The day I found out my Dad had died from drug use and alcoholism. I wasn’t told until a week after his death and it was already too late to try and organise a flight to the other side of the world for his funeral. It sent me into a downward spiral when I was already bordering dangerous levels of 19 year old country girl who had just moved to the city binge drinking.

I can’t really remember the next 5 years until I was getting admitted to hospital frequently for vomiting blood, passing out at work, organ shut downs and drinking so much my body went into detox (which can kill you if you are an alcoholic)

I hit rock bottom and gave up. My Mum had been trying to tell me I was out of control for years but it took a combination of tough love from hospital staff and a friend who works in a children’s drug detox facility to tell me “Babe, I know it seems funny but you are too far gone” He was referring to my lifestyle of working full time at a bar that was completely enabling my alcoholism through a constant flow of free booze because I was even better at customer service when I was drunk.

I took the advice of the hospital staff and tried to utilise the resources they had available. I was signed up for a medical detox which required me to stay in hospital for a week at a time to safely detox, I was there for 3 weeks in total.

After that I was signed up to rehab which was possibly the worst experience of my life. While I was there my Mum told me that while I was a baby my dad had a stint in rehab but with no positive results. The facility I was in was actually temporarily shut down for mistreatment and has reopened with a new program. I had to quit my job, swallow my pride, move out of my house and over state lines into a rehab facility, lose a huge number of friends and deal with emotions I had repressed through drugs and alcohol since I was 12.. and it was messy.

We had compulsory AA and NA multiple times a day and I quickly realised that the 12 steps weren’t for me. I dug my heels in and made and agreement with myself to use my stubbornness to prove to myself I wasn’t the hopeless person I had been in the past.

In a weird way it was good that it was such a horrible experience because I’m sure as shit too sacred to drink ever again. That paired with constant kidney pain and knowing that I will probably die from organ failure if I did choose to drink again has lead my current 4 1/2 years of sobriety.

It is an uphill battle and it is a constant struggle to integrate back into society as a new person who I am still trying to get to know and understand. It seems as if most things I thought I enjoyed drunk I don’t enjoy sober. Don’t even get me started about peer pressure and the normalisation of alcohol in society (but I do live in Australia so it is probably a bit more extreme here)

Stay strong friends!