![]() A toll to payīelieve me, no one gives you a crown or a medal for drinking until you black out and there’s no photo of you up on a wall of fame. ![]() I drank to deal with the uncertainty about who I was, what I wanted and who I wanted to surround myself with. And there was an unspoken, unacknowledged pressure I put on myself that made me want to be ‘the loosest chick’ in the group as if that was something to strive toward. I also loved the feeling of freedom and lack of control, when I tried to control everything else in my life. Similar to a puppy when its family returns from a holiday. Not the kind where I would freak out because of all the people, but the kind where I would be overwhelmed with a sense of excitement that all my friends were in one place at one time. I drank for reasons that I can only identify now after I stepped back from it all and allowed time to ask myself why I was drinking like that. ![]() Don’t be boring.” But I know my personality is far from boring and I do not have to prove myself to anyone anymore. Instead, I’m usually met with, “Ohh, come on! You’re so wild/fun/free-spirited/crazy/life-of-the-party when you drink. Shouldn’t that be a good thing? Shouldn’t that be celebrated? I’ve had parents pick me up from random houses the morning after. I’ve had younger siblings and cousins watch as I weakly crawl into their pink, single beds to sleep off a headache at family BBQs. I’ve had friends hold me back from physically fighting an ex because of an alcohol-fueled heartbreak. I’ve had friends who have had to call it a night early because I wasn’t allowed into a venue, or lost my wallet and forgot my ID. I’ve had friends hold back my hair while I return a concoction of cocktails shots and vodka sunrises all over the pavement outside a club. The number one thing I’ve learnt about our drinking culture and peer pressure is that if someone is not happy about your decision not to get drunk, it is not your problem, it is theirs. Even so, my social circles–who all knew this–would always encourage my drinking.
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