Being sober in your 20’s…

I’m going to preface this by saying I know I am not ‘SOBER, sober. I take prescription medication, quite liberally at times.

The peace of mind having a benzo script gives me in itself enough to stop a full blown panic attack sometimes. Knowing I can access relief if my anxiety gets unmanageable is a really important part of my crisis management. I suffer from chronic anxiety every day, that manifests as both physical sensations and paranoid delusion. I have done so since I was a young child in primary school. My anxiety was originally result of my poor health, which kept me out of school and often times in hospital. Then that anxiety spread due to becoming so isolated from normalcy and people my own age. I became agoraphobic; scared to leave the house and especially terrified of going to school… By the time I was ten, anxiety had cemented itself as a routine part of my life. By the time I hit puberty, it had managed to completely takeover my life. Anxiety and I were wed. Interlocked to which point I could no longer specify what I was anxious about anymore, I was just anxious.

Other drugs I take, like my prescription amphetamines have been revolutionary in helping me become an active participant in my own life. Being able to manage myself from the inside out isn’t ideal, but it’s certainly a great help.

I’ll have an occasional piña colada at brunch or dinner, although I’ve never been much of a drinker.

And when I’m feeling really, unbearably suicidal, having sleeping pills on hand to turn my brain off is incredibly helpful. During horrible moments like those I’m much safer in sleep.

I stay away from hard drugs, maybe once or twice a year I’ll pop some e’s at Glasto or Reading festival. That’s normal and not problematic, right? Aha. But in all honesty, ecstasy gets pretty sad pretty quickly. It’s not unusual to spend my whole trip waiting for it to peak, only to realise I’m already coming down! That wonderful, warm euphoria isn’t there anymore. Every now and then you can almost taste it, but it’s not enough to feel satiated. I’m left still hungry for more technicolour pills.

Cocaine is my ‘problem drug’. Once I start I cannot stop. So I had to stop taking it all together. Minus one tiny slip, I haven’t used since 2020 and that is a great achievement for me. An achievement I also feel embarrassed by…

The first time I did cocaine, it gave me so much ignorant confidence. It makes me so obsessed with myself. It’s the most antisocial, self indulgent experience. I’d throw parties, my house filled with music, conversations and warmth from my friends. Yet I’d sit myself at the kitchen table, doing lines off a dinner plate, often while filming myself or at least watching myself in the reflection of my phones front camera screen. Only looking up to engage in conversation that went something like ‘you wanna split another bag?’ … ‘do you have money?’ … ‘okay he’s here, black Mercedes, who’s going?’ …

And even once everyone had gone home, I’d still be sitting at that table. Maybe With one or two other ‘’charlies’, In our own little union. It may sound sad, but I loved and miss this. These memories are sentimental to me now.

There is something magical about watching the sun rise when you can’t feel your face. Making a cup of herbal tea come 6am you force yourself to drink in effort to unblock your sinuses so you can do more coke.

And once you’ve been on it from 7pm to 7am, the idea of stopping starts to become scary. Really scary. If at this point you decide to slow down and finish what you have, as you come down from the high, all the weird shit creeps in. The hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety. The daylight now feels unforgiving and unkind. You feel like some sort of nocturnal sewer gremlin that’s been awoken up from its dark underground hole. Grimacing at everything. Your stomach tightens because you’ve not eaten, and what turns your stomach even more is that your nose won’t stop dripping clear mucus, like a broken tap. It runs down into your mouth and although you can’t taste, it disgusts you.

After my coke use became coke binges, comedowns started to feel like psychosis, and I don’t use this word lightly. It’s those extremely real hallucinations, both visual and auditory. I often hallucinated my mum and I’d have conversations with her. If I wasn’t home, I’d hallucinate being at my house. And if I was home, I often hallucinated being on the bus! - I really hate bus’s. This is something many drugs have caused me to conjure up and though it’s quite funny, when it’s happening it’s horrible. You feel every bump, turn of the ‘bus’ as it drives. You feel all the eyes of all the people on the bus with you, watching you. Judging you. You try to leave the bus but it extends as you walk, becoming a never ending tube of terror.

After the hallucinations begin to melt away, then come the tears. The terrible tears. Wailing like London foxes having hot sex, I discover new depths to my lung capacity. In this moment I truly surrender to my pain, sickness, hunger. And am nothing but a helpless baby. Likely I’ll start wailing about being suicidal and wanting to tear off my skin. Those sorts of things.

