Reader Stories

I’ve been sober 28 months now but often when I think about the day I had my first brush with alcohol, I can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. Owing to the great efforts put by my sponsor and some of my close family members, I’m finally able to reflect back on that dark period and understand the mistakes that led me down that path. 

I grew up back in the 90s when the crack epidemic was at its peak. I was never too keen on drugs and alcohol even though many people I knew in my social circle were using them. My father had alcohol dependence which took a rather negative toll on my childhood. Frequent lash outs and rage fits were common in the house. I had seen the aftermath of what alcohol dependence does to someone first-hand so there was no curiosity in me to seek out those substances throughout my teenage years. I was able to skim through my college years too, without as much as a thought or the slightest interest towards drinking. It wasn’t until I landed the job of my dreams and moved to a new city, things started to go downhill for me. I bid on the job and got it even though I don’t know anybody in the city where it was being offered. The job was demanding but it didn’t bother me much as I was doing what I loved and the pay was good too. 

Now here comes the mistake that I was referring to at the beginning of my story. In an attempt to make new friends in a strange city, I started hanging out with some colleagues from the office. These were mostly my senior staff as I didn’t get along with peers of my own standing. Needless to mention, alcohol was always involved at these events. Be it a strategy meeting or a lunch meeting, alcohol was never off the list. Even though I was able to successfully convince everyone about the fact that I have never had alcohol in my life, it didn’t stop some of my managers from persuading me at almost every event. It wasn’t long until I was sucked into office politics and was asked to get more involved with my company managers if I wanted to go up the ladder quicker. 

It was starting to get more and more clear that some of my senior management did not take kindly to my decision to stay sober. I would often reserve myself from attending weeknd events which is where most of the crucial decisions about work were taking place. As a result I was left out of critical decision making processes that were taking place during these personal get togethers. In a bid to not lose what I had worked so hard to achieve, I decided to give alcohol a shot. I had some members over from my team for a small shindig at my place and asked them to bring alcohol. They got me beer as it was easy to digest and the alcohol content is quite low. I figured, “what’s 8% alcohol going to do to me anyway?” Boy was I about to find out the ugly truth about ethyl alcohol that day. I was lightheaded in about 15 minutes and remember feeling very calm and pleasant at first. Unfortunately, nobody asked me to pace it during my first time as I was in the company of more or less professional level alcohol drinkers. The light feeling quickly turned into a heavy feeling and I soon called it quits before crashing on my bed. 

I had mixed feelings about my first experience with alcohol and will admit that to some extent it did feel like having a liability lift off. Soon after, I started having a drink or two with the office crowd during meetings and other get-togethers. The occasional drink or two soon turned to four and within the next few months I had built up a substantial tolerance towards hard alcohol. As I was getting involved with more high-tier projects at work, the pressure was starting to mount and without realizing it, I was slowly slipping down the slope of alcohol dependence. Life changing drastically for me during this period and the attitude I once had towards alcohol was starting to shift. I no longer cared about the debilitating downsides of drinking as long it was getting me through the day. This perception nearly blew the gates wide open for the addiction to creep in. After about a year, I was completely oblivious to the fact that my alcohol intake was increasing rapidly and side effects were starting to take a toll on mental and physical health. 

The first setback came after about 14 months when I started experiencing severe pain in my stomach. A doctor’s visit made it clear that it was indeed ulcers from dehydration and excessive drinking. I diligently followed my medication course and was able to stay away from hard drinking for the next couple of weeks. This short stint with sobriety wouldn’t last long and I started drinking again as I gelled back into my regular routine. This time around I was even more oblivious to the fact that I was somehow walking on the footsteps of my own father. One of my close friends tried to encourage me to stay away from drinking during this period. His argument was quite reasonable too but I was too distant to understand what he was trying to say at the moment. He advised me to quit right away as I was not yet too far into the drinking game and with some help I could kick the habit. Those words fell on deaf ears as I was too invested in my career. In the back of my head, I always thought that I had the courage to quit whenever I wanted. I had convinced myself that I was only using it as a tool to advance in my career and social life. Boy was I wrong!

My relationship with alcohol was getting complicated by the day as I still did not understand the underlying purpose of drinking. I knew a lot of people who drank recreationally and would often get away without fabricating a dependency. I couldn’t quite relate to those people either as I was mostly drinking by myself and under stressful situations. Sixteen months down the line and the impact of alcohol on my mental health had started to surface. I remember going into long and dramatic rants with my peers which would often turn into heated arguments. Even though I knew that this behavior had a lot of resemblance with my father’s when I was younger, I couldn’t care less about it as I was starting to lose my innate charm. Every day was getting more and more difficult to pass as I felt less energetic and motivated to get through even the most basic chores. Before I started drinking I never hit the gym a day in my life but still managed to stay lean and fit. That was not the case anymore as I was starting to show signs of fat gain. There was clearly some fat accumulation around the torso but even my legs and facial area were starting to feel bloated. My Mental health was also degrading rapidly and mood swings were getting more and more common as a big internal promotion started nearing at work. I was working fourteen hours without any significant breaks to get my numbers up on the performance charts. My body was getting weaker but by this time I was accustomed to feeling that way. The eventual collapse came a few days before the interview for the internal promotion. This time my stomach ulcers came back with bells and whistles. My skin had turned pale and I was barely able to get up from my bed. The pain was intense and anything that I put in was coming out either through the top or bottom. 

