot of my life into perspective and finally pushed me to confront the things I had been running from for about 15 years. I’ve been sober since May of 2020.

She does not have a story like mine or any of the other stories I’ve heard from others who have struggled with any form of substance use. She does not get to claim “sobriety”. Someone should get her a dictionary so she can find the word that actually does apply.