Then, when I am truly exhausted I will sleep.

When I wake, I’ll feel incredibly unwell for at least a week or two. I still have permanent damage inside my right nostril. I don’t know if it was dodgy cuts or my even dodgier immune system. But coke used to always really irritate my nose. It would be scabby and bloody inside for weeks after. Causing me to not be able to breathe properly from the swelling.

And when I was caught up in the midst of it all, even this wouldn’t stop me from doing more cocaine. Even after my most horrible overdose that put me in the hospital. I still forgive it.

And that’s why I can’t do it. It becomes me and then eats me from the inside out.

I used to enjoy codeine cough syrup, remember when you could easily buy it from online pharmacies? As per cultural instruction, I’d mix it with lemonade. This was heavenly until that one really bad overdose that landed me in hospital. Now every time I take codeine, even if it’s just a small, prescribed amount, I will vomit.

Hallucinogenic drugs remind me of being a teenager, trying all the drugs for the first time the summer of 2017(?) Other than the anal acid story - which is a post in itself. I don’t have a bad relationship with these drugs, but Im ‘travelled’ enough to know that because of my mental health disposition I should stay away. At least until micro-dosing becomes legal here.

London weed makes me want to throw up, though I do love a California gummy candy edible when in LA.

Knowing all this, I’m sure it comes as no surprise when I say I hate clubs, I hate pubs and I hate bars. I hate drinking culture especially and what I haha the most is drunk men. Being around drunk men causes my body to have the most terrible, visceral reaction. I’m triggered by alcohol not because I was ever an alcoholic, (I only ever abused it to deliberately enhance the effects of other drugs) but because an ex of mine was a terrible alcoholic. Of all the drugs we’d take together, alcohol was the one that turned him into the worst monster of them all. When he was drunk, he was not human. He would verbally and physically assault me. He was uncontrollable. And the smell of alcohol on his breath as he’d shout and spit in my face is something I can’t ever forget. I was so young then too, I didn’t even appreciate the gravity of the situation, the abuse.

Living the closest I can to sobriety is really important to me. I am incredibly lucky that my boyfriend is t-total sober. He was actually the reason I stopped using cocaine all together. He gave me the motivation I needed to be a better person, not for him, but for myself.

Though I’ll admit, at that time in my life if anything was going to stop me using, of course it was going to be a gorgeous man hehe. Call it dopamine replacement therapy ;)

Where as most of the men I’d associated myself with prior had at most; enabled me and at least facilitated my drug use. He had a zero tolerance approach. He wasn’t even impressed when I’d childishly brag about all the coke I loved doing! - That was weird, I thought. Lol.

But he was the first man to show me that sobriety is SEXY!

Sometimes I feel like a total looser for being sober. I feel immature and unsophisticated, not ordering wine with dinner. I feel like a boring loner when I’m the only one not drinking round a table. I have isolated myself massively at times, avoiding social situations I can’t manage sober because everyone else won’t be.

Part of my healing journey is being able to have positive associations with alcohol. On the rare chance I enjoy a cocktail, it’s when I’m with my boyfriend, family or girlfriends. I think being able to stop after one or two drinks and have a laugh with people you’re close to is a lovely thing, especially when the people you’re with are doing the same… But the honest truth is not many people can stop after a couple drinks and before you know it someones ordering a bag. These are the types of night I anxiously avoid.

Knowing people may think of you as boring or weird for being sober in your 20’s is a horrible feeling to sit with. You feel outcast, even if people aren’t literally excluding you, you feel excluded from the activity everyone else seems to be enjoying. You feel left out. We all long for a sense of connection and where as we used to have many third spaces to fulfil us in various ways, venues to consume alcohol seem to be the only places left where young people congregate.

But…

Where as your average 20-something spends their money on drugs and alcohol. My boyfriend and I have our own third space we frequent; fancy vegan restaurants!

Before I met him my eating disorder was so bad I had a near phobia of restaurants. They weren’t somewhere I’d go unless forced to for a special occasion and they certainly weren’t somewhere I felt comfortable. But gradually he reintroduced me to how incredibly enjoyable going out for brunch, lunch and dinner is!

Eating without fear is self care and self love, sharing that love with your partner beats a line of cocaine any day… Food dopamine is a good trade up from the powder kind.

…Oooh and lastly, find something new to drink! Sobriety in your 20’s and green drinks really do go hand in hand hehe ;)