I tried convincing my doctor to repeat the course from last time but he insisted that I come in for an endoscopy. The reports revealed that the ulcer had grown so much that it was blocking the food from getting into the digestive tract. I was told to get a surgery right away as it could lead to more serious issues if left untreated. I had never felt so weak, disillusioned, and unhappy in life before even though I’ve had my share of tough times. I knew that all my issues revolved around this alcohol dependency that I had developed but still couldn’t muster enough courage to ask for help. Today, I can gauge what was stopping me from seeking help but at that moment everything felt hazy. If it wasn’t for my mother taking a stand and forcing me to enter rehab, I probably would not have survived another episode of ulcers. It took a small intervention from some of the closest people in my life to finally clear out my thoughts and understand the impact of my actions. Realizing that I was indeed in a big fix and needed help to get out of it, was the first step towards recovery. I still think to this day, if I had been selfish that day, I would have destroyed many lives.

I applied for an extended medical leave and checked into a rehab back in my hometown. Something about being close to the place where I grew up, calmed me down and made me feel like I was home again. This was an important step towards kicking the alcohol dependence that I had developed over the last 24 or so months. I am one of those lucky people that could say that I was able to quit and stay sober in my first attempt. Many people are not as fortunate as I was and I could understand to an extent why. Alcohol pushes you into a dark and secluded space which only seems to get smaller and smaller by the day. Sooner or later you have to face your demons and choose what matters the most to you. I choose to live and spend more time with the people I love and care for. Today, I’m alive to share my story with my fiance and many others who are keen about how I was able to get out of this dark hole. Getting myself to admit that I had a problem with alcohol was definitely the hardest part of this journey. Fortunately, I was also accompanied by experts and many family members who were truly invested in my recovery. When I was at my lowest, I would often think about the people who choose to put their time and efforts in me. I had a very strong feeling about returning the favor to those lovely people and it encouraged me to take a stand against alcohol. I never went back to my old job and decided to turn my career into a completely new direction. I’m making less money than what I used to back in the day but I’ve never been happier knowing that my health is in my own hands now. 

There is no doubt that the air around alcoholism has been stigmatized in the last few decades. This not only spread mis-information but also hampers the reach of safe drinking practices. In a world where mental health doesn’t get the attention it deserves, I think I was fortunate enough to be in the company of people who were open to dealing with unconventional issues. I can safely credit my life to these people who stepped up to pick me when I had fallen down. I know I can’t go back and change the mistakes I committed in the past but sharing this story with others empowers me to take a stance against alcohol in the future and encourage others to do so as well. 

This is a reader story. We believe in providing our readers with a space for them to share their story however they see fit. The thoughts and views expressed are that of the author and should be treated as such. If you wish to share your own stories please see here for more information.

The author wished to remain anonymous.

As someone who loves reading, I understood addiction from a very young age. There was a point in my life while growing up where I read books just for the pleasure of it, and then it got to a point where I read books because I could not get through a day without reading one. At the beginning of it all, it was difficult to see the difference from how I was from when I just read for pleasure to how I was when I read as a necessity. The same confusion was present when I became an alcohol addict. A distinction can be easily made from a person who drinks and a person who is addicted to alcohol but to the person in question this is a rather hard distinction to make. 

As a young girl I could never understand why people became addicts in the first place. In my mind it seemed like a very simple thing to rationalize, it did not make sense to me why would a person capable of rational thinking, choose to be an addict when they have seen the various negative effects that an addiction to substances has on people and the communities they live in, but as I grew older I realized that people do not just wake up and decide to be addicts, they start and gradually they become one. I grew up in a very big family in the rather dull town of Newcastle in the province of Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa. My mother passed away when I was 2 and a half years old, and I had to be raised by my grandmother. Both my uncle, my aunt and all their children lived in my grandmother’s house. There was a total of nine children in the house with age differences raging from 2-5 years. This meant that we were all around the same age and were all left to the care of our grandmother most of the time as my aunt worked, my one uncle was an alcoholic who spent most of his time in shebeens (illicit bar/club) then he did at home, my other uncle operated a shebeen of his own from our yard and he too was drunk most of the time. As my grandmother was old and there were so many of us, it was hard to instill discipline and to keep up with what each child was getting up to. We were not wealthy or any close to being middleclass, but I wouldn’t say we were poor either as we could afford most necessities. 

My cousins and I had a lot of freedom for children as young as we were. We were allowed to come and go as we pleased and do things that most children would normally get in trouble for as there was no one to check on us. I was always the most responsible one of the bunch, when my cousins were out in the streets, I would be at home cooking and ensuring that my grandmother was well taken care of. I was also very gifted in school, and I worked hard to have good grades because I wanted a way out of that environment, and I knew that education was the only option for me. My brains and good head for numbers is what made my uncle entrust me with the duty of working the counter in his shebeen when he was too drunk to do it himself. I was 13 when I started working the counter at the shebeen and two of my cousins aged 14 and 16 were also recruited by my uncle to serve drinks. 

I had never drunk before, and I had vowed to myself that I would never become an alcohol addict as I had seen from my uncles what it does to you and the people around you. Both my uncles tended to be violent when they were under the influence and because I knew that was not who and how they were when they were sober, I hated alcohol and wanted nothing to do with it because I knew it changed you and made you into someone you are not. I believe it will come as a surprise that I started drinking within a year of working at the shebeen. My work was behind the counter but my cousins who served drinks would empty the beer left over from customers and drink it. they tried to give me some and convince me to steal some beers for them but to no avail until they succeeded. 

