#acholic

Drain you till you're nothing but dust

Random Grape cookie sketches

And I designed her other clothing

Btw when she says “my hair!” She was originally going to say “My grapes” and her shirt grapes are squished grapes

Alcohol and I have never really been friends. The whole thing started back when I was 21. I started drinking the day of my birthday like any good little Christian girl would do. (I am not religious, but that is another blog post.) I will always remember my 21st birthday. I always remember the people I was with period I will always remember the Bottle of wine that took everyone a little too far. I remember my partner at time, making mojitos for everyone. Those mojitos took our friend way too over the top. I remember helping clean up vomit from my living room. I'll remember getting beers but not necessarily been able to afford them. I remember cigars that smells of straight sweet tobacco. I remember feeling worthless, but man it numbed the pain. it was from that moment on comma when I figured out that alcohol really does numb the pain. But it doesn't last forever. Everything is just a temporary high. Whether it be going to conventions for me, or drinking. It didn't matter to me at all if I didn't feel anything.

On my 21st birthday, I realized how much I love the history of it. In my opinion, because I was surrounded by people who love to drink, that I found a love of alcohol. I found a love for the complexity that is beer making, I found a love for the constant flavor profiles of wine. I found a love and an attachment to whiskey like no other. Oh man I love whiskey. I love whiskey so much, but I decided to just do a bunch of research on it. I wanted to know how it was made I wanted to know what gave it its color it’s flavor it’s smell everything about whiskey just seems right to me.

Whiskey was also my numbing of choice.

Wine is its own special category. at the time of my twenty first birthday comma up until i was About 23. I was around someone who loved wine. My ex is friend best friend in Oregon is a wine lover! And it's super cool to know that He's working towards becoming an expert. Everyone eventually finds their thing. But it was thanks to him, that I learned how to identify wine, and appreciate wine, and really learn flavor profiles. what are the coolest things i ever remember was going to a wine tasting with him the first time comma and being able to identify so many more flavors then he was able to Right off the bat. I was told I was born with 3 to 4 times the number of taste buds as the average human. I can taste everything. But wine was fantastic. I ended up finding a true love for pinot noir. But I also found in a men's love for a good Rose (I can’t figure out how to put the thing over the “e”) and good white wine but most importantly I found A whole new appreciation for people.

My ex, lets call him…. Derek, Derek taught me how to love beer. Growing up I thought beer was the worst thing on the planet. I thought beer was gross I thought it was nasty, I hated everything about beer. Until I was given 10 barrel swill. That beer saved my whole drinking experience. I live in the land of IPA beer. everyone loves hops around here. I'm not a big hops fan. The only thing that I knew growing up with these Beautiful Golden nails that just tasted like bitter unhappiness. Derek was a big beer drinker. He loved IPAs, but he showed me that there was more to the beer community than an IPA. I fell in love instantly with this beer from 10 barrel, because it was a fruit beer. It was a fruit, sour ale That made my mouth happy . it was like drinking happiness. Since then, they have changed the recipe completely. they had an issue with exploding bottles potentially. I miss it, but luckily, I have porters, and reds, and sour, and barley wine. And let's not forget in mead and cider!

I will always remember my first beer festival, my first wine festival, my first whiskey festival. I've had Scotch to tequila to every type of rum you could imagine. I found myself longing to be in this community. Wanted to make alcohol I wanted to understand the history behind alcohol I wanted to understand and know more about alcohol as a whole. Which took me off in about 50 different directions. But that doesn't necessarily mean I was happy. As I got older , and those people have left my life , I find myself not drinking as much. Family room parties in house parties too drinking alone just to not feel anything. I drown myself in alcohol for years and hopes that it wouldn't make me have to face reality. I wasn't happy, not drinking anyway. I found more joy at the bottom of a bottle then I found within the relationship that I was in. I found more happiness Slumped in bed, without thinking. I found joy giggling uncontrollably, while gaming and not having to face the real world. I didn't feel like I could do anything , in the people that I surrounded myself with were not uplifting. Community that I was trying to grow, was destroying me and picking me apart piece by piece behind closed doors. I never openly told anyone. I'm pretty sure I was in denial. Which isn't fair because I her it is quite the river.

Nowadays I found myself having a drink probably once a month. I'm a lot happier now. A lot has happened in between those times I'm no longer the young ignorant girl I used to be. I'm no longer the sad depressed mess that held me down. I found that moving away from alcohol made me happier. Now don't get me wrong I still love the taste of alcohol like I genuinely developed a taste for it. And I would love to have more in my life, but it's not worth it. It's not worth feeling low more often than high. It's not worth losing friends over or destroying relationships. I genuinely thought that the phrase “High functioning acholic” Was a funny phrase. I feel like when I said those things and when I felt that way, I was ignoring the last part of the phrase. Alcoholic. That is exactly how I feel now. I was an alcoholic, I would do anything to have a drink. When I started to notice that I would do a lot for a drink or do anything for a drink, I said it was time to stop. It was time to stop.

Now here I am writing to you a small little blog post about how alcohol is this amazing thing and yet at the same time it destroyed me. At least for a while there. I had friends who I'm pretty sure saw my suffering, but I never told him what was going on. Because I didn’t Trust anyone period I was alone, and I had to fight all my battles on my own. I didn't want my friends to get in the middle of my b******* . I'm convinced still to this day that I can solve my own problems. But it took a lot of mental rewiring to get there. I had to stop drinking, I had to close myself off even more than I was before, And I had to figure out what was going on. There was a lot of backlash just from myself. And being your own worst enemy is what is the worst feelings. being your own worst enemy, being fueled by other people who are telling you that you are your own worst enemy, that's infuriating. For the longest time I let other people tell me who I was, and who I had to be. I didn't make decisions for myself.

I once had an ex tell me that I Have a personality that gets attached and gets addicted to things. strictly because of the color of my skin. I believe that, I let somebody convince me that the color of my skin was the reason why I got addicted to alcohol for a while. I realize now it has absolutely nothing to do with the color of my skin. has nothing to do with my genetics. It has nothing to do with me just being born. My life choices are what gave me my addiction. My life choices are what define who I was at that point in time. And now, through a lot of self-discovery, I find myself going back to the phrase “the mind is powerful.” For me, it just means that I am the creator of my own decisions. We all have passed we see in front of us, and we choose which path we want to go down. I didn't like the idea of being an alcoholic, I didn't like the idea of being worthless. I didn't like feeling, unhappy.

I tried to find myself. Figure out who I am. I still don't know who I am, but I know what I like to do. I love to talk, I like to make people smile, and I like writing. Sure not the best at it we all make choices , and I choose to write something new every week. To bring you More into my world. I closed off my world for 25 years. I am now 26, so let's talk about 25 years. All I've ever wanted was for the world to know who I am. I am scared, I'm worried, Still sad, I'm still not happy fully. But I'm getting there.