The Identity Crisis

A life that was planned out for us by a social standard, Go to school, Get a university degree while working a part time job saving for a house. Get married and then have children. The expectation of society that somehow validates we are doing “life” the right way.

I’m sorry but I could not think of anything worse then living as an expectation, not putting down people who wanted and worked for that life at all just voicing my opinion.

While some were desperate to live up to expectations I was desperate to belong to a social group and believe me when I say there wasn’t a length I wouldn’t go to in order to feel apart of something. Confused, anxious and stressed the fuck out that I had no set path to follow or work towards.

The Start Of The End

10 years old and I discovered alcohol by observing my parents and their friends on Friday and Saturday nights. They sat out the back around a table with music from their era playing, I noticed they had cans and bottles in front of them and I remember thinking “This isn’t what I normally see them drink” so I curiously sat in the lounge and waited, for what? I have no idea but surely something had to change. I began to notice that the more of this stuff they drank the louder the music got, the louder they laughed at one an other doing ridiculous dance moves, they were smiling and looked like they had no care in the world. I was sold, if that’s what those cans and bottles do I want some. To the back fridge I went and got out a 6 pack of bottles jumped on my push bike and went for a ride around the corner and drank them in the bush by myself. I had no idea what I was feeling but it was better then feeling confused and conflicted with my identity.

5 years later and I was addicted to the bottle and I don’t mean binge drinking either, I mean passing out with a bottle of tequila every night and not being able to get off the floor or out of bed until I’d drank at least a quarter of the bottle, I was physically dependent. The fun, confident and happy drinker I was began to wear of by the age of 16. Something flipped and I became angry, resentful, beyond aggressive and extremely unpredictable. I was nothing but violent and volatile I’d drink to the point of a black out and when I woke that morning I had no recollection of anything, I could not piece the night together all I could do was remember very small things like getting in to the back seat of a car but couldn’t remember the ten seconds after where I’ve apparently jumped out and held some up with a knife.

How did I deal with my vial behaviour I guess you’re wondering.. I started drinking again as soon as I started to hear the behaviour I displayed, this went on until I was 28 when I got fired from my job due to smashing the place up in a black out, copping a DUI and having a breathelyzer installed in my car for a year.

That’s not even the start of my addiction to alcohol, you would not believe it kept getting worse and you definitely would not believe the things I found out I was capable of.

I want to stress to parents how detrimental emotional and mental support for their child really is because trust me if they feel like they can’t turn to you and talk about what’s going on with them you have a very good chance of losing them to something that takes away their pain.

L-Jay E