I remember the day I started drinking as if it were yesterday. At school, a girl came to me to speak to me woman to woman and she told me that I should stay away from her boyfriend and to make me remember she gave me a very hot slap. I remember getting home that day crying from both the physical pain of the slap and the emotional pain of being betrayed by my first boyfriend. When I told my cousins, they told me that the only thing that could make me feel better was a cold beer and a cigarette and just like that I agreed and a plan was formulated that during our evening shift at the shebeen, I was to steal 3 beers for each of us and cigarette to share. The plan succeeded and it was on that day that my rollercoaster of a relationship with alcohol began. The drinking started out small because I had to be careful to ensure that my uncle did not notice the shortages in his stock. We would steal a beer or two during our shifts and at times I would rob customers off their change when they were too drunk to notice in order to cover the cost of the beers I took from stock for myself and my cousins. 

As time went by my eldest cousin came up with a new plan for us to get more alcohol for ourselves without being at risk of being caught for stealing stock by our uncle. As she was older and looked womanlier, she received a lot of attention from the male customers in the shebeen. She suggested that she will allow the customers to touch her when they are drunk, flirt with them and then ask them to buy her drinks. We had to wait for my uncle to be drunk enough and pass out before we carried this plan and boy did it work. We always had enough alcohol and cigarettes from then on and sometimes we would share some with our other cousins and our friends at school. 

By the time I turned 15 I was a regular drinker, and I was drunk almost every weekend. Surprisingly I continued to do well at school and my drinking did not disturb me from my duties at the shebeen. I believe it was for this reason that I did not realize that I may have a drinking problem because drinking did not seem to disturb me in anyway and so I drank even more. When I turned 16, I started dating an older boy who introduced me to partying and cannabis, at that time I was already addicted to nicotine and not a single adult in my household seemed to mind the fact that we were smoking. 

When I started partying is when things started to go downhill. I would get so drunk that I would black out and I engaged in unsafe sexual practices. I contracted multiple STI in my teenage years, but I never got pregnant. I ended up concluding that I must be infertile because all the people around me who were living the same life I was living were already teenage mothers of 1 or more children. I drank in school; I drank after schools and sometimes I would skip school to hangout with my boyfriend and his friends to get drunk and smoke weed the whole day. None of this seemed like an issue to me, the reason I had hated alcohol in the first place was because my uncles were violent drunks, but I wasn’t violent when I was drunk. I was happy, friendlier, and kinder than usual and so I figured that drinking was not such a bad thing after all, it depends on how a person chooses to behave when they are under the influence. I did have regrets for decisions I made while drunk, such as having unprotected sex with people I barely knew but I always seemed to come up with some excuse to convince myself that I did not have a problem, I was simply living my best life. 

My marks at school started to drop and when I reached the 12^th grade I was under a lot of pressure because I had big dreams for myself and I knew that as a child who had been known to be gifted in school her whole life, there were a lot of people who were counting on me to do well. My teachers, my family, and members of my community. I worked hard but with the extra stress I drank even harder. The weekdays were for schoolwork and weekends were for being blackout drunk. I continued with this behavior until I graduated high school. In that summer, I was overjoyed about graduating with good marks and being accepted to study at a prestigious university and it called for a celebration. 

I was now allowed to drink at the shebeen as my uncle considered me to be old now that I had finished school even though I was not yet 18 years old, the legal drinking age in South Africa. I was drunk and high almost the whole summer. One day I went out drinking with my friends and I got so drunk that I fell in the middle of the street and could not get up and I was almost hit by a car. I suffered a head injury from the fall and was hospitalized for 3 days. That is when I started to realize that I might have a problem because in those three days I spent at the hospital all I could think of was my next drink. I tried to reduce my alcohol intake when I got back home but it was really difficult. what served as a wake up call for me was the day my uncle died in an alcohol related incident. 

I was coming back from a party in the early hours of the morning and my friends were dropping me off. When I got off the car, I realized that my uncle was on the other side of the road barely able to stand up straight on his own. I started laughing at him and told him to stay put, I would cross as soon as there were no more cars and help him cross. I too was drunk but at least I could still stand. It appears that my uncle did not hear me saying he should stay put or he simply chose to ignore me but in a blink of an eye, he had stumbled into the road and got hit by a passing bus. I stood rooted at the spot, and I could feel all the alcohol rushing out of my body. He did not die instantly; he was in a coma for months and then he passed. Losing my uncle was really hard for me and part of me blamed myself for his death because I felt that maybe, had I been sober, I could have been a lot quicker to cross and go help him cross the road. After my uncle’s accident I realized that I had a drinking problem and so did most members of my family and I knew that staying there would only make the situation even worse. 

So, I left for Johannesburg as soon as the university opened. I had taken a vow that I will stop drinking because If I did not, I would end up just like my uncle or lost with no future living for my next drink. Staying sober was difficult as the university lifestyle consisted of an active drinking culture that was very tempting. I soon realized that I would not be able to stop on my own and so I decided to attend the university’s counselling division where I was able to talk to a therapist on a weekly basis. That seemed to help for a couple of months but when I failed some modules at the end of the year, I relapsed and started drinking again. In my second year at university, I was part of the club culture, I dated older, foreign men so they could buy me drinks in the club, and I went back to engaging in unsafe sexual practices. 

