I’ve been a blackout drunk ever since my last boyfriend passed away.

Sometimes I can have a few drinks and everything is fine.

But every now and then it will hit me out of nowhere. Maybe I didn’t eat enough that day. Maybe my BMI is just not cut out for alcoholic intake. Or maybe, if I look at it on a soul level—this is just how I have been functioning for a while.

Blacking out is great for the person who blacked out because we don’t remember anything at all. Sure, other people will have stories for us, but if we don’t remember it—did it really happen?

The first couple of years that drinking made me prone to blackouts, I frankly did not give a sh*t. I had lost my first love, and I felt that I did not care to meet anyone new anyway. Maybe I looked like a fool or a psycho, and was extremely off-putting.

People say that perception is reality, but reality to me was already extremely flawed.

All of the nights that blended together turned into years. But the truth is, I was stunting myself from actually healing. Conversations that could have been helpful to my growth were wiped from my memory, and people that may have become good friends were either mad at me for reasons I couldn’t recall or I just wouldn’t totally remember them the next time we saw each other.

Friends would tell me I was “fine,” and that it was a city lifestyle, so I need not worry. It wasn’t until I started dating my current boyfriend that I realized it was a problem. I began to forget our conversations, or do stupid sh*t that I would be held accountable for, even though I didn’t know how it happened.

I would begin to worry so much about what others thought of me, but the truth is that I didn’t feel so good about myself. I still don’t understand how people can drink without throwing their clothes off and dancing, or how people can have one drink and go home. I don’t think I ever will.

I’m finding what is more important to me is trying to achieve my goals, be there for others, and be there for myself—all which is next to impossible during a blackout.

It’s not necessarily the drinking that’s the problem, but the issues that lie deep in my soul, which won’t be handled immaculately the next time that a blackout occurs.

I remember having a friend that was an extreme alcoholic who would tell me that he got wasted so he didn’t have to deal with life. I responded by saying that I liked being sober in life because only then was I more aware.

Yet, I still struggle. Maybe I’m harder on myself than I should be, but this is the exact attitude that allowed me to continuously blackout in the first place.

I just know that it’s more fun to remember the crazy sh*t we do, to have long and meaningful conversations with our friends and lovers that continuously warm our souls even after they’re over, and that having a sense of control over our actions is hard enough when we are brim full of emotions in everyday life—so why complicate it even further?

If you struggle with this issue like I do, I feel that it’s better to admit it and own it than to pretend we are normal like everyone else.

Maybe one day I can sip on a nice glass of wine and actually taste the notes without chugging the hell out of it.

But for now, the struggle is real.

~