#alcohol abuse

[1343-40]

insane to me to be in love with a guy with the same vices as your drunken dead gambler of a father. does the smell of whiskey when he drapes an arm around your shoulder remind you of pony tracks, buck. does your stomach churn at the increasing frequency with which you see a flash of that flask. are you terrified of looking into his drunken eyes one day and seeing a stranger there

#clegan #buck x bucky #alcohol abuse #mota

[quecksilvereyes]

oh, sister, I am sorry. your eyes are sunken and your skin is bruised. your lips are chapped, your nailbeds bitten raw. your husband's hand on your waist is a ghost's touch held by the band on your left ring finger and I-

I am dead.

I got on the train, Su. Nevermind your tears, nevermind the plea you could not shape with words, nevermind your fingers on the pulse point of my wrist. "stay", you'd said, as you have always done, dictionary in hand and baby teeth yet lodged in your jaw. "don't go where i cannot."

I step through a wardrobe and you follow, damned be reason. I slay a wolf and you follow, I cling to the little ones and you follow, I am crowned and you follow, I am-

I go past a lamp post, and you follow, damned be dread. I go to a train station and you follow, trembling hands and tender heart. I go, and I go, and I go, and you follow. Sun of my skies. Light of my life.

I go. you stop.

are we too old for stories, now? ten-and-four and ten-and-three, budding bodies and steel bones, we are cast from our home. i hold the little ones until i drown in them. you grip your skirts until no iron can press the shape of your palms from them. and you have ever been, cruelly reasonable and logically callous.

say you, glass shard eyes and rouge-red lips: we are english. we are children. she thinks she has found a magical land in the upstairs wardrobe.

say I, trembling hands and coiling guts: we are narnian. we are monarchs. if she's not mad and she's not lying, then logically she must be telling the truth.

my sister Susan, beautiful as folk tales are and twice as sharp, did you intend every invitation you took for me to twist the knife a godly animal once thrust into my guts? perhaps it was the way your eyes turned blue, or the sound of your laughter losing its bells. perhaps it was just my trembling fingers at the back of your legs, drawing stocking lines where no stockings had ever lain.

the line came out shaking, and you rubbed it off until your skin cried red. the hem of your dress still dripped wet when you left that day, turning on heels too narrow for you to walk in.

do you remember? it took you days to come home, and mother wailed for all of them. you crawled into my bed that night, as you did when we were parents to our little ones, those terrible months. your head on my shoulder, your breath in my ear, I held you until morning.

your mouth in my throat, eyes heavy with sleep, tongue heavy with champagne: we are here now. we must make the best of it. he cannot have all our lives, and all our joys. i wish you would laugh again.

doesn't little lucy, shrieking mouth and tumbling legs, laugh enough for us all?

lucy's manic. if she didn't laugh she'd cry.

i think sometimes, in the parts of my guts that are still a schoolboy, and are mean and cruel to match, that the alcohol makes you softer than the daylight ever could. i do not tell you.

i press my lips to your forehead. i wrap my arms around you. the year between us rings heavy, and when I get up in the morning, you do not follow.

I tried, Su. I did. I applied for university, I saw that girl with that smile. with those eyes. I let you take sections from the paper before I ever touched it, I held the little ones in my arms, and I made coffee in the morning. I sat all my exams.

I smiled when the little ones came back smelling of home.

Aslan's wounds, did I try. but-

I have ever been a thing made for stories. brave the way knights are, bloody knuckles and buckling pride. a horse between my calves, a sword in my hands.

I think, sometimes, that I was born for my sword, for the hollow ringing of my heart when I first held it. a part of me, even then, ten-and-three and soaked to the bone.

such bravery is not made for real world boys and real world taunts. there is a map, I think, from the summits of my knuckles to the jaws of every boy who ever looked at me and bared his teeth.

I am sovereign. I am the skies for your sun to burn in.

I am made wrong, for this england, and I cannot take this life you want. I belong, I think, into myths and legend, the star-studded shards of our home.

so I went on the train, Susan. so I died, and I named what you have chosen. so I banned you from their scorning mouths. so you grip your husband's hand, realest of us all, and you cry. you do not follow.

Forgive me.

#tcon #narnia #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #sibling relationships #in which peter is a story of a man more than he is a boy #in which susan is a girl more than she is a story of a queen #on diverging paths #on following #and staying #death tw #the last battle #alcohol abuse #brief implications of lucy having manic episodes #hello #i have brainworms #it is 3am #susan is real in a way peter isnt #he is a story and she is a person #the chronicles of narnia #narnia fanfic #narnia fanfiction

[avvail]

Hero is an alcoholic and the villain finds the hero on the sidewalk with a bottle of alcohol in his hand, and then the Hero starts to vent to the villain about his issues

“Hero.”

