Keeping the faith…

I’ve always had faith in something bigger than myself, whether that be God, a Higher power, the Creator, I don’t support any religious practices but I do have a strong spiritual belief, and even in the depths of addiction that was evident.

It was evident because that was who I would have my negotiations with, at 6am, lying in bed, heart pounding, body tense, brain in overdrive, that overwhelming feeling…..”if you just let me survive the night, I swear I’ll never take this shit again”.

But the promises you make are futile, and easily broken the minute you are faced with temptation and your body has recovered physically (to some extent) from the abuse you put it through the weekend before.

Growing up in the West of Scotland for most means an introduction to drugs at a young age. I was drinking and smoking cannabis at 14, steadily graduating to taking ecstasy, valium, cocaine, ketamine, MDMA, there was no such thing as a gateway drug - the gates were wide open, experimentation and excess was inevitable when you were submerged in youth culture in Clydebank. And not to demonise Clydebank, it is no different from most towns throughout the UK, where drug and alcohol abuse is basically a rite of passage, but all too often recreational use turns into the comfort blanket of addiction, and life as you know it is supplemented with the crutch of substance abuse.

Here’s the thing, recreational use in Scotland is often measured on a scale that is much more excessive than the recreational use of others around the world, whilst the French may class recreational alcohol use as those who have a glass of wine at dinner, the Scottish class recreational use as those who manage to wait until the weekend before they destroy a bottle of a vodka and a case of beer, and in recent years, that’s often augmented with 3 grams of cocaine for good measure. Our definition of recreational alcohol and drug abuse is often on another level entirely from what would actually be deemed as recreational usage.

For most of my life, whilst I knew I was pushing the limits of recreational use, up until a certain point, I always felt as if I had things under control. I would sober up in time for Monday morning, and go through the motions until being able to ‘blow off some steam’ and binge again at the weekends. But there were some real character defining low points, where drug addiction really had me in its clutches.

When I was 22, my circle of friends, and I will use that term loosely, changed dramatically. After escaping the abusive situation I had been in up until that point, I had a new found sense of freedom, and gravitated towards a group of people that were to have such a massive impact on my behaviour and habits.

I had always been a grafter, I had no choice, being self sufficient from such a young age meant that I had to ensure I had an income and I had a lifestyle that benefits wouldn’t sustain, so I always worked hard. But my attitude to work and life changed when I started spending time with people who sold drugs for a living and had very little motivation to do anything other than that. They were a product of their environment, responding to a very evident demand, opportunists that would use the profits to fund and fuel their own addiction. Their lives were chaotic, but I hadn’t known much else up until that point, and I realise now that my previous trauma made me seek out another volatile situation. I slotted into the group like the missing piece of the puzzle and for the first time in my life, I was unemployed and on benefits.

Cocaine was my drug of choice at that time, but it didn’t come alone, it wasn’t a singular experience. It came hand in hand with alcohol and cannabis.

It allowed me to be confident, too confident. It allowed me to bury the memory of the last few years deep enough to allow the party to continue. It allowed me to sit in dangerous situations and feel zero fear. It prevented me from assessing the damage that I was doing to my mind and body.

Here’s the thing with desperate people, they do desperate things. After spending far too long in a cycle of daily drug and alcohol abuse, and seeing those I classed as friends betray each other, putting their addiction, money and drugs before their morals, I started viewing the situation differently. Just as I was having realisations on the people I was surrounded by, my body started to reject my lifestyle. I was plagued with repeated sinus infections and an ulcer in my nasal passage as a result of constantly punishing my body with toxic substances that were now keeping me in a wired, sleep deprived, paranoid state, unable to decipher reality from situations I had dreamt up in my head, and it was time to call time on the situation I had managed to create for myself.

I returned to total abstinence from cocaine and cannabis for a five year period, this was beyond tough because I was still living in the environment that made drugs and alcohol so easily attainable and accepted by everyone around, but the stark wake up call of an ever increasing tick bill and deteriorating septum was the final straw. I entered into another long term relationship, and although there were explosive moments peppered throughout, on the whole life was more stable than it had been. Alcohol, however, was still a crutch and inevitably it was to lead me back to familiar old ways and habits.

