My Struggle With Alcoholism

I never thought I would write about this publicly but it seems to be a topic that is under-talked about. Over the summer of 2018 and on and off throughout 2019, I have struggled with the demon of alcoholism.

I guess you could say it started with my diagnosis of Bipolar I back in 2014. Bipolar patients are likely to have a comorbid substance abuse problem.

It started in the spring of 2018: I had maybe had one budlight before that; alcohol just didn’t have that much of an appeal to me. But then the place to hang out with my friends, even Christian ones (not that I’m blaming anyone), became bars. I began to experiment with what types of alcohol I liked and didn’t like.

Soon, I took my drinking private. With my mental illness of bipolar making it hard to hold down a job or do anything consistently and the depressive side of the illness giving me hypersomnia, I’d wake up at around 10am everyday and go to the local Food Lion and buy a six pack of Blue Moon and drink it the rest of the day before going on a Tinder date and getting blackout drunk at night due to the meds I am on. I still don’t remember half of that summer. Now, you might be saying, it’s just Blue Moon, a 5% beer, and people my age are supposed to go out and have fun, but I tell you, in all seriousness, that I couldn’t function without alcohol. It interrupted my daily tasks and made me feel morally deplorable. My dad (whom I live with) had no idea because I hid the bottles in my room and took them to the garbage outside myself. I felt awful.

I was mixing the WORST medications with alcohol and absolutely did not care about the consequences. I thank God every day that nothing horrible happened, except for the alcoholism itself, that I had enough presence of mind not to drive while under the influence.

But eventually I grew tired of being dependent on a substance not prescribed by a doctor and went to my psychiatrist. I was brutally honest with him and he prescribed daily doses of Klonopin to combat the anxiety that he suspected was lurking beneath my alcoholism. The day I started my 3x daily doses of the medicine, I quit drinking completely. It was a miracle. I didn’t need it anymore. I slowly began to have just one drink at social events and had my drinking under control.

But around the winter time of 2018-2019 I became severely depressed, not being able to get over the pain of having had cancer and I turned to the bottle again. I also had horrible nightmares almost every night for a month before I realized that a glass of wine fixed it. But soon one glass turned into three nightly.

Today, I am two days sober and not planning on quitting my battle against alcohol-use. I just returned from Lifeway (Christian bookstore) with two books on overcoming addictions. I didn’t feel any shame telling the employee who helped me find the books that they were for me when she asked. I will not surrender for less than Jesus paid for.¹

Some people think that since I got through cancer I’m somehow immune to struggling with anything for the rest of my life. But I’m in the fight of my life and would absolutely be thrilled if you would pray for me. I called my sweet friend, Alyssa, today when I was feeling anxious and thinking about the bottle of wine downstairs. She told me to go to starbucks instead (the girl knows me well haha).

I will leave you with one of my life verses that I pray desperately through tears at night. It comes from the book of Isaiah, the 26^th chapter, the 3^rd verse in the English Standard Version. “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

If you struggle with substance abuse, you are not alone. There are resources and there are Christians (and non-Christians) who would be honored to help you through your dark night of the soul. There are mental health professionals and rehab facilities. Below are links to Alcohols Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

https://www.aa.org/

https://www.na.org/

https://www.nami.org/

¹ adapted from the song “Generous Portion” by Rosemary Skaggs

Trauma: The Aftermath, Or, How To Live Cured

“Trauma and grief can get stuck in your body.”

Suleika Jaouad

I recently had a panic attack, or a psychotic episode, I don’t personally know which. I will most likely discuss it with my psychiatrist on the Second of July. But sometimes I wonder if I have PTSD. I mean, according to the Mayo clinic I do. All the symptoms are there: “flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety.” Hello, from the girl who can barely leave her bed to go to the Starbucks down the road. Who drowns her grief in alcohol. Who takes sleeping pills and klonopin to hopefully dull the recurring nightmares.

When I got diagnosed with cancer, I honestly went blank. I didn’t respond at all. That’s what I do when something dramatic is happening: I zone out. All I remember is a single tear dripping down my cheek.

