Once a heavy drinker: Death is a Bitch!
Talking about things we are addicted to often help in stopping and or reducing them to a minimum level(for 60% of the affected persons, some do need a rehab), a counsellor once told me that after I lost my mom and I became somewhat an addict.
I had developed heavy drinking habits when my dear mom passed away. I use to drink moderately since I was nineteen years old, but that's just occasionally until something that kept me awake for months happened to me. Looking back to those days from May 2013 when my mom died to four years after and up until now, I realised that I have gone through some shit and came out maybe partly dented, but not unscathed.
Accepting that you are addicted to something is a first step in battling it, but I'm kind of too obstinate and I seldom think of myself as an alcoholic but a Heavy Drinker. I do that to not make me feel too bad about my predicament anyways even though it might sound dumb!
As you might have read in my older memories, my mom died overnight the day I went visiting her after many months of not seeing her. I just finished college and I was waiting to be drafted for a one year undergraduate/paramilitary exercise, so I left the city to see her in the suburbs where she works as an Elementary school teacher about to retire. But that visit was a blessing and also the one that pushed me into the rabbit hole of drinking myself into sleep as I was traumatized to have a natural sleep. Long story short, I woke up the next day and she had passed away, long gone!
Her body was stone cold and stiff meaning she had been gone since past midnight according to the Doctor that certified her death. In shock I laid down beside her for close to half and hour not knowing what to do, then a call came in on her phone, from her in-law to be, my brothers wife's mom. Then the reality kicked in, I constantly have this fear that everyone else around me will die in their sleep and that keeps me awake as I try to rouse anyone around me from their sleeps to ascertain if they are still very much alive.
I need to sleep too, I was drained, it got worse when I finally got drafted a week or two away from her burial. Sleeping in semi-military camp with thousands of newly graduated fellas like myself was hell, it sucks seeing others getting a good decent uninterrupted sleep and me doing vigilante work checking on people in their sleeps. Alcohol soaks me deeply in sleep, I mean I could go with bottles of beer to get some decent sleep, or booze and stronger liquors; they all do the trick.
At the peak of covid19 pandemic, during the total global lockdown; I had a little relapse because my business had been affected and thinking of ways of making a living inside the confinement of my apartment is just sickening. Then I reverted to drinking again, though not as heavy as yesteryears but still more intense, now I could stay away from booze and beer for month, then I couldn't, I drink on daily basis.
You can tell from my stack of beer and liquor that there's an improvement(haha), the whole cans in the photo I could finish at a go. But now, it takes me a week or two weeks to finish that and I think in have come a lil bit far on my own fighting this damn habit on my own.