International Women's Day on March 8, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This year we are supporting the International Women’s Day call to #BreakTheBias. In our latest guest blog series Susan Laurie shares her experience of addiction, getting support, repairing relationships and the challenge of asking for help as a women experiencing addiction –it is a celebration of her recovery and shows that this is possible for anyone.
This International Women’s Day, I am sending a message of hope to anyone who is struggling with alcohol addiction. No matter how far down the destructive spiral you are, I want you to hear the message that you can beat this, you can fix your relationships – even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. It is never too late to turn things around and to get your life back – I know because I have been there.
Addiction can happen to anyone, and I’m a textbook example of how an ordinary person can progress through all of its well documented stages whilst firmly maintaining, ‘it will never happen to me’. The stealth-like nature of the disease ensured that by the time I and the people who cared about me realised that there was a problem, it had a vice-like grip on me that seemed impossible to release, as it gradually stripped away my dignity and self-respect and the respect of those I loved, and destroyed my most precious relationships.
After years of progressing down the spiral of dependency, I found myself in a very lonely place. In the end being awake was to drink and to drink was to pass out. Waking up at three in the morning and drinking to oblivion seemed completely normal to me. In the latter years, I woke up in hospital on a drip, not remembering how I got there, had run-ins with the police, hurt and lied to everyone I loved, embarrassed myself and those who cared about me and felt increasingly ill and dishevelled. My skin was grey, my hair was falling out, I was very thin, and my liver ached – but drinking alcohol was, by then, all that mattered to me.
This tragic and frightening existence evolved over the years from me being just a normal, fun-loving student then career woman, then loving mother, who liked a drink and letting my hair down. I now felt hopeless and heartbroken and accepted that I was going to die, but the thought of sobering up consumed me with fear. I had ‘failed’ in my attempts to get sober so many times, and I had hurt so many people. My hopelessness fuelled my addiction.
But I am here now, and I have been sober for seven years and my message is very clear. There is always hope. Hope that you can find support that works for you and that damaged relationships can be repaired and you can be a part of that.
Over the years I tried everything that you would expect a person to try to beat my addiction, counselling, rehab, AA… all with intensifying desperation. I now understand that the negative stereotypes associated with addiction, and especially for women experiencing addiction create a culture of blame which can be devastating to anyone trying to get and stay sober.
Stereotypes create a stigma, a judgement that a person is weak, selfish, or irresponsible. This is damaging enough to anyone who is struggling, but often women are judged even more harshly because this seems to go against our perceived roles as nurturers and carers in our relationships as daughters, sisters, friends, mothers… I know that this fear of judgement prevented me from seeking help sooner than I did. When we are trying to get sober, if an intervention doesn’t work, the blame culture suggests that we ‘aren’t trying hard enough’ or ‘don’t want sobriety’, which compounds feelings of failure and shame. And believe me, addiction thrives on shame...
So, if you are trying hard, but you are struggling, do not blame yourself. You are not weak, and you are not irresponsible. You just haven’t found the thing that works for you yet – but you will.
Sadly, this search for something to achieve sobriety coupled with the culture of blame, does not only allow the illness to progress, but it can also do serious damage to our most precious relationships. Those closest to us are there throughout our journey with alcohol, and not only tend to bear the brunt of the impact that alcohol has on our behaviour, but also have their trust and loyalty tested again and again. They believe us when we are optimistic that ‘this time will be different’ because they love and trust us, but everyone has a limit to their patience.
It may be a long time since I drank alcohol, but I do not have to try very hard to remember that gut-wrenching feeling of waking up after having drank after a period of sobriety, with a hazy recollection of upsetting and embarrassing special people and a realisation that I had let them down again. In a matter of moments, throwing away their trust which had taken me months to earn. Overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame and fear would create a renewed determination to try again, resulting in a vicious cycle of promises, relapse, damage, forgiveness…
Ultimately, over time, normality and relationships disintegrate. In the end after I’d made and broken a million promises, I realised that everyone had moved on with their lives and distanced themselves from me emotionally as a kind of self-preservation, because it was just too painful for them to be around to watch me self-destruct. I became frightened to sober up because I had lost the hope that they would ever forgive me. I could not bear to face that, and so alcohol eventually took everything and everyone that I held dear from me. The fear of sobering up and having to face what I had done to them was one of the things that kept me – and many people like me – drinking.
But I never gave up.
I somehow tapped into that inner strength that hadn’t been completely destroyed by alcohol and I never gave up searching and fighting to be free of my addiction. There are so many different solutions out there and you should never, ever give up trying to find yours. Something will work for you to get your life back.
Even I got sober. Even I repaired my broken relationships, and I want you to know and believe that you can too. No matter how bad things seem or how scared you are to face the people you have hurt, the people who matter will be kind. The people you love and who love you will be so glad to have the old you back. Things are fixable.
So, for yourself, as well as your loved ones, never give up. There is always hope and positive change is always possible.
Susan Laurie, is author of ‘Rock Bottom To Sober Forever’ and an associate at Alcohol Change UK. Find out more here.