Spent a good portion of this afternoon glued to my computer screen watching riveting videos on two great new local websites I've only just found out about.
www.likeadrink.org.nz and www.drughelp.org.nz is what they are.. there are probably versions of this type of site in countries all over the world, and I'm sure all of the experts behind them know that the most powerful way to get messages across is to use real people talking about their real experiences.
And oh boy.. what a bunch of experiences these sites contain. Person after brave person sitting there in front of the camera just talking about their using and what it did to their lives.. how they used to exist.. how crazy their lives got.. how bad and dangerous and miserable and shitty their lives got.
Mostly they seem to have gotten clean but there was the odd person that sounded like they were still using occasionally. Plus some people talking from a partners perspective. It was all very powerful stuff. I couldn't stop watching even though I'd decided to treat myself to some Keeping Up With The Kardashians until I had to collect the kids.
I was waiting for one of these people in the web videos to tell a story like mine - how they were a quietly secretly boozy housewife or bloke, a high functioning addict, seemingly fine from the outside but in reality not fine at all, just sinking loads too much piss all the time - but there weren't any 'high bottom' stories that I saw anyway.. but lots of 'to hell and back rock bottom' stories (if you know what I mean).
There must be thousands of people like me who were totally addicted but pulled the pin before the shit really hit the fan.. and I'm convinced there are thousands of people who are right now still locked in a private, miserable drinking hell like I was. It'd be great to reach out to those people and let them know that it is entirely possible to live a fun, full life without alcohol in it.
My biggest fear two years ago was that giving up booze would mean life would be boring all the time. And it's not. It's totally fine. Better than fine even. That's what I've discovered anyway.
Love, Mrs D xxx