After feeling sick for about a month, I tested positive for HIV and aids in September 2021 and that is when I knew that I had to choose whether I wanted to live, or I wanted to give my life away to alcohol and to allow this disease to kill me. I decided that I still wanted to live and that the only way I could live was if I stopped drinking and for real this time. My grades were bad, and the school advised me to dropout because there was no way I could still pass the semester. I dropped out and came back home, started receiving treatment for HIV and started attending the Alcoholics Anonymous program in my Town. This month marks my fifth month of sobriety and I if I said it was easy, I would be lying. I still wake up everyday feeling like the only thing that could make my day better is a drink, but this means that every day I must make the decision to be sober. I know the pain that alcohol has brought to me and my family, the dreams that I have to delay and the diseases that I have contracted. I know the life I want to live, and I know that I do not want to go back to being the person I was. So, every day I wake up and I choose to be sober.

This is a reader story. We believe in providing our readers with a space for them to share their story however they see fit. The thoughts and views expressed are that of the author and should be treated as such. If you wish to share your own stories please see here for more information.

Most people, when they think of Greece, they picture blue seas and beautiful islands, with hospitable, tanned islanders ready to welcome them. But they also think of the financial crisis. My life was greatly affected by it, leading me to develop an alcohol addiction, but also travel to places I would have never gone to otherwise. Ι am Anna and this is my story.

I was fortunate enough to be born in a middle class family with a stable income. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father a successful shop owner. Both of them seemed like very moderate people in all aspects of their life and behavior, without any visible signs of addiction. My life on the small island we lived was normal, if a little boring. I reached my teenage years protected from all the threats children in the big city have to face. And prevented from learning to protect myself, it seems.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hit Greece, everything around me changed. Businesses closed left and right, and many left to pursue their luck in northern Europe. Prices went up, people became tense and unsure. My parents started snapping at me for every little thing, to the point where I dreaded going home after school and always tried to stay out of their way. I was fourteen then and thought they hated me, that’s why they had stopped giving me pocket money that year. I saw my mother drinking wine every night before bed, but I brushed it off as normal, never having been warned about addiction and wine being considered as very light, along with beer. My father spent increasingly more hours away from home. Soon, I started asking her to pour me a glass every night, and she always obliged, saying “just a small glass for you”. We bonded over this nightly ritual. She would tell me stories of her youth and sometimes cry. She was much nicer to me when she was drunk than when she was sober. That went on for months.

Then, an afternoon after school, I met a handsome older boy in a park, where people our age used to hang out. His name was Andrei and he came from Russia with his parents when he was little. I fell in love for the first time and he seemed to return my feelings. We started spending everyday together and he was impressed by how casually I downed a whole bottle of wine, bought from money I collected by returning empty bottles I found. I knew it and purposefully drank more than I wanted, so that I would look cool in his eyes. It became like a challenge between us, and a reason to be ridiculed by our peers. Because in Greece acting as a drunk, walking funnily and vomiting, and all things drunks do, is considered the peak of uncoolness. Most people take pride in drinking just enough and acting normal when intoxicated, they believe it shows strength of character. Andrei, both of his parents being heavy drinkers, didn’t care about such things. I attached myself to him like a parasite and we started to develop interests which were very different from those of our age group, such as juggling and playing reggae music with acoustic instruments. Of course none of these things could take our attention off alcohol, it was the most thrilling of all, because it was illegal. Not that we had any difficulty in finding it. Even today, most shops sell everything to anyone with the money to buy it, without asking for identification.

One day in summer, my parents told me that they had made a very important decision. They would move their jobs to mainland Greece, where there are more financial opportunities for them and cheaper rents. Naturally, I went mad with anger at them, because this move meant that I would lose Andrei. I was desperate but whatever I said was not enough to convince them and a month later we moved. It was as if I had left my very soul behind on the island, I became still like a statue, unwilling to do anything, even eating seemed like a chore. Only two things could snap me out of it for a while. Alcohol and speaking with Andrei. My parents were too busy to pay any attention to me and had started to act even more distant and somehow suspiciously, like they had something to hide. I started school that year again, barely attended it, and took to wandering around the big, unknown city and getting to know its neighborhoods. I was happy to find some people who also played music and juggled, something I couldn’t have dreamt of in my island. But Andrei and his sad blue eyes were always on my mind, and I was unable to chase them away with alcohol. By then, I had moved on from wine to tsipouro, a drink containing 40% alcohol, which was never meant to be drunk from the bottle, but instead in a single shot glass, along with a glass of water and some meze, savory treats. And of course with friends, not alone.

Four years passed in that way, and I became eighteen, and involved with the local alternative scene. There were many squats in the city and foreigners coming and going. I had long stopped speaking with Andrei, because the very thought that he was so far away and we could not be together made me very sad. Instead, I had as many one night stands as possible with different men. Just sex without feelings and then I would forget about them. Until two years later I met one that I couldn’t possibly forget. His name was Jan, he was Czech, and he had the same blue eyes like Andrei, and the same, if not worse, drinking habits. He was twenty five and had been kicked out of his home by his father, who was ashamed of his drunk son. He had hitchhiked all the way to Greece with a simple goal in mind. To find a warmer place in which to be homeless and drink himself to death, like he thought a proper punk should do. He was the most self destructive person I had ever met. The perfect substitute for the one I really wanted. But while he told me he’s not interested in a relationship with anyone, he eventually changed his mind and we became a couple. Two people who seldom talked to each other, just had sex and shared a bottle after another of wine, beer, retsina, tsipouro, ouzo, whatever we could get on our hands on. We begged for money sometimes, other times we busked and people tossed us coins. And since I still lived at home with my parents, every night I pretended that I was very tired and went home, chewing cinnamon gums to cover the stench.

