Un-Happy Hour

July 15th 2022.  This is the day everything came crashing down around me.  It also just so happened to align with a trip back home to visit my family.  I am not blaming my breakdown or breakthrough, as I like to call it, on my family. Not even close. But let’s just say the trip didn’t help my already fragile mental state. Perhaps it was less about the trip and more about the timing. If you take nothing else away from this blog or these words, take this with you.  If you feel like you are teetering on the edge of rock bottom, don’t go doing anything that you know will likely cause you to topple over that cliff.  However, had I not made the decision to go home when I did, unadvisable as it may have been, I may have never gotten to my personal breaking point in a safe enough environment to finally get the help that I so desperately needed. 

It all began when I embarked on some much-needed time off.  This would be the first real opportunity I had to do so since I had begun my new job in D.C.  Over the past year I had traveled a lot for work and had also been double tapped to fill another role in my command, so I was more than ready to unplug from it all for a while. The long hours and increasing workload had been pretty taxing on me lately; especially after completing two back-to-back deployments during COVID in a highly toxic and unhealthy work environment.  Looking back on it all now, I realize I had taken on this new role in a new city with a dangerously low battery.  I never really had the opportunity to decompress and re-charge after such an unprecedented and challenging sea tour.  To hide this fact from the world and from myself, I turned to the bottle in an effort to avoid facing my demons. I needed to press on. Too many people were counting on me, so I chose to continue coping the only way I knew how.

Upon my arrival in Georgia, I was immediately pulled in multiple directions. I continued to work and stress about work while on leave, which was pretty much the norm, and back then in my mind, that was just what needed to be done.  The people pleaser little girl inside of me wanted desperately to make everyone happy, but the adult women I had become knew, at least on an intellectual level, that I would never be able to. Those two versions of me could never seem to get on the same page.  In the end, you can’t satisfy everyone’s wants and desires. Trying is futile, and only leads to disappointment. In this case, it almost led to far worse. As the stress I was placing on myself continued to intensify, my ability to manage it became increasingly difficult.  As I said previously, I was already in an incredibly fragile state and although I couldn’t have known it at the time, by the end of that week I would reach my breaking point. 

I had become highly skilled at hiding my drinking from even the people who were closest to me. This week would prove to be more challenging, but still doable. I would sneak to the bathroom at my grandfather’s house and sip wine from airplane bottles hidden in my purse.  I would quietly excuse myself to go upstairs while staying with my aunt and uncle to raid the stash of alcohol I had hidden in my room. The small bottle of orange juice I sipped on while traveling back to Georgia from Alabama where we had been visiting was really more prosecco than juice. Looking back on it now, I can see how abnormal this behavior truly was. At the time, it just seemed necessary and after all, I deserved to be able to take the edge off. I earned my battle scars the hard way, and no one else could possibly understand why I was in such desperate need of the liquid in those bottles or why I felt so entitled to drink. They had not been through what I had, hadn’t seen the things I had seen, and had not experienced the pain that I had felt. 

 It didn’t matter to me that my 16-year-old daughter observed my frequent stops to the convenience store to restock on booze.  It also did not seem to bother me that she knew we were staying in an alcohol-free home, yet she watched while I snuck alcohol into my aunt’s home and disrespected the very family that so kindly gave us a place to stay, a place to come home to. At the time, none of these things mattered more to me than my desperate need and desire for alcohol. 

As my stress level intensified, my ability to hide my emotions and my unhappiness began to fade. I was teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown, and it would not take much to push me over the ledge. As fate would have it, on my very last night home, just such a moment occurred. One that night, my life became forever and irrevocably changed. 

It finally happened; I broke.  It happened after indulging heavily on booze after a particularly stressful evening, in a futile effort to mitigate the onslaught of emotions that were rapidly bubbling to the surface.   I had just spent the better part of a year numbing these emotions with alcohol while simultaneously taking medication that made such behavior not only dangerous, but life threatening.  Every ounce of my being wanted to find an end to the pain I had been burying deep inside of me.  My thoughts were not my own that evening and no matter how hard I fought to quiet the voices that were telling me that I could make it all go away right then and there, I could not make them stop.  That night for the first time in a long time, I prayed. I begged for help and knew that if I did not do something drastic, I would no longer be able to continue living the way I had been. This was rock bottom. It was now or never, and had it not been for my daughter being with me, I don’t think I would have made it through the night alive. I did not want that to be her story. I could not let that happen. 

That night was the longest night of my life. But, I made it to sunrise. With the love and support of my aunt and uncle, and with the help of a complete stranger who took time out of her day to sit with me and walk me through the initial steps of what would become a year long (life long) journey,  and with Jay by side after booking the first one way flight to Atlanta he could get on, I chose life. With their help and with the love and support of my daughter, I found the strength to stand up, put one foot in front of the other and take those necessary and life saving first steps.

I have learned so much since then and am continuing to learn and grow every day.  I now know that it is okay to not be okay. That getting help is a sign of strength and not weakness, no matter who you are and what your responsibilities may be. It is not only okay to unplug and take a break from whatever your current stressors are, but it is a vital necessity to your mental and physical health.  Hindsight is 20/20 and for those of you out there still thinking the world will stop spinning if you aren’t there to do this or do that, I am here to tell you that you are wrong. It won’t.. Take care of you while you can. The work will always be there, your life and family will not and you can’t get time back. 

Now that I have made it through what has undoubtedly been the most challenging and hard-earned year of my life, I want to take the lessons I have learned and use those to help others. Had it not been for the continued love and support of my family, friends, and fellow travelers, I would not be here today. As I begin year two of my journey, I want to pay that forward. My hope is that through sharing my story that my words will help inspire others to start the healing process and embark on their own journey to sustained mental and physical health and wellness.