the story

It probably began when I was born. Why is it that all boozers in recovery want to share their stories?! I'm no exception ... that's why I started this blog.

As a kid, I was very quiet, didn't make friends easily, good in school.In hindsight, I think I was already prone to depression or if I was just born with a melancholy mind. Lots of thoughts about religion ... always searching for something.

In my early teenage years, I had one, close friends. We drifted apart a little when she got a boyfriend and about that same time something happened. I don't know what, but my whole style changed. I started to hang out with a totally different crowd and I still remember clearly the night I had my first drink.

All my life, my mum had tried to scare me to death about booze, but that didn't help. Oh, I was scared as I took the first swig out of a bottle of brandy, but that soon went away. Had too much that night, but that didn't do the trick. It hit home with me. I had fun ... the parts I remember ... it felt good -- all of a sudden I could 'be myself'.

That was it! After that, it continued even though it was 'only' beer. Looking back, I realize that I always 'had to' drink much more than the girls same age, in order to get the same effect. My resistance threshold was high.

As the years went by, it turned out this was the funniest thing I knew of. When we talked about doing something fun this weekend that was equal to getting drunk. At least for me.

When you reach the age of around twenty, many of your friends start to getting married and start a family. Me, I hardly noticed that ... it was like I remained in the same age -- I only wanted to 'have fun', party. I had a good job, a nice home ... I had not yet come as far as getting bad consequences ... I never missed a day at work or anything. Sure, I was hung over but never so bad that I couldn't go to work. Mainly head-aches.

The love life was another story. That too was disastrous. Basically, I think it was a disaster because my whole emotional life was screwed up and all my decisions with regards to men, were based on booze compatibility. It seems you're automatically drawn to that type of men and they are drawn to you too. It's like you have invisible antennae very sensitive to booze.

After many strange, and screwed up, relationships, I got married in 1984 after only having known the man for three months. We moved away from the town ... far away, to boot and now the real disaster commenced.