When summer came again, my father left us. It turned out that he owed money to several people and a bank, because of a previously unknown to us gambling addiction. He had to close down his shop and was too ashamed to talk about these things to us, so he just skipped town. I couldn’t care less at the time. I didn’t need him , I barely even talked to him anyways. I believed I could just keep on juggling and playing music in the street forever, and never have to pay rent because I would live at home with my mother or in squats, always happy, with a bottle in hand. The bottle was the main accessory everywhere we went, and we took pride in all things associated, like our hands sometimes shaking. It was like being with Andrei again, only I talked about my interests with other people and kept Jan around just for his looks, drinking and sex. I told him about my family problems and he didn’t show the slightest interest, he acted like he had heard these things over a thousand times in his life. “But my mother is so sad! She keeps drinking, and she wants me to find a real job, now that I am done with school for over two years!” I told him. “But there are no jobs here. Go with me to Czech Republic if you want to have a good time”. He told me. At first I found the idea ridiculous. What would I do in such a cold place? 

I sat down to talk with my mother. It seemed ages had passed since we last did that, with us trying to hide our addiction from each other. I told her that I wanted to travel with Jan, and to my great surprise she agreed, probably to be rid of me. We didn’t have much money so we had to hitchhike. A month later we were on the highway, heavy backpacks on us, thumbs out trying to get a car to stop. 

The journey lasted less than two weeks and we didn’t meet any dangerous people on the road. We made some money in every country we passed. The summer heat, fatigue and thrill of traveling helped both of us to be more sober than we had been in a long time, although that meant that we had many fights. Sometimes I thought that we can barely stand each other. We passed through many countries, busking to make some money on the way. At last we arrived in his small hometown, surrounded by a beautiful forest. He was well liked there and the first thing people did was invite us out to a pub. It was nothing like the bars in my country, with many people sitting at long wooden tables instead of the tiny round tables I was used to. I discovered that beer was literally as cheap as water, and of excellent quality. We stayed at different houses every week and continued in the same style, not caring about finding a job anymore. I was introduced to a kind of ersatz rum, tuzemak, and slivovice, which was so similar to our Tsipouro. People bought me drinks just to talk to me because I seemed exotic to them and I was feeling like I was in heaven. I was introduced to people both rich and poor, and noticed that the rich ones preferred more, I suppose, international drinks, such as whiskey and gin, while the poor ones drank local stuff. I felt more comfortable with the punks of this small town than with anyone else, and they were friendly and nice to me, even though each had their own share of problems.

A beautiful cloudless night we sat on the bridge, a small group of about six people, legs dangling over the river which was silver from the moonlight. It was unusually warm and I liked that, as I couldn’t get used to the cold at all. We had a bottle of tuzemak and a bottle of coke, which we mixed in plastic cups and drank to the middle. We sang and talked about the sea, which some of them had never seen, having lived all their lives in a landlocked country. We agreed to visit a pub to play cards later. Suddenly, I started feeling very dizzy, which was unusual for me after such a small amount of alcohol. “Probably the height, don’t look down”, Jan told me. I suddenly felt an urge to throw up and use the toilet at the same time. I walked behind a bush while everything was spinning and messily did it there. Then followed the group to the pub. Nobody paid attention to my state. The first thing I did was run to the bathroom immediately, and I sat down on the toilet without even checking to see if it was clean or not. There was a small sink right next to it and I puked what seemed to be my guts out. There was a bitter taste of what I thought was stomach acid. When I stood up there was blood in the toilet, a lot of blood. People were angrily pounding on the door, because I must have been inside there for ages. I left the mess as it was and walked to the house where we slept that week, without saying goodnight to anyone. Nobody came after me. I passed out on the couch.

The next day I was bleeding heavily until the afternoon. Every quarter of the hour, I ran to the toilet with diarrhea and some weird movements inside my belly, like clenching, that I had never seen before. The blood that came out of me was like pieces, some of it. The pain was great, and unfamiliar. It didn’t take me long to realise I was having a miscarriage. Jan seemed annoyed and at some point left me alone and went to the park to enjoy the sunny day. He told me to go find him if I feel better.

My feelings for Jan vanished that day, along with my ‘cool punk girl’ attitude. I felt overwhelmingly guilty and wanted to punish myself for what happened. After some hours passed and the pain started to go away, I lit a cigarette and extinguished it on my forearm, to feel pain once more. Then lit it again. And again. And again. But punishing myself wasn’t enough. Somehow, I didn’t give up completely. I also wanted things to change, there was hope in this too. I had a shower and ate a little. I admitted to myself that I didn’t need a man like that, who didn’t love me at all. I wanted to stop hiding my insecurities inside a bottle. And something I had never thought of before that day. I really wanted to have a baby, to make up for the loss. But I didn’t want to go back to Greece. I decided to try my luck in a place similar enough, but with better opportunities.

I ran away the next day, taking only the bare minimum with me, as I was too weak to carry more. An embroidered pouch with my documents, some cash, a change of clothes, a sleeping bag and my guitar and juggling toys. I should have said goodbye to the nice people of that town, but I couldn’t bring myself to see Jan again.  Damn you! Damn you, you insensitive jerk! I thought, in rhythm with every step as I walked out of town. 

I reached Spain in two weeks’ time. By then the bleeding had stopped but I had trouble with withdrawal symptoms. I hadn’t touched alcohol since that night on the bridge, and while it was pure torture, my determination was strong. I was almost unable to sleep or even think rationally but dreamed with my eyes open, maniacally, about all sorts of things, planning a good future. I didn’t have much luck with hitchhiking but I took trains without buying a ticket, and tried to sleep on benches and under bridges. Very often people gave me food, although I rarely felt hungry. My stomach was all weird. I finally found a town in southern Spain, which was warm enough for me, and very beautiful. I decided to stay there.