The villain hadn’t meant for such thickness to creep into their voice, but it had. Seeing the hero, such a prized little monument in their city, squeezed in an alleyway with an entire bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand, might do that to anyone.

They shouldn’t have thought anything of it.

Maybe it was a kick to keep him going through the night.

Maybe he would leap to his feet and engage the villain in another breath taking battle. But even in the dim light, they see the unnatural flush on his cheeks. They see the unfocused, glazed look in his eye.

It even takes him far too long to register that his name had been called.

The whiskey bottle clanks against the concrete as he sets it down, but doesn’t unfasten his fingers from the slim neck.

“Villain.”

His voice is shaking. They can sense a slurred drawl creeping effortlessly through each syllable. The villain steps closer. They can almost smell it.

“What are you doing, Hero?”

He languidly nudges the half empty whiskey, as if the answer was obvious.

“Drinking,” he slurs. The villain’s brow pinches.

“Why?”

The hero gulps down another swig. They almost see it hit him, his eyes popping open wearily, before his head lolls lazily so his chin is almost touching his chest. He sucks in a wet breath.

“Why does anyone do anything?” He grumpily groans, struggling to twist his tongue around his own words. He looks as though he barely knows what he’s saying. “Jus’...leave me alone.”

The villain grimaces. They stop in front of them with a pinched brow etched onto their face, and they reach down to pry the bottle from their hands. Surprisingly, he has enough to strength to rip it away. Some liquid sloshes onto the pavement with a wet smack.

“Oi,” he loudly snaps. “That’s mine. Hands off.”

“I think you’ve had enough,” the villain sternly tells him. They can feel this resonating anger consuming their very being. They don’t know why seeing the hero in this state is getting them hot under the collar. Maybe it’s because the hero is doing it to himself.

The only person who should be bringing him pain and misery, was them. Not a bottle of Jameson.

“I’ve only had three bottles,” he huffs, barely stuttering out the words. The villain’s eyebrows raise.

“Three?”

“I like Irish whiskey,” the hero hums.

The villain resists the urge to curse under their breath. They hadn’t ever once thought of the hero as an idiot until now. They yank the bottle from his slipping grip with more force this time, and it pops right out of his hand. They already have an arm lay over his collarbone to prevent him from moving when he attempts to lurch forward in a hasty effort to take it back.

“Hey!” He snaps, barely fighting him off. “S’mine.”

“Why are you drinking yourself to death?”

They don’t ask because they care. The villain hasn’t ever cared; they just don’t want the hero to be easy pickings while he’s out here in this state. He puts up a valiant fight for a drunkard.

“Why do you care?” He hisses, and the villain can smell the warm wood and nutty undertones radiating from the bottle. They make a point of tipping it all out onto the pavement.

The hero fights harder this time, a ragged groan tearing from their throat.

“Fuck you,” he growls, clumsy fingers trying to latch onto their shirt. “Jus’...fuckin’, ruining everything—”

The villain can see tears in his glassy eyes. They wonder whether it’s because he just poured an expensive bottle of Jameson on the floor, but they find their voice softening regardless. Not because they care.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” they ask.

The hero grits his teeth, a soft little huff choking in his throat. It takes mere seconds before the tears begin to roll down their cheeks.

“Twenty two people died on that bridge,” he forces out, sucking in a sharp breath. “It was my fucking fault. Mine.”

They look at them gently.

“Hero, that was months ago,” they whisper. “You know that wasn’t your fault.”

The villain can feel him visibly shaking from under their arm, and they decide to slowly remove it from his collarbone. The hero sways, and he’s clearly fighting off a huge wave of drunken dizziness that slams into him.

“I’m a fucking joke,” he sobs. “I need it.”

“You don’t need to do this,” the villain murmurs. They try to ignore the returning thickness in their throat. “You’re not a joke.”

“Leave me alone,” he groans, head falling limply onto their shoulder. They stiffen. “Please.”

They don’t like the way the hero begs. It isn’t nearly as fun as they had imagined; none of this, seeing the hero broken and miserable, was as fun as they had imagined. They gently cradle him into their side, and slowly heft him off the ground. It takes him a while to even find his feet.

“Come on, Hero,” the villain hums, voice strained. “I’m taking you home.”

