I struggle with substance abuse. I’ve done everything I could get my hands on, which wasn’t usually enough for a full-blown addiction, I think my chemical dependency would accept anything.
I started out with alcohol at 16, and cough syrup. I stopped for 6 months when I moved back home. Senior year I moved in with my older siblings and started drinking again, any time I could. My older sister would get me booze and edibles in exchange for babysitting. I honestly think she was enabling me so I wouldn’t hold her accountable for her own substance abuse issues and the havoc they wreaked on our lives. When I went to college, I managed to stay fully sober for about three weeks before I had a sinus infection and used it as an excuse to get back into cough syrup. I also started abusing NyQuil and Benadryl at that point. I have sinus issues, I’m in pain all the time, it just makes sense that I would gravitate towards that stuff. I moved home during the pandemic and went cold sober for 5 months, after which I turned 21.
For my 21st birthday I ordered myself a handle of cheap vodka on Instacart and hid it in my dresser in my brother’s living room, where I was living at the time. A couple nights a week after everyone went to bed, I would get drunk and watch Hannibal. I did this for about 4 weeks, getting so drunk I couldn’t stand up and passing out where I sat. No one ever said anything, so I have no clue if they knew or not. During the day I would just pretend everything was okay. I honestly can’t remember much besides that.
After I flunked out of college I stayed home with my mom at her new house, trying to figure out what to do next. I would go to my older sister’s house and binge drink over the weekends. I got crazy messy over the weekend of my birthday and spent 2 days hungover pretending I felt fine. My little sister got me back into nicotine because it was the only way I could see to bond with her, going out to smoke with her on the back porch. Sometimes we would smoke cigarettes, sometimes we would vape. I DID get a lot closer to her, but my mom threatened to not pay for my eye doctor anymore because nicotine makes glaucoma, which I have, worse. So, I successfully quit smoking about 2 weeks before Christmas.
Which brings me to current events. The most relevant being that I’m having a very hard time with my substance cravings. Lately I’ve been answering the impulse to abuse by substituting things that would make me high with things that don’t make me high. Like how I wanted to drink cough syrup this morning and instead I drank a bottle of water. I don’t want to just not do anything because it makes the cravings worse, it makes them all consuming to the point where all my energy is devoted to Not relapsing. So, I pretend that the healthy stuff is going to make me high, and my brain believes it for long enough that the Need Wave rolls past and I can get back to what I’m doing.