Anonymous Story: Alcohol, Alcohol

Alcohol, alcohol,… how I loved you. You quieted my anxiety and dulled my hurt. I never ate enough, so when I drank, I would get drunker, faster. You gave me guts and I felt bold, sexy, and powerful under your spell.

My new gal pal and I drank and drank that day until all I can recall are shared, flirtatious smiles with the gorgeous guy across the bar—the kind of guy I never could have attracted before my eating disorder. Then…nothing. Blackness.

A shred of memory of the backseat of a car and maybe my apartment parking lot, then nothing.

In the light of morning, with a pounding head and dry mouth, I woke to find a hand touching me. I rolled over to find a man who was only vaguely familiar, but definitely not someone I knew. I didn’t even know his first name, let alone his last.

With disorientation and rising terror, I looked around the room. On the carpet, there was a discarded condom. I turned and mumbled, “Did we?” And he said “Yeah. You kept calling me by another name [my first love, my ex-boyfriend] and telling me you loved me.”

Shaking, the shock and shame engulfing me, my body language told him to get the hell out. I mumbled my name and asked his and we exchanged numbers out of some desperation for normalcy, but of course I wanted nothing more to do with him. He left like a dog with his tail between his legs.

I showered and cried uncontrollably for several minutes that morning. Haunted, devastated, ashamed. I have never been the same. I’m getting a therapist’s help now, thankfully, but I know I will always carry this with me.

Thank you.