He quietly sobs to himself as they do, and the villain realises how much he must have been struggling for months by himself. They take him back home, but it isn’t because they care. Even when they put him in some clean clothes, and make him sip at some water, making sure he lies on his side so he doesn’t throw up.

When the hero is asleep, they stay. But not because they care.

#ask #hero x villain #villain x hero #hero and villain #villain and hero #heroes and villains #villains and heroes #hero villain #villain hero #hero #villain #alcohol abuse #writing #my writing #avvail snippet #avvail

[whumpypepsigal]

Silent Night (2023): “Help me.”

#whumpedit #whump #silent night #joel kinnaman #brian godlock #silent night 2023 #grief #scar #alcohol abuse #burns #coughing #help me #lost voice #worry #emotional whump #my gifs #movie #broken man with damaged vocal cord struggling with grief resorting to alcohol to numb himself asks for help from his equally grieving wife #major whumperflies #made my insides tingle #weak at the knees

[fuckingwhateverdude]

@nosebleedclub // dec. #28

#alcoholism vibes lately #my writing #my writing tag #nosebleedclub #nosebleed club #poetry #original poem #spilled ink #mental illness #vent writing #alcohol abuse #substance abuse #substance use #self medication #bipolar disorder

[raina-at]

Bitter

I'm putting the tags here because of the content warning.

Thank you for the prompt @calaisreno

Tagging @lisbeth-kk @keirgreeneyes @jrow @thetimemoves @7-percent @totallysilvergirl @meetinginsamarra @helloliriels @topsyturvy-turtely and anyone else who wants to play.

Content warning: This ficlet contains something that could reasonably be interpreted as a suicide attempt. This gets dark, though it has a hopeful ending. Please proceed with caution.

John is drunk.

John is so far past drunk.

There’s not a word in his vocabulary for how far past drunk he is. And if it was, he certainly wouldn’t know it now.

He’s sitting in the dark on the floor in 221B, leaning against his chair. All around him, shards of glass litter the room. First he threw the whisky glass when it slipped out of his fingers. Then he threw the bottle when it was empty. Then he threw the vases with flowers left over from Sherlock’s funeral.

There’s a shard of glass cutting into his calf. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t feel much anymore, which is a blessing, really, because everything hurts. His chest burns with the alcohol and the tears that just won’t fall. The bitterness burns down his throat all the way down to his stomach, which is rebelling from too much alcohol and too little food. 

He doesn’t remember when he last ate. Or drank something other than whisky. He’s been back at 221B for hours, and he’s lost any sense of time.

He just wants to pass out in this ruined flat, his ruined life. Maybe he’ll choke on his own vomit during the night.

What a fitting end for the most useless person on the planet. 

Why can he never save anyone he cares about? His father, dead at forty, unable or unwilling to stop drinking and smoking and driving while drunk, which was what got him in the end. His mother, ovarian cancer, dead at fifty. All the hospital visits and experimental treatments and doctors he dragged her to and then she died when he was on his second tour. Heart attack. From the chemo, they said. The chemo he talked her into. She hadn’t wanted another round. He’d convinced her. And then she died, and he wasn’t there. Harry never forgave him. He lost her to the bottle not long after. 

And now Sherlock. Died before his very eyes, and John, useless, worthless John Watson, was unable to stop him. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and takes another swig from the almost empty whisky bottle. 

Maybe he should stop drinking.

But he can still feel it. The pain. It permeates every cell of his body, right down to the very marrow of his bones. It never stops, not when he’s awake, at least. It’s like a scream that’s trapped in his body, cutting him up from the inside. The sound he couldn’t make when Sherlock jumped. 

He takes another sip. “And fuck you very much, too,” he whispers, then throws the bottle directly at Sherlock’s chair. 

The anger is almost as bad as the pain. It burns up and down his throat, bitter and hot and destructive. How could you do this to me? How could you leave me? How could you make me watch, make me complicit in your death? 

It doesn’t matter. There’s no answer. There will never be an answer.

He puts a palm to the floor, tries to stand up. The glass cuts into his skin. It feels good, this actual physical pain. He slips and falls down as he tries to get up, too dizzy to move.

He’s dimly aware that this is bad. It’s really bad. He can’t get up, he can’t see straight. He can’t really speak anymore. 

He takes out his mobile with shaky fingers, hits speed dial 3, drops the phone onto the floor.

It rings, rings, rings.

Someone picks up.

“John?”

He tries to answer and can’t.

The last thing he’s aware of is the door opening and Mrs Hudson’s scream.

