*Trigger Warning* June 17, 2014
I was born into alcohol. Well, that is what it felt like looking back. My father was in the bar celebrating me while I was being delivered. The cycle of alcohol and dysfunction were waiting for me. It seems like the same old song and dance you hear from anywhere reservation North America. I never claim to have had a hard rough life. My family & friends have had hard rough lives. I just made really bad decisions. But like everyone around me I allowed alcohol to become my friend. I could always lean on the bottle whenever I didn’t understand what life was throwing at me or when I had to cope with something. As I grew older I saw a lot of the older generation of my family sober up and fly right. It just felt like now it was my generations turn to go through the very same thing.
It wasn’t until 2006 that my life began to slowly fall apart. I was making mistake after mistake and not caring about the consequences. I dealt with it the only way I knew how and that was to run. I ran right into alcohol. All the demons I thought I left behind were still haunting me. The more my life fell apart the more I denied reality. I thought the only thing holding me together was the alcohol. The deep dark pain inside would burn right through me. Alcohol gladly kept me in this cycle for many years.
There are things that I saw or was told that I can never share again. Those stories are not mine to tell. My story on the other hand would only gain momentum as the years went by. I developed high blood pressure and acid reflux. I developed pancreatitis. My liver would become severely inflamed. I would have severe panic attacks. There would be many drunken trips to the emergency rooms. There would be doctor after doctor telling me that if I kept drinking I would die. There would be many more trips to the detox center to sleep it off. There would be trips to the psych-ward. There would be angry doctors telling me it was busy because of ‘you people’ or doctors accusing me of going there to score drugs. I would come to and there would be guards telling me I couldn’t leave because my heart was acting up due to five times the legal limit of alcohol. Each and every time I kept drinking.
There would be pain. There would be uncontrollable crying. There would be black vomit. There would be black stool. There would be smashing a beer bottle slicing the long way down my arm. There would be sobbing phone calls to my mother. There would be angry drunken phone calls to my grandmother and aunties. There would be waking up in vomit. There would be faux suicide attempts. There would be ambulance rides. There would be fights. Those are some of the things I think about when I think of all the good times we had while we were drunk.
I eventually would hit a rock bottom. Of course this rock bottom was not by choice. I have been sober now for over three years. For some reason I wanted to share this part of my story for some time. I just never had the right words. I just never had the time. I just never wanted to feel it all over again. The male in the small clip below is how I was (the documentary is harsh but needed). There are some people in my life that are still very much stuck in this struggle. I know now though, that I cannot save anyone. I don’t even have an answer for you on how to stop drinking. I don’t even have any advice to anyone dealing with the same situations. I never want to be seen as perfect. I never want to be seen as having the perfect life either. All I can do is let go of my story. It just feels like it’s time.
Full Documentary: