It’s Complicted –
June 25, 2020 – While I was not diagnosed with depression and anxiety until I was 17, I had been struggling with them for much longer. I had already begun to abuse alcohol as a way to cope with my overwhelming emotions, and starting medication for them was an important step towards recovery. So why did it take me 15 years to truly find sobriety?
I “tried: to get sober almost every year. I might last a month, but inevitably I returned to alcohol, even when my mental health was stable on medication. Some of it was habit — I had established routines for the day that essentially revolved around when I could drink. I worked on crews where it wasn’t uncommon for alcohol to be around. I made sure I had my alcohol no matter where I was. It was a habit I didn’t even realize I had. And every time I tried to get sober, I didn’t really have a good reason to stay that way.