Months later, I managed to collect quite a lot of money by playing music. The people of this town and the tourists liked my songs. Things were finally looking up! People mostly left me alone when I told them my story, maybe because it was too sad for them. I met some couples with children and got an idea of how it is to raise a child. But unfortunately, I had also resumed drinking, although not as much as before. I had to stop the panic attacks that I was experiencing for the first time in my life, surely due to abruptly quitting. It also didn’t help that drinking in squares with friends was even more common in Spain than it was in the other places I had been to. I was amused when I discovered that this activity even had a name, botellon. And alcohol was almost as cheap there as in Czech Republic, but easier to find, because of the many tourists buying bottles and then leaving them everywhere half full. Many nights I found myself collecting them, filling my backpack with them and taking them to my place, a small room a bit out of town that was cheap enough for me to pay, then inviting people to drink with me.

In November of that year I had an unexpected but very welcome surprise. A long email from Andrei that made me extremely happy. He wrote to me that he had started seeing a therapist some time ago and gotten sober, that he had moved to the city I had lived in before I started traveling and that he had found a good job there. Also that he missed me and wished I could visit him. All this seemed ideal. I never stopped loving him, but I was scared of how self destructive we could be together. I answered his email and told him everything that had happened since we had last spoken. We exchanged emails for weeks, hesitating to call each other, as if the sound of each other’s voice would have been too much to bear. In the end we decided to try to be together again. I couldn’t wait to go back to Greece after that. Fortunately I had saved up enough money, and was able to fly back instead of hitchhiking.

In the end everything worked out. I moved in with Andrei in the small flat he was renting and he showed me how to apply for free therapy and government benefits. It was difficult, but living with a sober person is wonderful if one is trying to be sober too. The therapist also helped me face my problems and deal with the past, and I was prescribed medication that eased my withdrawal symptoms, so I wouldn’t have to handle everything by myself. Little by little, I stopped drinking. I found a job in a cafe and I was happy working there. It gave me something to do. Then I got pregnant.

Pregnancy was a scary experience for me, because for the whole nine months I was afraid I would lose the baby, that after years of alcohol abuse, my body would not be strong enough to carry it. Not drinking was not a problem at all, as I had already quit earlier and the hormones making me nauseous helped, too. When I saw people drinking in parks and squares I felt a bit of nostalgia but then reminded myself of all the things that are a thousand times more important. Our baby was born healthy and we were both very happy and in love, but then, not even a month later, the pandemic hit Greece and I was devastated.

Stuck at home with a newborn, being afraid of going out and unable to meet any friends made me feel really down. Nothing in my town seemed familiar anymore. While before the streets were full of music and life, now there was silence and people gathering in secret. My friends and I talked a lot on social media and joked about the time there was fifteen of us drinking from the same bottle. Of course there are people who didn’t have to change their habits at all, as they used their wealth to selfishly ignore the new laws and party in secret in their own private spaces. Not us, though. I found myself sticking to the rules for the first time in my life. Having a baby depending on me changed me for the best. Time passed quickly with work and a happy home life. I even started meeting my mother again, who to this day continues drinking. The difference is that now that she is happier, she prefers to drink with her friends instead of alone, and they do it on video calls. It’s quite interesting how things change, and middle aged people who had no contact with technology suddenly became so modern.

So, two years later, things are not back to normal yet but much better indeed. People still hang out in squares and drink, but in a more hygienic manner, using their own bottles and single use cups. And our baby is a toddler now! We recently celebrated his second birthday, got covid and healed, and started daycare. I have been sober for more than three years now and I trust myself I will keep on, no matter how hard things might get. Because I have sworn that my boy will have a happier life than any of us. 

This is a reader story. We believe in providing our readers with a space for them to share their story however they see fit. The thoughts and views expressed are that of the author and should be treated as such. If you wish to share your own stories please see here for more information.

Hey! Hope you are well! You know, I am really looking forward to 30th July 2023! You may wonder why? Well, on 30th July 2023, I will complete a decade of being sober! This is my story of how I went from one extreme of not drinking alcohol at all to the other extreme of sipping vodka shots for breakfast and finally how I battled my alcohol addiction.

It all started back in 2007 when one of my friends got me introduced to drinking beer. I come from an extremely religious family, where even talking of liquor is prohibited, forget drinking it.

I was curious and wanted to fit in with my friends and be the cool guy… So II drank a full bottle of beer and from there began my endless journey with alcohol. Another friend introduced me to whiskey, vodka, rum, gin and a range of cocktails. Now I loved getting drunk! 

After all, I had gotten a high-paying job in a perfect organization. The fantastic state of being high and forgetting all the troubles of life turned me into a drunkard. What I didn’t realize was that I attracted all the wrong kind of friends and relationships. 

I had a girlfriend whom I loved, deeply. She was a wonderful person and always asked me to stop drinking. The reason was she had lost her own father at age 5. Her father was an alcoholic whose liver gave up on him and there was nothing they could do to save him.

I understood her trauma, but I couldn’t stop myself from drinking. We had several fights over this, and one day she had an emotional outburst in public. She started weeping and humiliated me in public. I was ashamed of myself. We broke up and I started drinking even more. About 6 months later, drinking vodka shots for breakfast had become my routine now.

