Sometime during the first night, a transvestite came in. I heard a man and thought "isn't this women's only?" He took the bed beside me, and smelled like a man, but in the morning I could see that he was a she. or whatever. He coughed loudly and said "there's the crack coming up." Everyone laughed. um ok. I guess that was funny, I really wouldn't know. I roll out of bed and linger. It's a tiny intake room full of 8 plastic beds and about 4 crack addicts. It's dark, so we can sleep and they bring us good food. The stinky crack injector is there, and she looks like what you would imagine she would look like. Not much happens for 3 days, I'm detoxing, which involves eating, smoking, sleeping, sweating, and reading. I'm the only one that reads. Thanks god I brought a book. By day 2 I'm bored. Detoxing off alcohol and oxy is not the same as crack and heroin. I beg to be let on the other side. Everyone else is argumentative and snotty. I am sweet and compliance. They won't even let me have coffee for fucks sakes! I eat, and drink tea, and eat, and smoke, and eat and sleep. Finally they let me go to an AA meeting on the other side. Ya! My first ever. How exciting. I read and for the first time in my life I have to say "hi my name is jenny and i'm an addict." That is soooo weird. Way weirder then anyone could ever imagine it to be, like everything suddenly becomes real and present. People cry. I don't.

Eventually I get let over to the other side, where I have a room to myself and have to wake up at 7. We have meetings and activities all day. Believe it or not, but I love it. I need the structure. I crave the responsibilities. I get to watch Criminal Minds one night on the communal tv (after I made the hardcore street crack addicts change the channel, nobody NOBODY gets in the way of my Matthew Gray Gubler) and they make me turn it off at 11. I welcome it! After a year of drinking 2 bottles of wine and passing out on my couch, it is refreshing. It is needed.

2 hard crack addicts. They know each other from the streets. They share stories of how to make a dealer think you're blowing him longer with a rock so they can get more from them. I have nothing in common with these women. One night, as we watch Criminal Minds and talk about the longest we've been up on crack at a time (clearly I only listen, one girl was 18 days), we decided to break a lock on the fridge in the kitchen and steal rockey road ice cream. Craving sweets like they are they drug, we eat so much until we think we will puke. We laugh and joke. These girls are just girls, they are my age, they have come on unfortunate circumstances and their demons are heavier then mine, but for a small moment in time, we are the same. We are on one level. We look in each other's eyes and know we share a life disease of addiction. Is their's worse then mine? Yes. If I saw them on the street, in the corner, in their rags, with a crack pipe hanging from their mouth and a dealer's dick in their hand would I say hi? Absolutely not. But at the moment, it didn't matter. We were struggling, in the same place, at the same time, and we needed companionship. During that 5 days, when I should've been the loneliest in my life, I for once, felt like one of everybody else.

I awaken in the darkness. I hear voices. Loud and whispers. I am drenched in sweat, disillusioned and have no idea where I am. The bed is hard and the air smells heavy and sweet, like sweat, rotten fruit and dirty clothes.
"she's coming in again. we can't let her stay long."
"she can only stay a few days."
"she's started injecting crack, which is dangerous, we have to give her a place for at least 24 hours."
I slowly open my eyes and see nothing but the inside of my blanket. Moving it out of my eyes aside I see shadows and remember.

a bath, the water, the vodka, the pain. the blade, it seemed like such a good idea, release the pain, the pain, and then suddenly the blood, oh god the blood, too much blood, i can see the vain underneath, it gushes, no no i don't want to die. that's not what i wanted. not this time. stop. oh god what did i do, please stop. and then the thread. the needle. sew it up. there was some show on tv about dogs, it was about 5 am, i don't know. the wound is closed. there is still vodka. i still drink.
next i know my mom is there. i show her what i did. i am stumbling and vomiting. she is horrified. i think it's great! who else can sew up their own arm so well? we are on the way to the hospital. i shake. i shake and i shake. i'm in a room. the doctor says my pancreas is inflamed. she says my sewing job is awesome. i'm so proud. my mom cries. she reads me the alchemist. i stick random things in my ears. eventually, i pass out. i wake up hungover and in pain. next thing i know, i'm here. women's only detox. i am here to stay. this is the beginning of the rest of my life. that's what i think.

but this is only the beginning of a long, hard, relapse filled existence that i call a life. oh how we can be so hopeful.

