People get sober in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they just quit on their own. Sometimes they go to rehab. They show up in 12-step rooms, ashrams, churches and their parents’ basements. There is no one right way—something we’ve aimed to show in our collection of How I Got Sober stories. While we initially published these as either first person essays by our contributors or as interviews with anonymous sober folks, we eventually began to realize that there were other stories to tell: yours. This is our reader spotlight and this, more specifically, is Brittney.
(We’ve broken Brittney’s story into two parts; check back next week for part two.)
Click here to see all of our How I Got Sober stories.
What is your sobriety date?
March 10th, 2014
Where did you get sober?
Scottsdale, Arizona
How would you describe your life before you quit drinking?
I became a very miserable person, I started suffering from anxiety and depression worse than ever. I was great at covering it up though. I pretended like nothing hurt me. If I went through a break up, I didn’t allow myself to be sad, I went out and got wasted instead. If I lost a job or had a bad day, alcohol was there to ease the pain. I would wake up feeling full of shame and regret, but I would laugh it off and keep going. I lost my grandma at the end of 2013, I took a short break from drinking, I focused on school and told myself I was going to make my grandma proud. But once the semester was done, so was my promise to my grandma. I was out of control, I drank every night and if I didn’t drink I started to shake. I ignored all the signs and just kept going. I was scared, but I had no idea how to stop. I had no idea who I was anymore, the person I became was an absolute nightmare but there was no turning back in my eyes. I knew it wasn’t going to end well.
What was your childhood like?
I had a normal childhood. I come from a very close-knit family. My parents spent a lot of time with us and made sure that we were happy kids. We did a lot of fun things and took family vacations together every year. They might have had problems, but I knew nothing about them until I was in middle school. I was always shy growing up so when I switched schools in 7th grade, it felt like the end of the world. I felt like such an outcast and spent most days in the counseling office crying and asking if I could go back to my old school where all my friends were. Once I got to high school, I started drinking and everything seemed to fall into place. I made new friends, I had a boyfriend, and felt like I finally found my place in the world. I was 14 when I had my first blackout. I went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning when I was 15. Those things didn’t slow me down. I drank every weekend, sometimes on school nights and sometimes I even drank at school. But I was doing things that my friends were doing, so I was just a normal high school kid in my mind.
Once I got out of high school, I started partying even harder. I blacked out more and more. My relationship with my boyfriend became very dysfunctional because of my choices. I missed all my classes until I eventually stopped going to college all together. I would quit jobs or just stop showing up because they interfered with social life. I lost one of my best friends when I was 18 years old, and that is one of the first times I remember turning to alcohol so I didn’t have to face reality. I told myself I was just like every other person my age, even though drinking didn’t impact other people’s lives the way it had impacted mine.
How did you rationalize your drinking?
I told myself I was just young and having fun. I told myself that I deserved to drink; if people had to go through the things I went through they would drink too. Things could be much worse; I am not a real alcoholic. I always had an excuse so I did not have to face my problems. I started dating my current boyfriend, and once again I sabotaged my relationship. It became very toxic. Both of my relationships had very similar problems, and most were caused by me. The people that I dated seemed to be the only ones that would tell me I had a problem, and when they would do that, I would get very angry and end the relationship. I chose drinking over people I really cared about, because I thought they were trying to control me. I can look back now and see that they saw a side of me that other people didn’t when I wasn’t drinking and that is why my problem was so obvious in their eyes. They only wanted to help me, but I didn’t want to be helped. Drinking and partying were priorities in my life and everything else took a backseat to it.
What do you consider your bottom, i.e. a defining moment(s) that made you seek help?
I hit plenty of bottoms, but I just kept going. I went to jail. I went to the hospital. I ended up in a detox. I almost died when I was 15, and I put myself in plenty of situations that could have killed me or other people. I was suicidal—so unhappy in my own skin that I did not want to be alive at times. I could have kept going and tried to see how far I could tunnel down that black hole. You hit your bottom when you stop digging. I finally was sick and tired of how I felt, so I stopped digging. I never want to go back in that hole. I woke up in a fog on my grandma’s birthday, a couple months after she passed away and I had this moment of clarity, which I believe was because of her, and I knew I needed help. I called my brother and asked him to help me get into a rehab in Arizona and I flew there the next day.
Check back next week for part two.
Click here to see all of our How I Got Sober stories.
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