Slowly, my health started deteriorating. I lost interest in things that I used to enjoy doing earlier. I had to have a glass of alcohol every day or else I wouldn’t function properly.

Furthermore, I started skipping work and that led me to lose my job eventually.

One day, I fell extremely ill. I couldn’t even stand straight. I thought I was about to die. 

Not only that, but I had a terrible abdominal pain and my head felt like it is about to burst any moment. I somehow mustered the courage and called up a friend of mine to come and take me to a doctor. Thankfully, he came and took me to the doctor.

After running a few tests, the doctor said I was suffering from fatty liver disease. The doctor said that if my liver is still good and functional, and it can be saved from cirrhosis if  I  give up alcohol now. He said that it is nothing short of a miracle that in spite of my alcohol habits the liver is not in a bad shape. It could get worse if I continued drinking. He told me that if I continue the pattern, then my liver could start deteriorating, lead to cirrhosis and finally death.

I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. When the doctor said those words, it froze me, and it was like someone snapped me out of a dream. But, I didn’t give up alcohol just yet…

After I got back home, the doctor’s words kept playing in my head. My friend told me to relax and put belief in me. He advised me to join a gym with him and start exercises. The doctor had suggested getting some exercise to get rid of the fat I had accumulated. I was hesitant initially, but then because of my friend’s consistent efforts, I got to the gym. It took him about 3 weeks of consistent persuasion to get me to the gym to train with him. Now, I am so thankful for that! Slowly, I started liking the feel I got from and exercising. 

I learned that when you exercise, you release endorphins and that feels so good! Although, my addiction for alcohol had not subsided yet. I was still feeling that urge to go have a drink.

Ever since my visit to the doctor, I had taken a drink alternate days. However, it was a week since I was training in the gym that I didn’t take a sip of alcohol.

I was surprised that I went without alcohol for a week! I was so happy about this achievement. A huge reason for this was that I cut contact with my old group of friends.

I just let myself be alone and not hangout with anyone. I went to the gym, prepared my meals and slept 7 hours. Following this routine for a week made me extremely energetic. I felt like I was a teenager again. But then, it happened…. I saw my ex-girlfriend’s post on social media.

She was getting married to her new boyfriend. It hurt me and brought back all the feelings of hurt. Suddenly, a thought popped up in my head, the thought wanted me to have a drink.

I didn’t want to…but I couldn’t control myself. I had a bottle of vodka in a corner of my house.

But I didn’t want to take the shot, so my brain thought drinking it with soda and ice would be better. And for the first time in my life, I felt so much of guilt while making the drink.

In my mind I  saw my friend’s face who had worked so hard to get myself back together. I also saw my trainer’s face, and it felt so bad to cheat on them.

But I couldn’t stop myself from taking the drink. So I decided I will not drink a second glass.

And for the first time ever. I was able to stop myself from drinking a second glass. It was a moment of celebration in the midst of my lost glory. I was getting tempted to drink a second glass. So I just flushed the vodka down my toilet. Then sat in my bed and went to sleep crying.

The next day, I woke up feeling terrible about breaking my streak of 1 week. I checked my phone to see that my trainer had called me 7 times. I missed the session. Furthermore, I went to work and felt so bad about myself. I called up my friend, and he told me to calm down and said it’s okay. He said he was proud that I didn’t drink a second glass. Suddenly I had self-belief that I can defeat this addiction. On my way back home, I took a pack of 6 beers and 1 whole bottle of Vodka. 

When I got home, I emptied the bottle in the flush and kept the beers in the fridge. I don’t know why I did that. But it felt great. I then wrote down with a marker on a sheet of paper the following words “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE, IF YOU ARE SAD DO NOT DRINK, CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE INSTEAD”.

I stuck this right above my television and made a mobile wallpaper out of it. So every time when I saw my mobile screen, I would be reminded of this message. Initially, the beers in the fridge were kept as a backup for cases when I would be depressed and think I needed alcohol to feel good. But a few days later I flushed those too. Now, I thought this is me vs me.

I wrote down all that I had lost due to alcohol; a great job, an amazing girlfriend and self-respect. So now it was time to get my life together. I decided to stay active and train my body and mind as much as I can. I picked up photography as a  hobby, which I wanted to try from a long time, but couldn’t because I never had the money to buy cameras and lenses. Which was a lie because I had enough money and I spent it all on alcohol. I enrolled myself for meditation programs to understand and learn more about how mind works and how to get in charge of life in general.

This is where it all began to change. Just by sheer will and support from one friend and a fitness trainer, I was able to beat alcohol addiction. It was 30th July 2013 when I had that last drink. And it’s 9 years since that day that I haven’t even taken a sip of alcohol. It will be 10 next year! And I am so happy that I was able to stick to my resolve of not drinking alcohol!

This alone brings me a lot of confidence in my life. Whenever I feel I cannot do anything, I quickly think of the time when I was addicted to alcohol and how I don’t rely on it now anymore. Believe it or not, but it does bring self-confidence! And that makes life much easier!

Ever since I quit alcohol, I have been running multiple businesses. I never knew I had an entrepreneur hidden inside me. I met the love of my life, who doesn’t like to drink at all. She didn’t have alcohol addiction as such, but she just doesn’t like it. It’s not been a cakewalk and there have been depressing times and that little devil on the shoulder did pop up sometimes. 

He offered the drink to me, but I kept saying no. Through years of work on meditating and training my body. I can safely say I have beaten this addiction one day at a time.