I will go back and write about everything that's happened since May, a lot, but really not that much. I'm still the same person, a tad more sober, with a hell of a lot less binges, but they do exist. A little on my personality disorder....

I am starting to see borderline as something separate from myself. It hangs beside me, next to me, and follows me around. It makes bad, rash decisions, even when my brain says otherwise. It creeps into my heart and grabs it and doesn't let go. I hate it. I hate borderline personality disorder. I realize that it is just a label, a page in the DSM-IV, that describes all the symptoms that haunt my life. It lingers in the shadows when I'm feeling good, and lurches forward when I'm not. It makes me feel inadequate as a human being, like people like me, who aren't whole, are not worthy to walk on this perfect earth, with the rest of the perfect beings, to feel love and to give love. Of course this world is tainted, and many live in worse misery but the borderline only allows me to think of myself. To see everyone else's lives as perfect but my own.
I hate borderline for making me drink myself into oblivion.
I hate borderline for making me act irrationally and follow my impulses.
I hate borderline for making me cut myself and have to cover the scars with tattoos.
I hate borderline for making me stay in an abusive relationship for four years that almost killed me and destroyed my chance at ever being able to love normally again.
I hate borderline for making me blame all my problems on my personality disorder....which may very well not even exist.

Damn this blog is depressing. I guess that's the point. To go back and read it when I feel the urge and the need to drink. Did I really feel like that? I don't even remember. Now I guess it's finally time to deal with the feelings and the pain that cause the self medication. Without the self medication. Oh dear, this could get messy....

Hi Everybody. I'm sure you are reading this finally. My silent hell of a life. I have spent the night with my friend, deciding, making decisions, and I think I am finally done.

I am sick. My health is failing. I am mentally failing. I think I am done. I love being drunk more than anything in the world but I am not prepared to die. I will not let Paul kill me forever. So....please help me in any way you can. At the state I'm going I will not live to be 30.

I am done.

I am so done.

Anybody ever heard of Korsocov syndrom? Well it's a sad depressing state brought on by severe alcoholism. I obviously still eat so I'm not in danger but I have been noticing things about my brain lately.
I used to be ridiculously smart
My memory was so sharp
I had a vocabulary beyond anyone
I read multiple books at once
I was complicated, mysterious, and sought after

and now....I'm dull. I can't remember anything. I don't read anymore. I don't write anymore. The most I use my brain is at work which is a lot, but it's taxing and shouldn't be. I am slowly killing off brain cells. I hate it. I can't even articulate the pain that this causes me, the shame and the despair. I am an empty shell of a being that somehow manages to function, but honestly I don't even think I deserve to anymore. I am wasting what god has given me.

is it time?

Even though I have shown up to work hungover (still drunk sometimes) and not gotten a hell of a lot done, my boss still gives me a promotion and raise. It upsets me a bit, I feel like a kid who broke a window and someone else got blamed, but more so because of the potential I have to be something great, if I could just get sober.
Think of the possibilities, the amazing things I could do. And yet I'm stuck. Sooo stuck.

So, I finally agreed to go to an AA meeting with my mom on Sunday. Doesn't mean I'm done drinking, just going to check it out. See what happens. My mom wants me in Detox. Don't know how much that would help, except I am starting with the nausea and the tremors. And the cravings. In the mornings now.....we'll see how it goes.

I want oxy now. I took all my moms and I'm out, and I don't know how to get more. But I'm craving that too, the mild euphoria it brings, the feeling of having no feelings at all. A mild heroine if you will. Last time I took them, I had 6 pills. Scares me, that I want that. Because if someone were to offer me something stronger, could I say no? Probably not......

I haven't written for a while, mostly because i've gotten too drunk and passed out on my couch. Well, the weather is warming up and the snow is melting, the light now extends past 7:00 which makes me very happy. It's a strange feeling. It's strange because, instead of feeling, 'oh i'm happier now and therefore i don't need a drink', it somehow reaches my brain as 'oh i'm happy i have to celebrate with a drink'. Doesn't matter how or when, it all resorts back to drinking. I can't feel without it. Happy, sad, angry, stressed, it doesn't really matter as it all resorts back to the drink.

My stomach is bothering me. The size of it. Beer gut. So tonight I got vodka. At least vodka and soda and lime is relatively low calorie which helps with the whole stomach thing. Just gets me drunker.