*-*

Hands on him. Emergency lights. Someone is yelling his name. He thinks it’s Lestrade. 

He vomits all over the ambulance. 

A quiet voice asks someone whether there was a note.

Fuck, John thinks, and passes out again.

*-*

They wake him several times over the next few hours. He remembers almost nothing, just anonymous faces asking his name, what year it is, and who’s Prime Minister. They prod him and shine lights into his eyes.

He falls asleep again, dimly aware that he fucked up, but too exhausted to care.

*-*

The next time he wakes up, he must have been asleep for some time, because the clock on the wall and the light coming in from outside say it’s early evening.

He’s in a small, white hospital room. It’s very quiet.

Sherlock Holmes is sitting next to his bed. His clothes are dishevelled, he hasn’t shaved or bathed in several days, his face is pale as death and his eyes are red from crying.

John swallows and winces. His parched throat hurts infernally, he has a monster headache, his hands are bandaged and he feels like a car ran him over, then backed up and took another pass. 

So he’s clearly alive.

But he must have lost his mind, somehow. Happens. Psychotic break. He’s heard of it.

Sherlock looks terrible. Not only physically, but for the first time since John has known him, he looks like he doesn’t know what to do next. He looks lost. 

“Funny,” he rasps, his voice shot to shit from alcohol and vomiting. “I thought I’d imagine you like you were, you know, all put together. Maybe you look like shit because I feel like shit.”

Sherlock looks up and stares at him, wordlessly. He looks devastated. He blinks a few times, and John realises he’s crying.

“Why are you crying, exactly?” John asks, the slight slur to his words reminding him that the alcohol is still making its way out of his system. “I’m the one who’s gone round the bend, after all.”

Sherlock gently stands up and takes a plastic cup with a straw from the nightstand. “The doctor said you need to hydrate,” he says, and his voice sounds no better than John’s, rough and unsteady. 

He holds the straw to John’s mouth and John drinks greedily, grateful for the stale water that runs down his parched throat like the sweetest nectar. “For an illusion, you’re surprisingly helpful,” John says after he’s emptied the cup.

Sherlock puts the cup down on the nightstand and hovers on the side of John’s bed. He hesitates briefly, then he leans down and presses a soft kiss to John’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, breath hitching with a muffled sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mutters again and again, hands coming to rest on John’s shoulders. 

John blinks as slowly, very slowly, realisation dawns. 

Oh god.

“You-” he chokes out, throat closing up with an unnameable tangle of emotions, griefangerjoyragerelief all mingled together. “You-”

“I know, I’m sorry, there’s so much I need to tell you, I’m just so glad you’re alive,” Sherlock babbles, his lips still pressed to John’s forehead.

Anger rears its head out of the tangle and flows bitterly up John’s throat. “Get. Out,” he grates out between clenched teeth. “Get. The fuck. Out.”

Sherlock moves back. Removes his hands from John’s shoulders. He takes a step back from the bed, and he looks so - human, so - fuck, alive -

“Wait,” John chokes out, feeling the tears finally come, finally release out of his chest, that ugly ball of angerguiltgriefpain starting to soften, “Wait -”

Sherlock’s back in an instant, and John doesn’t know exactly how it’s happening, but he’s got his arms around Sherlock and Sherlock is sobbing into his shoulder and he’s sobbing into Sherlock’s chest, and they’re a mess of limbs and snot and muttered, broken words that make no sense. Sherlock climbs into bed with him, shoes and all. He’s filthy and he stinks and he’s a sniffling mess, but John wraps his arms around him and breathes in the rank smell of his hair. Slowly, his breathing calms. Sherlock rearranges them so John’s head is resting on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock carefully pulls John’s arm over his chest so as to not disturb the IV line. 

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” John mutters into Sherlock’s chest, exhausted and still half-drunk and nearly delirious with relief.

“I know,” Sherlock mutters into John’s hair. “I have a lot of making up to do.”

“That too,” John slurs, already half asleep again. 

Sherlock’s fingers card through his hair, soothing and gentle. “Go to sleep, John. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“Swear.”

John nods against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock’s heart is beating right beneath his ear. He can feel his ribcage move as he breathes in and out. Alive, alive, alive.

John falls asleep to that sound, knowing that things won’t be fine right away, but they will be eventually. 

Sherlock Holmes lives. Now John Watson can as well. 

Sorry this got so dark, you guys. I promise a fluff bomb tomorrow.

