Happy Birthday

No, you haven't come to the wrong site. It's still me.... Addy, with a new look.

I thought it high time for a makeover.  My Blog is four years old today.  In some ways it seems I have been writing down my thoughts a lot longer than that, in other ways it seems like only yesterday, when I first ventured nervously into the blogosphere to bare my soul.

When I think back to what spurred me on to join the blogging community in the first place, it was the utter frustration with the situation I found myself in... living with a 24/7 end-stage alcoholic with no idea how to cope, how to make him stop drinking, how to get someone to listen to our cries for help or how to return to normality ever again. I felt as if I was in a nightmare where I was being chased by a faceless monster wielding a big club and where I was unable to run away as my feet were set in thick concrete. Except it was reality and I was not asleep. Fighting alcoholism is not just difficult for the alcoholic but it affects the whole family around them. It is very much like bashing your head against a brick wall, for all that you manage to achieve successfully.

Four years on from that very first post, my life is so different now. I have peace of mind. I can sleep easy. I have control of my life again and do not have to answer to anyone but myself. I can go to bed calmly in the knowledge that the house will not burn down from a fallen cigarette or that I will not stumble over an intoxicated body in the kitchen (or worst, find his corpse). Financial worries are a thing of the past. (When £600 is going out of the house each month on whisky and cigarettes alone, it is very easy to worry.) When I  read some of the entries from that early period, it is hard to think I was actually involved in it. The nasty episodes are withdrawing farther and farther away in the recesses of my memory. It is only when I read other alcoholic blogs or listen to others' stories at Al-Anon, that I get a glimpse of what  I once went through. It makes me shudder. Admittedly I am on my own now and don't have the lovelier version of Greg by my side, the one I married and made plans with, but I doubt I could have gone on much longer with the way he was as a full-time alcoholic. 

At the moment, the blog still serves as a concrete reminder for me and I hope it will also help others going through similar situations or inform those who have absolutely no idea what it is really like to live with alcoholism. It may even make an alcoholic in the making think twice about what will befall them and their family if they continue downwards on the slippery slope they follow. However, I've decided my four-year-old needs some new clothes and have attempted a makeover. It is still a work in progress but for the moment I leave you with what I have managed so far.