I am so thankful I got stuck in alcohol

August 17, 2025

I am so thankful I got stuck in alcohol. 

That may sound ludicrous to you. It would have to me too when I was in the depth of depression clinging tightly to what I truly believed was my only friend. 

How could you have thought that Carol?, I’ve been criticized. Easy. We were living in lockdown and had been for many months. Though it certainly did not begin there for me, it is there that it over took me. 

I was so desperate for human connection and had been for a long time. I was a lonely wife. I didn’t see my friends anymore, didn’t work outside the home and was a farm wife with plenty  to keep me busy at home. But let me start at the beginning.

I had been a drinker all my life. I think I was 13 or 14 when I had my first beer-Old Style. So gross. I can remember it vividly to this day. In the back of Lonnie’s station wagon, we threw the beer in the back when our “carry out” met us with it and off to Tom’s we went. It was exactly what I needed to numb all the feelings a girl at this age might be feeling and was told were wrong. 

At home I was sad I was criticized for being “so sensitive”. In fact, it happened from that person just a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to share a sensitive area and place a boundary.  

Alcohol worked. It numbed. It hid. It was fast.

It brought friends too. It wasn’t a problem at all. It was the solution.

At home I was often told to be ashamed of myself– for everything I did, thought, said, felt, didn’t admit to feeling etc while also being asked what I thought the neighbors would think if they knew how bad I was. 

I was asked what’s wrong with you? So, I set out looking for it. I got to the point where I’d just point out all my flaws right off the bat so they’d know I knew I was wrong. Perhaps the insults wouldn’t come if I already admitted my flaws first. Nope. 

And at party’s, I was the life of the party! People cheered!! CP is here!!! Let the party begin!! 

And since I had also been taught that sex was what 2 people who loved each other did, I confused any attention from a boy as love. My “first” told me loved me. So, I gave it  to him. He broke up with me a few weeks later. Dated other girls. Came back to me and I welcomed him with open arms “knowing” he “loved me too”. ( As a Catholic girl, I justified it to myself this way.) I’d do this dance with him for the next 5 years. During one of our break ups he even got one of my best friends pregnant. I was shamed by the group for being mad about it.

As I reflect on my early years, I recall mostly insults and not good enoughs. Not only  at home, but by some friends too. 

At some point I believe something in my subconscious was triggered to recognize that these bullying and shaming techniques worked against me so I should learn to  use them to gain power over others too.  It must have been in that moment that, 

I turned against myself and against pretty much everyone else I’d ever meet…..for the rest of my life. This pattern of self sabotage and narcissistic behaviors was born. 

What I’m writing now is through a lens of healing. I don’t live in those wounds anymore. I’ve learned that whenever I found myself compromising my principals to fit in and it felt uncomfortable and ignored it anyway, that I was actually chipping away at a piece of myself. Leaving something behind because it didn’t “fit”. I always felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Either too much or not enough for whomever I met. 

Close friendships I once knew grew distant and differing political views in the face of the shut down and the aftermath since left me more isolated and lonely that ever before. My job changed to fit to new standards and there weren’t many hours available and I gradually stopped working. I believed I wasn’t essential. My eldest got his drivers license and off he and his brother went. I mourned their childhood and the difficult road they had and for the choices I made that I felt were bad and wrong choices…… Without anyone (besides my sons sadly) noticing that I had crossed into the deepest depression of my life. Worse than after my best friend had been brutally murdered. My then closest friend and I had a texting argument and she concluded that I “had mental problems and she needed a break from me.” That was the push I needed to fall into oblivion. And I did. I managed to deal with a lawyer and get my will updated because I didn’t wasnt to live anymore and I felt my sons would have been better off without me. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I simply lost the will to live. 

I had been shaming myself and beating myself up for all my mistakes and trying so hard to figure out what was wrong with me (as I had been told to all my formative years) that that’s all I knew how to do. 

I was questioned for being too happy and my boisterous laugh was shushed and told it was embarrassing. When I did something I was proud of I was told not to get too proud of myself. So, again, alcohol was the solution for me for decades. It numbed the feelings I was told I shouldn’t feel. And what I was told TO feel was shame and that’s definitely too hard to carry without numbing it first. 

So…..why is this entitled  “Why I’m glad I got stuck in alcohol”? 

Because if I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have been praying and asking God to send me someone that understood what I was going through and could help me. 

I was of course praying for someone who had a magic pill to make all the internal pain and shame and failure I felt go away and wave a magic wand and magically transport me from hell to a heavenly state of peace on earth. 

What  I found was so much better than a magic pill that covered up the pain. 