Some may say that I am addicted to training and meditation. Well, trust me, it’s a much better addiction! I hope someday, television series, movies and general social media stop promoting alcohol in a way that it seems really important to live a happy life. 

We are being sold a wrong sense of happiness. Occasional drinking is fine, but not when the occasions occur often. The world around us is promoting alcohol use as if it’s water and nothing bad. This will never change, and we cannot control the world around us or the way a civilization thinks and works. What we can do, though, is change our selves. We have to work on ourselves every single day. If we have a support system in the form of good friends and family, then it makes it easier. But if we don’t have that, we still got ourselves. I know it will probably sound strange, but  it is not a difficult task to beat alcohol addiction. All we need to do is channelize our energies into something useful. We need to take into account of how we respond to life’s situations. We need to choose to respond and not have a knee-jerk reaction to everything and anything that happens in our life. Likewise, we will never be able to control what life throws at us, but we can control our attitude and how we respond to situations. 

Any type of addiction makes us dependent and restricts us from using our full potential. There is so much we can do as human beings, but we put ourselves in the victim mindset and forever suffer things over and over again. Instead, we can let go of the past and start a new journey within a few seconds. All it needs is a resolve and willingness to change.

To anyone who is reading, this… I hope my story has inspired you to stop drinking alcohol. 

If I can go from having vodka shots for breakfast to eating healthy breakfast. You can too!

I hope you won’t let alcohol addiction destroy your dreams, relationships and life. I hope you will find the courage and determination to quit alcohol and be able to turn this all around. 

Trust me, you can do it! Even if one person quits alcohol after reading my story, I would be immensely happy!

This is a reader story. We believe in providing our readers with a space for them to share their story however they see fit. The thoughts and views expressed are that of the author and should be treated as such. If you wish to share your own stories please see here for more information.

The author wished to remain anonymous.

My battle with alcohol truly began in 2009. I was 25, engaged to be married in February 2010, and was still young and stupid. One day, it was a Saturday, I went to the home of a guy I had met at the bank I worked at as Teller Supervisor. He had copious amounts of vodka, so I drank it and kept drinking it. In my naivete, I failed to realize the impact of drinking vodka would have on my senses. I was shit-faced drunk and should not have been allowed to get in my car, but no one cared to take away my keys and let me sleep off my drunken stupor. 

I hit the highway to head home. The next thing I remember is waking up to the sounds of a police siren and the carnage that my decision to drive while drunk. Apparently, I blacked out behind the wheel and hit a car with a family (including a child!) Thankfully, no one was hurt that night. I was arrested on the spot after the police officer had me try a balancing exercise to determine if I was under the influence. I failed miserably and fell to the ground. The next thing I know I was handcuffed (my first time), in the back of a police cruiser (my first time), processed at the station (my first time), and thrown into the drunk tank for six hours to sober up (also my first time behind the cold steel bars of a holding cell). What a terrible night of firsts

This was truly only the beginning of my downward spiral and dependence on alcohol. After getting married, I was fired from my cushy job at the bank because I did not notify them of my DUI arrest. I then had a court date where I was sentenced to a suspended sentence of six months and three days in an adult detention center. Life really sucked. I had just been married. My life was supposed to get better. But because of the mistake of driving while highly intoxicated, my life was spiraling downwards. Losing my cushy and high-paying job in banking came as a monumental fuck-up. My confidence was affected and I felt like a failure.  I became depressed and would work odd jobs to make ends meet and pay our bills. I was so depressed, it was a very dark time for me. There were many times that I thought about ending my life.

It was in this severe depression that I would turn to the one thing in my life that made me numb to the reality of my shitty situation. I would buy vodka after getting off from my odd jobs and drink on the way home. Not just drink, I would chug 98 proof vodka so I would really get numb and forget about my real-life problems. By the time I made it home I was good and hammered. I was a terrible partner to my wife. I would often be verbally abusive and oftentimes I was sick and puking my brains out in the toilet. This was the life I had given my wife. I was a complete fucking idiot and my wife stuck with me.

This “getting drunk from vodka after the odd jobs” phase continued for three years until the birth of my first daughter, Sariya (pronounced Sa-ree-ya), in 2013. That was motivation. Motivation to get my life back on track and be the father my daughter needs me to be. I applied for bank jobs. I finally landed a position as a Teller in 2014. It wasn’t what I dreamed of, but it was a start. After six months I was offered the role of Synergy System Administrator which came with a pay increase and a nice office. 

I was on the come-up. I was gaining confidence again that I might be able to regain my confidence, be a husband that my wife could be proud of, and be a good father to Sariya. In 2015, Sanya (pronounced San-ya), my second daughter, made her way into my life and I fell in love with living again. I was reinvigorated and thriving at work, at home, and depression permeated my mind less often. 

My reasons to give up alcohol included wanting to be there to love and guide my two daughters and wanting to make my wife proud of me again. It was only with the birth of my first daughter that I came out of this stupor I was in. I was made to face alcoholism head-on. I asked myself what kind of man/father I want to be. I am glad I still had the facilities to choose to fight the addiction. I was powerful enough to say NO MORE. No more feeling shitty and terrible in the presence of my wife and family because I had given in to the desire to become numb through alcohol abuse. My reason to defeat the demon was family. It’s important to find a reason or reasons to be.

The specter of alcohol still, even now, tries to rear its ugly head on days where I feel depressed for whatever reason. When that does happen, all I have to do is look at my nine-year-old and six-year-old for the strength to shun those weak thoughts. Family is first, family is the reason for my sobriety. What is yours?