Tag Archives: alcohol

Speak Your Truth

My life truly began to change when I started to be completely honest. I started to write about and confront the things that I ignored for years. Publicly I published articles about dealing with sexual assault and healing on the web. The first time my article appeared on online, I felt naked. I started to cry and wondered if I had made a huge mistake. With each consecutive article, I felt equally exposed. This went on for about six months. Each time an article came out, I would cry. My boyfriend at the time asked me why I even bother to do it. He said that maybe I should just stop writing if it was this difficult for me to handle. Though it was difficult, I never considered stopping or quitting. Too many people wrote back to me saying that they felt very alone in their experience before reading my articles. Truth is before reading their comments, I felt very alone in the experience of surviving sexual assault as well.

For years I hid the truth about my life from everyone. I dodged reality and instead hid behind poor relationships, drinking, and substance abuse. No one understood why I was so messed up and always involved in something reckless. The addictions numbed the pain of rape. They also came to the forefront and caused immediate drama and issues that couldn’t be ignored. Perhaps they were the armor I hid the truth behind. With so much negativity going on because of my behavior, I had enough to worry about without delving into and exploring my past. Eventually I found out that you cannot hide the truth from others without also hiding it from yourself.

Denial can kill people. Until I spoke my truth and seeked professional help, the road I went down only got progressively worse. Addictions will kill you eventually. Suppressing trauma can cause unhappiness, depression, and serious illnesses.

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Filed under Healing, Life Lessons, Sexual Assault

Simplify: Removing Alcohol and Meat from My Life

What happens when you remove both meat and alcohol from your life? Some people would consider living in this type of existence hell. I myself once felt that completely removing alcohol from my life would never happen. I liked my frozen drinks and microbrews. To be clear it wasn’t anywhere near alcohol dependence, just social drinking. Somehow social drinking was a part of me that I didn’t feel the need to give up, drinking once a month or twice tops. In fact, when I turned vegetarian, I remember being excited that I could still drink beer. Somehow even drinking a few times a month can turn into a problem.

When I cut out drinking for dieting purposes, after a month my motivation levels increased. I became more persistent and much less apt to give up. This weekend I watched alcohol ruin an otherwise wonderful relationship, and I cannot help but think that without the drinking it would’ve been fine.

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Filed under Fun, Vegetarianism