Today a friend recommended a podcast. I’ll admit, for the first two stories of this TED Radio Hour I didn’t really connect. But then the third story completely captured my attention. A girl of 22 years diagnosed with leukemia with a 35% chance of long-term survival. She went through years of treatment and eventually was “cured” but she said that “cured” wasn’t a state she knew how to deal with. She said that she didn’t know how to live life cured and that “Trauma and grief can get stuck in your body.” I immediately started weeping. The last six years since surgery have been the hardest of my life. Doctors say that trauma often instigates latent mental illness that otherwise might not have manifested. I was diagnosed with depression then Bipolar I, then was reported as being symptomatic of psychosis. But it all felt very connected to those months when I was sick and healing, before I was officially “cured.”

Suleika said she sometimes fantasized about being sick again, and I’ll admit that I do, too. To survive is much easier than to live. To live takes so much courage. Courage I often think that I lack. Like I wasn’t built for easy sailing but for rough seas. I only know how to cope, not how to live.

For a few months I’ve almost lived entirely in my bed, asking my dad to bring home wine after work to calm my nerves and stop my crying. Having completely abandoned the idea that I might ever work out again, friends and family gently suggest that I take a walk around my neighborhood. That would be lovely if I could even make the walk to the kitchen for food. On the weekends I typically stay one or two nights at my boyfriend’s apt. in Norfolk, the one drive I can always, unfathomably seem to make. Oh yeah, I don’t really drive anymore. I don’t know but the thought of driving more than ten minutes from home (minus my boyfriend’s) can almost put me in a state of hyperventilation where I sink deep into my bed, pleading with God to grant me the peace of nonexistence.

I don’t have a pretty bow to tie on this blog post. If you relate at all, please message me; I would love to talk. If you’re fine, healing, or cured, I pray you experience the peace that passes understanding and know the nearness of Jehovah Rapha, the Lord

Who Heals.

Grief

Hi. I’m not an expert on grief or a therapist or a psychiatrist or anything. But I have experienced trauma and tragedy and I have some thoughts on grief.  My one prayer for you, if I could only choose one, would be that you would feel not alone. Forget the Christian bullshit of, “You know you’re not alone.” When you’re in the throes of agonizing grief, you want to feel not alone. I remember when my cousin passed away and my whole family had gone up to Maryland a day earlier than me, I was sobbing because I didn’t want to be alone. I called a friend and asked if I could come over and sleep at her house, “I’m sorry, I’m going to a movie” (with a group of people including the boy she currently had a crush on). I was crushed by the rejection. I remember wailing that night. Wailing is in a category all it’s own. If you don’t know what it sounds/looks like, consider yourself lucky but brace yourself because none of us, unfortunately, escapes grief.

What sparked this blog tonight was a deep depression and me desperately listening to my favorite song in the world “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens. It’s about a teenage girl who gets cancer. It’s sad and haunting and beautiful. It has helped me deal with my grief since I was 16 years old, since before my own cancer, fortuitously. It has a whole new meaning now, but it will always be the song that got me through.

Life doesn’t have to be happy to be good. Full life can be experienced in the grief.

There is a God to scream at, to lay into, to lean into, to rest your weary head on. I believe it with everything in me.

But tonight, if you’re experiencing grief, I know you don’t want to hear about that, you want to experience it as a real, tangible, Savior-right-in-front-of-you.

Dear Lord, for the grieving, myself included, I pray they feel not alone. Thank you, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Nights like these are rough because all my unprocessed, unfelt grief catches up with me seemingly all at once. Oh, I've tried running through alcohol, sex, and drugs, but you always have to ante up and pay the price for your grief. I would say pour yourself a glass of wine and forget about what afflicts you but I know that will only work for a time but you'd soon become a full-fledged alcoholic. Feel the night as Strahan sings. I am so sorry if you are grieving. I pray you face it and feel not alone.

As I journey through my own season of grief, I just try to get by day by day. Tonight, as I lay down to sleep, I prayed, “Lord, sedate me.” Sedate me from the nightmares and sleep paralysis and insomnia and terrorizing thoughts. I don’t fully know your story but I’m sure we can relate on some level. I’m just making it moment to moment. Just like you. We can do this.

God bless. Love, Anna