#cw: suicide #alcohol abuse #sherlock #ficlet #johnlock #heavy angst with a hopeful ending #be warned #please heed the warnings here people #may prompts #bitter #cw: Self harm

[whump-blog]

Okay here comes the request. Hope this isn’t too specific :)

Caretaker finds their friend Whumpee drunk out of their mind. They don’t know what happened but nevertheless they bring Whumpee home and take care of them. Whumpee, being rather incoherent, accidentally confesses something (maybe their treatment with whumper, maybe a love confession of what they think is unrequited love, maybe something else…)

Sorry it took me so long to answer this, but there wasn't enough creative juice in me, haha. I know it's not exactly what you asked for, but I still hope you like what I wrote :)

Thank you @whumpinthepot for helping me with this and doing a proof reading.

CW: drunk whumpee, abuse, alcohol abuse, protective caretaker, wounded character

“What are ya' doing Hero?” asked Civilian blinking slowly, trying to get used to the light in the flat while Hero dabbed his face with a wet cloth.

“What am I doing? I'm trying to wipe all the scratches off your face, you- idiot!”

“Wh- what scratcheees?”

“The ones you got when you decided to start a fight with that guy from the bar.”

“Ooh yeees! Well- he deserved it. He shouldn't have taken my drink.” Civilian swayed, and Hero had to grab his shoulder to keep him still.

The night among friends had been going smoothly with drinks and laughter, until Hero lost sight of a drunk Civilian for a few minutes and things got out of control. Resulting in Hero having to drag him out and take him home.

“That wasn't your drink!" Hero started, but he knew it was a lost cause, "ahh- never mind, can you take off your shirt? I want to see that you don't have any more cuts under it.”

“Heh, are you trying to flirt with me?” Civilian teased, trying with trembling hands to remove his torn clothes.

Despite the evening's outcome, the friends were enjoying their time together, but when Hero saw under Civilian's shirt, his face turned pale and the room fell silent.

The multiple scars covering Civilian's chest showed just how negligent Hero had been as a friend. How was it possible? Hero wondered. How was it possible that someone had been hurting his friend and he hadn't noticed? 

“Who- who did this to you? When did this happen? Why didn't you say anything?!” Hero bombarded Civilian with questions, while guilt and worry overwhelmed him.

“Wait- m’ head…” -Civilian pressed his eyes closed- “don't talk so- so loud," he said as if what Hero had just found out was not a big deal.

“Tell me, and I swear I will see to it that you get justice.”

“Wha- what ar-e you talking about?”

“Don't play dumb. Where did all those scars come from? Civilian, someone's been hurting you and that's- that's not right...”

In the silence after Hero spoke, all that could be heard was the gentle breeze ruffling the curtains. Civilian was quite drowsy from all the alcohol, and looked as if he would pass out before answering Hero's questions. Until he finally managed to put his words together to give a halfway coherent answer.

“I- well, all these here," Civilian pointed to his scars, "you don't have to wo-worry Hero, they we-were my fau-lt.”

“Civilian..." pity could be heard in his voice, "I don't know who told you that, but it's not true. None of this can be your fault.”

“Yes, yes it was. I- I got involved with the- the wrong-g people. If I had never met Supervillain… things wouldn't have gone this far.”

Civilian seemed lost in thought. But Hero now had more questions than answers. Suddenly, nothing seemed to make sense.

“So, was it Supervillain who hurt you like this?”

Hero was trying to remain calm, but a storm was raging inside him. What could Supervillain want with Civilian? No matter the reason, as soon as he got his hands on that son of a bitch, he would make him regret ever having scratched a kind and gentle person like Civilian.

“Well, yes- in part…”

“In part? What do you mean? Has someone else been hurting you?”

“Ah well…yes… hm- erm, I,” Civilian hesitated looking at Hero in the eyes, “I told you it was my fault… if only I had been better… I brought this on myself."

“Civilian, you have to tell me the truth, you can't go on like this." Hero pressed.

As the conversation went on, Civilian looked more and more stressed until a few tears managed to escape from his eyes. “I- I just, I don't want to tell you.” 

“Why?”

“You're going to get mad at me.”

“Civilian, that's not true, we are friends.”

“You won't want to be my friend anymore.”

“Everything is going to be okay. Just tell me. I can't see you hurt like this”

Hero took Civilian's hand into his own in a gesture that was intended to reassure his friend. But, which in fact ended up breaking Civilian, who began to sob inconsolably.

