Questions left unanswered in the bottom of a bottle..

Did I turn to drink because I was already damaged? Or did drink do this to me? My head feels dense and my thought processes seem to be rotting-I can feel myself becoming less coherent. Is it too late for me to turn things around? There is one feeling that remains which is so immense and consuming that the only remedy is to drown it out with copious amounts of that warm, thought-numbing liquid so readily available on nearly every street corner.
After all, after having pushed so many people away, what is the only thing you can rely on to distract you from the problems you face? Whilst loneliness is feared, it is also craved. The sacred kind of solace which leaves you free to drink to your heart’s content; regret and shame are minimal when there is only your reflection to judge you. I drink socially and to excess. When everyone else has made their way home, I’ll pocket the bottle of wine we shared and sneak off to the comfort of my own bedroom. If we are in a pub, I’ll cautiously find my way back to the bar between rounds and neck a few more safe in the knowledge ‘I’ve got one over’ on the rest of my drinking chums. House parties are easy pickings for me and perhaps the saddest but simultaneously hopeful thing about all this is that I am aware of how ridiculous I am behaving.

This blog is an account of my struggle with alcohol. Amongst the girls who we so often see in newspaper images of ‘binge-drinking’ Britain, there is one who is neither proud nor boastful of how battered she gets. Every day I am forced to remember and re-live the consequences of my drinking. Whether it is the scars on my wrists, my blotchy red face and yellow stained teeth, the keepsakes from relationships I’ve ruined or the empty inbox in my phone- there is no end to the damage I have done. However, amongst all this, I have hope and I want things to change.