I just started reading Koren Zailckas' novel, "Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood". I've only read up until the preface, but so far it's hit me really hard. As someone who's struggled with alcohol dependence since middle school, she and I already have so much in common. She talks about how she needed to start from the beginning to tackle how her drinking got out of hand, and by the time I'd finished the preface, I felt inspired to do the same thing.
What immediately struck me hardest was this paragraph:
I'd always heard about this being common with sexual abuse victims, which I am, but I'd never heard of it also being a factor with women who've struggled with alcoholism, and it makes sense. She goes on to say how she appears younger. Has a higher and softer octave to her voice. Is often mistaken for being a teenger, etc.
For me, this is something I can relate to 110%. I still sleep with a large stuffed animal, and if I'm not able to, I don't feel safe. I feel most comfortable acting as a child/teen, when my emotional growth was first stunted. It's hard for me to recognize I have a voice. Sooooo fucking hard for me to recognize that I have a voice. I am shy, quiet, and small. I used to always be mistaken for being very young, sometimes as young as middle school. I would dress in children's clothes. For a long time, I thought there was nothing wrong with that. It was one of my defense mechanisms. Being small and stalled. Koren Zailcka also says in a segment: "Now, even when I yell, I don't feel like I'm using my full voice." This made me choke back a tear.
When I often wonder, How the fuck did I get here?!, I know it began when I was young, but it's hard for me to see how much I still stay in that place of youngness. How literally emotionally and psychologically stunted I've allowed myself to become. How much I cry at every little thing. How easily I am hurt. And how easily I run to the coping mechanisms available to me as a young teen that I abused and were never healthy to begin with. The sex. The men. The drugs. The alcohol. I can't get better until I confront that little girl in the mirror. I can't get better until I really, truly confront myself. And what happened to me. And how hard it is for me to let that go. Because that girl never got to be a little girl. It was stolen from her almost immediately when I was molested as a toddler, and then again in elementary school, and then in middle school when I began coping through drugs and alcohol and men.
It's scary to be an adult. To be held responsible. To be expected to raise my voice, and make rules, and say, "No!" But if I can't learn how to do it regularly, I'm on the same path as her. I'm already twenty years old. I'm already technically supposed to be an adult.
She also talks about her drinking is something she never really outgrew, like she thought it would. It followed her too her first job. Her first move where she paid rent. Our lives are paralleling. I'm still drinking to escape the deep sadness and loneliness I feel too. It's not going away. It's not necessarily getting stronger, either. It's just still there, like a stalker in the night that you only see when you really squint. I'm not outgrowing it, like I should have in college. And she makes some great points that as women, it's harder to drink responsibly especially if you have a small frame. It's almost unrealistic. A few drinks, and sometimes I'm already blacking out. That's something I need to recognize, and interestingly enough, it's been the topic of my last few blackouts recently. Apparently I say things like, "You're only telling me to stop drinking because I'm a girl!" etc etc. It's like subconsciously I'm very much aware of these facts, but only when I'm drunk. I've started becoming a very sad and depressed drunk. And even though I don't drink very much, when I do, I'm so fucked up afterwards. My extremities feel numb. I hear ringing in my ears. It's not a good feeling. It's very scary, like my body is already giving out on me before it's even been on this planet very long.
The last two paragraphs of the preface are:
The last 2 sentences really, really hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. "My alcohol abuse was a seed that fell at just the right time, in just the right place, when all the conditions were just right to nurture it. To understand the outgrowth, I have to go back to the first bottle that fell out of the liquor chest and into my ready hands. I have to go back to the beginning."
That's sooooooo fucking true for me. The first time I tried alcohol, there was a leftover beer from a family member in my mom's fridge. I remember trying it to "see what it tasted like", and thinking it was disgusting. I think I continued to chug it all down though, in the hope that it would make me as happy as it seemed to make everybody else when they drank it. I don't remember feeling much. The second time I had my first drink, I accidently found a bottle of E&J Brandy in my mom's closet while looking for something else. It tasted better, and I remember keeping a mental note to have more again because it made me feel different.
I wanted to feel better. I was in 6th grade and had just been molested a year or two prior. My depression was just starting to set in, as well as my thoughts of suicide, self-hate, and anger. I wanted to feel better. I thought alcohol could do that.
I think I'm supposed to go on an internal journey with this book to examine my own self destructive behavior as well. When, why, and how they started. It may be one of my only ways to healing them. I don't know how else to do it. I see so much of myself in her. I see my words in her paragraphs. The deep seated discomfort of self. I've already cried four times and the preface is only 10 pages.
I need to get better. If she could get a little bit better, I can too.