I found a way to not only face all the “parts of me” (you know, when you say, “part me wants to this and another part of me wants to that”), but to understand that they really had my best interest at heart all along. For instance, I learned that my inner bully who was really bossy and shaming and cracked the whip of obedience, was just reiterating the only method she knew because it’s what she grew up with. I learned to look at her and see that she was about 6 years old. She desperately wanted to win the love and approval of her mom. I was then able to validate her and thank her and love her and release her.  This revealed so much more and as I continue to write my story and post it here as my blog, I hope you will be inspired. And that you will know you are valuable and you have everything you need, inside you right now. You’re lacking and you’re not broken. 

I found —the This Naked Mind Community, and The 30 Day Alcohol Experiment, both written by Annie Grace.  I got free from alcohol by recognizing  lies I had believed about myself for my entire life because of lies and harsh things said to me and things done to me that I internalized and gave meanings to that ended up robbing me of my self, my peace and my power—the opposite of what I had set out for. 

My on and off drinking lifelong lifestyle caught up with me just after my 50th birthday in 2020. 

And as I stated early, I was deep in a pit of depression and I had a tight grip on what I truly believed was my only friend. I prayed and begged God to help me and to send me someone who could help me. In 2021 I found the 30 Day Alcohol Experiment. I started watching the videos and doing the journaling exercises and reading the material. I started listening to “get sober” type podcasts. I also knew I needed to get right with God again. I knew He hadn’t walked but I did. I started reading “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young and writing out each Scripture each day. I dug deep into other books like “Take Your Life Back” by Levi Lusko and “Building a Non-Anxious Life” by Dr. John Deloney. After a little time, and effort, my ability to string together several days of not drinking was developing. It was not instant and it was not without willpower AND God’s power working with me and in me, AND the incredible work of Annie Grace and her continued work that I’m learning as I’m now a certified coach through her academy now,  that I was able to get free. It’s been about 3 years since I last had a drink. 

Let me back up a bit..

About a year after I was very happily not  drinking and truly didn’t desire to drink anymore, I signed up for and began a “second level” if you will called The PATH. (Perception Awareness Transformation Healing . I started it but I didn’t continue with it because it wanted me to do more inner looking than I was willing to do at the time. I bought the lie that looking at it would be too painful and cause me to drink again. 

When I type that I can see the devils handiwork all over it. What a ridiculous oxymoron to have allowed myself to get stuck in huh?...  Well the beauty of This Naked Mind methodology is that statements like that aren’t allowed. We don’t get to  judge ourselves anymore here. 

For example, If I had said that statement out loud to a coach, (s)he would have asked me, “Carol, is that true that it’s ridiculous for you to have thought that? Or is it possible that  you were caught being human?” 

“Wow” my brain would say, “I never looked at it like that before. I suppose it’s possible, tell me more.” And then the coach would further go on to inform me of some really cool brain science that proves that I was caught up in a totally normal for humans, feedback loop in the subconscious mind, a conversation, if you will, with opposing “parts” of me that  wanted what’s best for me but had opposing ideas of what that was. 

Let me continue to unwrap that a bit. I started to bit earlier. 

 Notice the next time you hear yourself say, “Part of me wants to…”

And get quiet with that thought for a minute or two. I like to picture players coming onto a football field. This is from Internal Family Systems therapy, which I am not certified in and am not pretending to know about than what I’m sharing with you here and my from my personal experience with it which has been profound.

 When you decide you’re really ready to let go of what’s  been holding you back, you’ll be willing to try this. I hope you don’t wait as long as I did. I was quickly able to see so many younger versions of me all running around on that field doing whatever it took for validation. Period. 

What I’m trying to share with you is this. Because I was looking for a way to quit drinking, I found a whole new way of looking at myself and seeing myself for the beautiful and authentic person that God created me to be in the first place! 

I discovered that I was on a futile journey when searching for “what was wrong with me” because it only led to the same end, every day. Everything was wrong with me. We find what we look for. So, I learned how to talk back to the thoughts I didn’t even know were running on auto pilot and take them captive unto Jesus where He and I could examine them. I learned to trust His word and claim His promises for me. Pretty soon, I started to realize that if I continue to beat myself up for what I or someone else, perceives as a mistake rather than forgive myself and accept my human condition, then I’m pursing self perfection. Only God is perfect. If I reject Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross by insisting that I can punish myself better (and also punish everyone around me because I was so full of self hatred and loathing, how could I give what I didn’t have?) 

So, was the 30 day alcohol experiment a magic pill? Nope. It’s a tool box full of amazing tools, some old some new, many a combination of both and some still being tested. I believe there’s something in it for everyone. And it’s the best start I’ve found. 

We don’t know the number of our days.

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." —Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)

Don’t delay another day. Freedom is…..amazing…come get more of it.