“I'm sorry, Hero, I'm sorry... It- It was you-”

If the night hadn't been strange enough, that last sentence had knocked him off his feet. That was not possible. For a long moment, Hero stood frozen without saying a word, without moving a muscle, just listening to his friend sobbing in the background. Until finally it all clicked. The answer had been so obvious. Only, he had been too blind to see it.

“Villain?” the question leapt from his mind and escaped his lips.

At the mention of that name, the sobbing turned to heavy weeping, and that was more than proof enough. Hero hesitated for a moment, but ended up sitting on the sofa next to- his friend? Perhaps the years of friendship had been a lie, all a great manipulation. It was the first thing that crossed Hero's mind. If it wasn't for the alcohol, Civili- Villain would never have revealed his identity. But the good times he had spent with his friend had felt real, Hero couldn't remember Villain ever taking advantage of Hero's ignorance of his identity and trying to get information out of him as Civilian. Besides, the scars on Villain's body were very real. Those could not be faked. Now that he thought about it, on occasions when Hero had fought with Villain, he had inflicted wounds to defeat him that he could now see reflected in some of the many scars on Villain's body. But he was definitely not the cause of all of them.

With that in mind, Hero moved his arms slowly until he wrapped Villain in a gentle hug. At the unexpected physical contact, his friend flinched, but when the surprise passed, he just rested his head on Hero's shoulder and cried there for a long time. By the time Villain had calmed down, the night breeze had stopped.

“So- you don't hate me?" was the first thing Villain asked, "can we still be friends?"

“Of course I don't hate you. Whatever happened doesn't change anything, you have been my friend for many years and always will be.” Hero shook his head. “I- I just don't understand why Supervillain would do something like this to you, you're his ally.” 

If Hero wanted answers, it would be better to get them now. Once the alcohol had cleared out of Villain's system, he would probably return to his charmingly stoic and cocky self. But... was it really the right thing to do to take advantage of the situation? Villain would never have confessed to something like this in his right mind. But before Hero could further question the morality of his actions, Villain voiced one last thought.

“H- he do- doesn't like useless- people. Losing to you…” he sighed, “I will always be a failure to him…” 

After that statement, a last tear rolled down Villain's cheek as he fell asleep in Hero's embrace.

Hopefully the next morning he won't be able to remember anything, Hero thought as he laid Villain on the couch to finish treating his wounds. Some of which he had apparently caused himself.

He would definitely pay Supervillain a friendly visit tomorrow.

#whump #hero caretaker #villain whumpee #supervillain whumper #hero x villain #civilian x hero #protective caretaker #scars #abuse #alcohol abuse #drunk whumpee #wounded villain #whumpee #caretaker

[fiveocock]

#phoenix writgh #that despicable year #my art #alcohol abuse #ace attorney

[goodbyemaryjane]

10 things I learned from 10 months of sobriety

(in no particular order)

1. Feelings can't hurt me as long as I don't do anything self destructive to make them go away. They'll pass - like clouds blowing over the sky.

2. Everything good that I thought being drunk and high helped me do - socializing at parties, making art, emotional intimacy - I'm actually better at when I'm sober.

3. Getting intoxicated was a shortcut (a maladaptive coping mechanism) to silence my self-criticism and shame.

4. It caused more problems than it solved.

5. What I really needed was to practice self compassion and let myself be vulnerable with others sober. Scary, but the rewards are great.

6. If I satisfy my loneliness by getting drunk and high, I will be too busy with my addiction to seek out real love or accept it when it comes. I feel lonely for a reason; if I just keep numbing the hunger, I'll starve.

7. I have to take all of the energy I may spend wishing for others to change for me and just change myself.

8. Withdrawals were uncomfortable but my fear of them was much worse. When I look back, I felt more joy and relief in the first few days than pain. Like swimming in the ocean: once I stopped struggling and just let the current pull me under and toss me around, trusting that eventually I would be pushed to the surface, I knew I would be alright no matter how strange and sick I felt. It was such a relief to stop fighting what I knew deep down was right and true: that I had to quit today - not tomorrow, not in a week - or I'd be using for the rest of my life.

9. Denial is a powerful and terrifying thing. Nobody is too smart to be an addict. If anything, it makes you better at coming up with excuses.

10. At some point you will be more afraid of staying the same forever than you are of changing.

#i smoked all day every day and binge drank if i still felt too sober or i couldnt get enough weed #drinking was my first problem but i got more into thc because it didnt make me feel so sick #at least at first #this blog is just more focused on weed bc i feel theres a lack of information and content about thc addiction on Tumblr #goodbye mary jane #weed addiction #addiction recovery #marijuana addiction #recovering stoner #cannabis addiction #stoner #drug addikt #clean and sober #recovering addict #alcoholism #alcohol abuse

[whatsnewalycat]

I can see the gains from my trauma work in things like how I can have a bottle of alcohol in my house without wanting to suck it dry. How my rage doesn’t shoot through the roof when my kids are loud. How I feel present in my body during sex. How I don’t go into a fugue state when men raise their voice around me.

