Hi Everyone, I've just joined today, I was drawn to this thread as just this morning I was wondering how I managed to get away with not developing a major alcohol problem/ addiction ;).
I've pretty much self medicated all my life, although it's only recently I've recognised it as such. I used to comfort eat as a child from quite a young age, a pattern that I've struggled with during adulthood too. I also started to take valium at a young age and made the association between that and a 'happy feeling' very early on. My Dad was in the medical profession and was very much of the generation where there was a pill to cure all. He used to self prescribe a lot and in hindsight clearly had his own issues with substance abuse. He also had a drink problem and was a smoker, but gave both these up after a heart attack when I was very young.
Whilst I do take responsibily for my own addictions/ substance misuse, i don't think growing up in a household where taking medicine etc was 'normal' helped me. I think this along with what clearly is a genetic predisposition to addiction goes some way to explaining my issues as an adult although I realise it doesn't excuse them either.
By 14 I had started to binge drink and occasionally smoke weed as well, with both the intention was definitely to try and block things out and 'escape' into an alternative reality rather than to 'fit in'. By 16, I had started to dabble in other drugs that were around at the time- LSD, Ecstacy and amphetamines. I became pregnant with my eldest son at 17, and stopped all use of drugs. I often wonder now what that 'saved' me from, there was a huge problem with heroin where I lived at that time, at later on crack cocaine, and a lot of the people I hung around with ended up as heroin/ crack addicts.
At the beginning of my second violent marriage I started using drink in the evenings in an ongoing attempt to cope, something that escalated when I developed sever depression and anxiety. Despite this I was still very much 'functioning', I worked, brought the children up well and so on and was careful not to let my drinking interfere with this. I then got into a 'pill for everything' situation, whereby I'd use different things as a crutch to keep me going- caffeine to wake up, painkillers (codeine- I was on them for a chronic condition from my teens) to keep me calm and make life seem manageable, drink to relax, and sleeping tablets to knock me out.
I continued this pattern for the next 10-15 years throughout my marriage, to varying degrees. The drinking slowed down when I started to come out of the denial that prevented me from seeing my husband as abusive. I was also 'lucky' enough to develop a stomach problem that made drinking so painful it became not worth it. The pill taking continued for a long time, it took an accidental (third) overdose that very nearly killed me to address this, and I,m still on suboxone to manage this addiciton as well as venlafaxine to manage my depression, but I do hope to come off these too one day and be substance free but it's been a long and difficult process, the same with smoking.
My most dangerous brush with substance use was after I left my second husband. Because of the years of domestic violence and before that childhood abuse, my PTSD at that time was severe and as yet unrecognised (by myself and others). It took months for the constant feeling of 'fear' to abate. When it did start to, it had the effect of making the emotional numbness wear off. This caused racing thoughts I felt completey overwhelmed by and unable to make sense of, which would make me panic, then self medicate to create numbness that way instead. Around this time I made the mistake of getting involved with a man who I then saw as the 'love of my life', but inside now see as a predator who took advantage of my vulnerability. He was a 'former' heroin/ crack addict. In short, over the course of 18 months I started to dabble in various substances again, MDMA, cocaine, escalating to the occasional smoking of crack and heroin after to 'bring me back down' after. All of which I managed to justify to myslef somehow which seems crazy now. I was in despair at the time, and the coke/ crack had the effect of stopping the numb feeling and made me feel normal again. Then the heroin helped me forget afterwards. Thankfully, I eventually had the sense to see the truth as it was and ran from the hills, cutting all contact with him and that life. Which was the hrdest thing I'd ever done, but finally allowed me to come out of the denial I had been hiding behind all my life and start the long and painful process of recovery. The only alternative to that would have been my death, I've no doubt about that, my 9 lives were well and truly used up by that point, I just hope that living that way hasn't already limited my life span just when I have started to learn how to enjoy and actually live life. But I can't wallow in that, what's done is done.
Thank you for letting me share all that, I find writing very therapeutic but have become a bit bored with my own voice ;). I'm not proud of anything I've written here, but I've learned not to be ashamed as well as that helps nothing. Wishing you all love and luck with your own battles :) x