Last night,
2 beers
2 glasses of vodka and lime
1 shot of some vanilla crap (came with the vodka)

And that was considered a good night.

Monday morning

I am just so tired this morning. I cried all the way to work. After about 8 beers last night I finally fell asleep around 2 am, and woke up at about 7:45. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I am...just...so...tired.....

I'm supposed to drive downtown tonight to go to a club, and it's snowing, and my driving where alcohol is present is usually a bad idea. But maybe I can be good and have a time I actually remember....
Last time I went out with A, I fanagled my way into the VIP section and drank some guys champagn. This was after I was already pretty drunk out of my mind. Apparently I blacked out, went to a chinese restaurant, and everybody thought I was dead. Whatever. I woke up the next morning in my clothes, with my boots, purse and coat sprwled outside of my apartment covered in snow and the contents of my purse spilled down the steps. The door was wide open. I had no recollection of anything past a certain time. I was still drunk. It was horrible. I seriously felt like I had just played a game of russian roullette and had luckily gotten the empty chamber.
So we'll see how it goes tonight. I am a little nervous however....

Friday morning

Last night my favorite show (and new obsession) Criminal Minds was airing at 10 pm. After studying the bottle of remaining red wine about 5 times I decided there was no way it was going to last me until 11 pm, and embarked on a hike through a snow storm to get more. I picked up a bottle of white and downed the rest of the red by about 8:30, at which case I proceeding to pass out. I woke up at 9:35 in a frantic, afraid I had slept through my beloved CM, and when I realized I hadn't yet I promptly cracked open the bottle of white. By 11 pm, the bottle was gone and CMs was over. At 2:30 am I woke on the couch, had a glass of water and and dragged my drunk ass to bed.
Needless to say, this morning as I procrastinate doing any work at all, I am reflecting on last night's episode and what happened to Reid, only to realize that I really don't remember any of it. Who was the unsup again? Why did they do it? What happened to Reid? Normally, I wouldn't care because I could download it and watch again, but seeing as my computer has crashed, I am extremely distressed about this. How dare I get innebriated enough to not remember the last episode before a 6 week hiatus of my favorite show? I should probably be more worried that my head is fuzzy at work and I am getting nothing done, and yet this is like an all consumming anxiety. That and the fact that I'm out of wine again, it looks like the weather will prevent me from going to a club tonight, I took all of the oxycontin pills, and I despretely need more booze for tonight. And I have got to take my laptop in to get fixed so that I can continue this once I'm home....damn I wish I could remember Criminal Minds......

The past continued....

So let's see....to make a long story short, I acquired my dog from my ex and moved back to Waterloo. Things were not that bad for a while except for binge drinking on the weekends and partying too much with my roommates, but then my dad passed away. I quit my job and started drinking every night. Especially beer. I did manage to finally graduate from University, get a great job in Toronto (not too sure how I fangled that one), and an apartment, win the Honours Thesis Award, and move here. Things were looking up. But somehow, because stress, boredom or the fact that I'm addicted, I've dug myself into another hole where I drink everynight and it affects everything I do. I know now that I cannot keep going down this path forever.

The beginning.....

This is my first post. I should give a little background about myself. I started drinking when I was about 16 years old. Not much, sips here and there, sneaking liquor from my parents liquor cabinet. Then around 17 I met my high-school sweetheart who had a soft spot for playing guitar, getting high and drinking beer. That's when the binge drinking started. And the drug experimenting. And the parties. Fast forward to my ex-fiance, not much of a drinker but an over controlling, physically abusive asshole whose words and actions led to me most nights locking myself in my car and sipping vodka out of the bottle. He hated my drinking, but it was the only way for me to cope and hurt him at the same time, so I started with the frequent trips to the liquor store. But it was still only mostly on weekends since I was in University and had too much work to do. I am such a perfectionist that not even alcohol would compromise my school work and my drive to be the best. After my ex and I had a horrible falling out (let's just say it involved the police and a 6 month restraining order), I took a leave of absence from school and my drinking got worse. I was heavily medicated and hurting and unfortunatly surrounded myself with other heavy drinkers in my family. This was the time that I really got into trouble. Got so drunk I would scream at my family and their friends, wondered off in the neighbourhood, car broke down and ended up in the worst part of Houston at 4 am, and crashed my cousins car into a poll and then past out. That was definatly the worst time in my life. Unfortunatly, it wasn't rock bottom enough for me to pull myself out.