hi y’all!
It’s that time again, Sunday night real life real talk! It was a perfect rainy weekend here in Dallas to lay around and relax which is exactly what I needed. Sometimes life gets going so fast and there is so much going on that it is nice to have a reason to not leave the house and relax and unwind.
This week and next week I was going to do a series of interviews with my parents to ask them about their insight on addiction and how my addiction affected them and our family. The truth is while it is easy for me to talk about my addiction, these very real and raw moments are sometimes too hard for my parents to talk about. In their words, it is reliving events they wish to never go through again. So for now we are scratching the two week series with my parents but tonight I would like to share a story of how tough love might of just saved my life.
The reality is addiction destroyed me from the inside out and my parents had a first row seat to the show. They witnessed the effects of alcoholism slowly killing their daughter right in front of their eyes and there was absolutely nothing they could do to help. There biggest fear was having to bury their daughter and they lived each day not knowing if that day was going to be my last. My parents did everything in their power to help me and thought they could “make” me stop drinking.
Every time I fell and I mean every single time I fell my parents picked me back up and helped me put the pieces together to get my head clear and my feet pointed in the right direction. Every time they picked me back up, I fell, and I fell a 100 times harder each time until the final time I fell and they were done picking me up.
My parents took away my debit card, credit cards, and cash leaving me to what they believed no way to purchase alcohol and ability to drink as a last ditch effort in attempting to keep me sober. Little did they know that would turn my addiction from bad to worse. Desperate was my middle name and I began to drink rubbing alcohol, perfume, and body spray. All things that could be found at Dollar Tree that I could purchase with the cup of change that I found in my apartment. I will never forget that lonely hot summer day right before I turned 22. I was supposed to be job searching but decided to chug an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol and make my way down to the pool at my apartment complex. From there the memories and details are fuzzy. All I remember is waking up in the hospital and immediately asking where my parents were. The nurse and doctor that was standing at the foot of my bed looked at me and said “your parents aren’t here and they want nothing to do with you.”
From my parents side, they received a call from the paramedics notifying them they had their daughter and were transporting her to the hospital and they did not know if she would make it or not. At that moment they had to decide if they were going to go or not. My mother will tell you this was single handedly the most difficult decision she has ever made. She made my father promise her that if I did not make it he would not resent her for the guilt of not going to the hospital. My mom knew that if they went and I was okay it would just be like every other story of me falling and them picking me up… They did not come.
They saved my life. While this was the hardest decision to make as a parent it was a decision that opened my eyes and gave me a taste of reality of what was to come if I didn’t change. Reality was my addiction was going to kill me or my addiction was going to isolate me from every single person I had known and loved so much. My parents were everything to me and when I was told they wanted nothing to do with me my world was turned upside down and this was the wake up call from hell I needed.
So, while it is easy for me to tell my story and talk about alcoholism it is still difficult for my parents to relive these nightmares and share their side of the story. I love you mom & dad!
Stay tune next week to find out what happened next!
Thanks for following along as I share my passions of digitals, decor, & designs while I shed light on alcoholism. If you have any questions or just want to chat, shoot me a message.
XO,
Abigail
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