About a year ago I started doing EMDR/ART. About six months before that I was diagnosed with ADHD & PTSD. A few years before that I started medication management and therapy for anxiety and depression. Before that… idk.

There’s a period of time I didn’t feel happiness. I spent years of my life, over a decade, abusing drugs and alcohol, self-destructing, trying to replicate that emotion. Trying to get rid of that terrible, gnawing nothingness. Trying to blunt my rage and shame.

And. Just. It’s so worth it to put in the work to get better, please believe that.

If you’re on the fence about seeking help, please do it. You can do it. Even if it’s hard, even if it’s daunting, even if it’s slow going. You one hundred percent can fucking do it, I know you can.

You deserve to squeeze every last beautiful drop out of this life.

#mental health #mentally ill #therapy #emdr therapy #trauma work #alcohol abuse #drug abuse

[putnamcapital]

Deep dive wondering about Sara's backstory (CW: drug / alcohol abuse) (Part 2)

CW Drug & Alcohol abuse by a parent

This is part 2 of a post about trying to figure out Sara's motivations and actions and how they are influenced by being raised in a home with a drug/alcohol dependent parent. Feedback / thoughts very much welcome.

Watching: Frida Argento is an incredible actor, and people often talk about how expressive she is with her eyes. This is partly her, and partly her character: Sara sees EVERYTHING. There are numerous points in the story line where it is literally only us, the viewer, and Sara, who know everything. She sees August upload the video, she sees Stella’s crush on Fredrika, she sees Wille hold Simon’s little finger in the movie theatre, she sees through Simon’s smile the morning after when they’re waiting for class to start. The only thing she doesn’t know in the gun scene at the end of S2 is that Simon gave August the drugs to sell. I could go on. She is -literally- the eyes on this world. And she says almost nothing, until she decides to confront someone (i.e. asking Stella about her crush / asking Simon why he didn’t sleep at home). This is a kind of vigilance you learn when your home is unstable and unpredictable. You learn to watch everyone for clues as to What Is Really Going On Here, so that you might have some hope of anticipating when all hell will break loose. People with drug and alcohol problems are sober a lot of the time, and they might even have various modes of being drunk or high. You learn to put a lot of store in feeling you might be able to predict when the mood will change. If you’re a kid, trying to read these signs gives you a feeling of power in a situation where you are utterly powerless. Everything - the way someone’s lips narrow, a clench of the jaw, the music they’re playing, anything - it becomes a possible sign of the atmosphere being about the change for the worse. Vigilance becomes a way of trying to experience safety. And for Sara, the fact that she does see so much ends up giving her a trump card - the ability to turn August in - in other words, the power she never had at home to finally do something about the bad actor.

Attachment: Sara was bullied at Marieberg. She knows she’s different, and she believes people don’t like her. When Felice does allow her into this secret garden called friendship, she is elated, but also insecure. For example, she gets worried when Felice and Wille become closer in S2, and asks Felice to reassure her about whether they are ‘besties’ still, and Felice says, oh you silly goose, a person can have more than one bestie. But for Sara, the love she shares with others feels intrinsically insecure and conditional: as in, people love her because of a certain tacit deal they’ve struck. This is why she is not just angry when Felice condones selling Rousseau - she is far deeply hurt, it is a betrayal of the highest order, she says she doesn’t even know who Felice is really. It all suggests a world where Sara didn’t experience love as unconditional - instead it was transactional. It’s the kind of backwards-emotional-math that kids can do to try to explain a situation that hurts but is the only thing you know — Dad is drunk again today, it must be something I did wrong; Dad is not drunk today, it must be something I did right; if Dad is drunk he’s not really him and he can’t love me as a parent; ergo, my behavior is the token that gets exchanged back and forth between us that can turn love on or off. Love is never there all the time, it can be withheld based on conduct, and people can be so radically not themselves that it makes the love they profess fake.

