A Year of Living Musically
As part of my healing journey, I’ve been focusing heavily on getting back to who I am. I read a theory that says addicts get ‘stuck’ in the phase of life they were in when the addiction took hold. I've no idea if there's validity to this theory, but I've very much been thinking about where I got stuck. For me, that time is my mid 20s. I transitioned from casual, typical weekend binge drinking in my early 20s to leaning on alcohol to ease my stress. In my early 20s: got married at 21, relocated to a new state and town, dropped out of college, immediately got pregnant and had a kid at 22, and received my first autoimmune condition diagnosis at 22. Drinking was still primarily limited to weekends, but the more life threw at me, the more my drinking amped up. I specifically remember the first time I got drunk by myself. Shame? Nope, I was so proud of myself for pulling that off and not getting caught. By the time I was 29 and had a second kid, I was a daily drinker. So retur