In the years that followed I managed to completely turn my life around, I had qualified as an Accountant, I was running my own business, it was successful enough to afford me a better lifestyle than I had known up until this point and I was single again. For the first time in my life I had what was classed as disposable income, money left over after I had paid my bills and it was a great feeling. I was more in control than I had ever been in my life, and enjoyed the freedom of independence without being tied to another person for validation and security.

I created a false sense of security from that, I thought that the stability I had found in my working life would allow me to dabble with recreational drug use and once again the clutches of addiction took hold. I was once again dependent on substances to control my emotions and act as a reward structure for a week of working hard. I became a functional addict. Someone who could navigate the business world Monday to Friday, and navigate social circles with cocaine and alcohol, Friday to Sunday.

This continued until I was in my early 30’s, I sniffed what I thought would be my last line of cocaine on the 5th August 2018, disgusted with the constant battle, early morning negotiations with the powers above, a cycle of self sabotage, I called it a day on my relationship with the devils dandruff. Although, I made that same old mistake of continuing to use the lesser of two evils, alcohol, as a constant crutch that carried me through the next few years.

I again had to change my social circle, distance myself from the chemical friends I had picked up along the way, and re-evaluate exactly where I wanted my life to take me. Progress in business and in life had been stunted by my weekend antics for far too long and it was time to make some changes. On reflection, I was much more easily influenced by my peers than I ever admitted to, and as much as I take full responsibility for my actions, I sought out enablers, and those that alleviated the guilt and shame that was bubbling under the surface. Deep down I knew I was creating a negative situation for myself, but old habits die hard, and surviving a self sabotage cycle is much easier when you have other saboteurs to join the mission. Misery loves company as they say.

My relapse came on the 31st March 2019, after 7 months of abstinence I received a call to tell me my father had been diagnosed with bladder cancer, and I lost control. I immediately returned to the only coping mechanism I knew, I left work and headed straight for an old haunt with familiar faces and the white powder was only a phonecall away. I hadn’t really even given myself a minute to digest the information I was given that day. I immediately acted upon impulse, a selfish act, a reach for the comfort of volatile familiarity, the story of my life.

Never again.

The week following that episode was filled with confusion, disappointment, shame and anger, it was never a situation I wanted to be in, and I blamed the circumstances for forcing me to relapse. On reflection, I realise now that this was the only coping mechanism I had learned up until this point, so it was inevitable that I returned to this when times got tough. I was incapable of doing much else. We can only respond to certain situations from the level of understanding we have and the experiences and teachings we gain in life are the elements that build that understanding. I didn’t have the foundation of knowledge or self awareness required to negotiate life’s problems at that time, far from it.

This was the last time I took cocaine, but it took me another 3 years to finally see through the spell that alcohol has society under. I removed alcohol from my life on the 11th June 2022 and have never been more committed to a life of abstinence since.

In order to maintain this commitment, I had to learn a lot about myself, how the mind and body work, how emotions impact your thoughts and beliefs, how society is conditioned to believe that a poison is something that you should have in your hand and pour down your throat at every celebration, after a hard days work and to relieve the pressures of day to day life. I finally could see it for the harsh abrasive depressant it was and I have vowed never to disrespect my mind and body by allowing it to have access to me again.

It’s not been easy. I have came up against criticism, and I have been challenged and tempted, but I know what lies on the other side of temptation, and how easy it is to slip back into a cycle of destruction.

The older we get, the less bounce back ability we all have, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that you’ll reach rock bottom at some point, and you can either claw your way back from the abyss and piece your life back together or stay there wallowing at the bottom of a bottle and a bag of gear, wondering how you got there and why the party came to an abrupt end.

A wise man once said, ‘Emma, you know the thing with rock bottom…..it has basements’ and it struck a chord. I will never take my sobriety and abstinence for granted, just because I’ve hit rock bottom and managed to claw my way back doesn’t mean the stony depths aren’t waiting to take me to basement level if I deviate from the plan.

If you would like to talk about addiction, recovery or relapse, get in touch.

Much love, Emma x