Her relationship with August: I think Sara unconsciously falls for August because he is a copy of her father, and she is using him to work out the trauma and disempowerment of growing up with Micke. August is a better version of Micke and, even better, one Sara believes she can control and help. As an additional extra-credit, it turns out he really loves her - in his fucked up way - which is more than Sara believes about her own father. Like Micke, August is drug-dependent. But unlike Micke, he seems to be successful and, until she gets to know him, he seems to have his shit together. It seems like he is powerful: after all, he gets her what she wants - a place at Manor House. Sara is initially uncomfortable about the pills - she confronts August about it. But then August assures her that it’s “only when he needs to perform” and that’s probably all she dreamt of hearing from her father when she was a child. August is the fairy tale prince: an addict who in fact has it under control, an addict who can actually love her. And unlike her father, he is an addict she can help (overcoming a lifetime of powerlessness for her). In fact, the thing that actually kickstarts their relationship is her getting off (literally) on the high of being able to help August when he was having a panic attack. Then, when everything goes overboard, she explains her actions in the way she learned at home: she says she was in love, and she didn’t really know what she was doing, she was not in her right mind … she was, in other words, … drunk / high … but on love. And this explanation is somehow a mitigation for her actions. She can’t be blamed for something she can’t control - which most addicts believe at some point.

#sara eriksson #simon eriksson #young royals #young royals analysis #micke eriksson #alcohol abuse #substance abuse

[pileofpawns]

Thinking about domestic PC style where they’re trying to cook and a recipe calls for alcohol and both of them get a huge feeling of dread in their stomachs because Stan has been strictly avoiding having alcohol in the house for a while now and he doesn’t know if he can handle it

#fics that will never get written #this idea is public domain. feel free to steal it /gen #plum rambles #south park #sp style #south park post covid #stan marsh #kyle broflovski #cw alcohol #cw alcohol abuse #alcohol abuse

[whumpypepsigal]

Whumptober 2023 | No. 9

“You're a liar.”

Chicago Fire s11e14: “I know the visit from your brother was rough, but this isn't the way to handle it.”

@whumptober @whumptober-archive

#whumptober2023 #no.9 #you’re a liar #chicago fire #gifs #alcohol abuse tw #whumpedit #whump #alcohol abuse #drunk #sick #childhood trauma #shirtless #dizzy #scars #angst #emotional whump #worry #my gifs #sam carver #stella kidd

[fuckingwhateverdude]

game of life

#anywayz #my writing #my writing tag #poetry #original poem #spilled ink #mental illness #bipolar disorder #alcohol abuse #substance abuse #on growing up #growing up #substance use

[fromblack2blue]

#meme #mental illness memes #sh #alcohol abuse #lol oops #sh meme

[reasonsforhope]

"In a landmark paper, economists have collected evidence on the societal implications of cannabis legalization and found it lowered the rates of suicide, binge drinking, traffic fatalities, and perhaps ironically, cannabis use in teenagers.

Now that recreational cannabis is available in 18 states, and medically authorized in 36 states, concerns over the effects of widespread societal access are appearing as the motivation behind scientific research.

Much of that scientific research has now been collected in a meta-analysis of 36 different papers published between 2013 to 2021. It shows that the societal impact of cannabis legalization has led to some significant positive outcomes.

One criticism from concerned parents or conservative politicians was that increased legalization would lead to increased teenage consumption of cannabis...

It seems logical to say that if cannabis were legal it would be more commonly consumed—but that wasn’t the case. In fact, the meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Economic Literature, found that teenage access to cannabis decreased by 8%, and frequent use decreased by 9%.

The reason was believed to be that once drug dealers were replaced by dispensaries with a legal obligation to check ID, far fewer teens were able to access it.

In another study, cannabis legalization was found, during the period 1999–2010, to be inversely associated with opioid overdose deaths, although once the years 2011-2017 were added into the analysis, the effect waned.

This was believed to be representative of the evolution of the opioid epidemic, reasoning that “perhaps marijuana and prescription pain medications are substitutes, but marijuana and heroin are not.”

However that wasn’t the only study which linked cannabis legalization to reduced opioid deaths. Two others published in 2019 and 2020 found the same; the second of which determined it to be 16-21%.

Another finding significant for individual health concerns was “strong evidence that legalizing marijuana discourages the use of alcohol, especially binge drinking.”

Perhaps as a result of this decrease in alcohol consumption, there were significant reductions in annual numbers of traffic fatalities.

“Anderson, Hansen, and Rees (2013) were the first researchers to estimate the effects of [medical marijuana law] adoption on traffic fatality rates,” the authors write.

“These authors found that legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes was associated with a 9–10% reduction in traffic fatalities… with larger negative effects on traffic fatalities involving alcohol, traffic fatalities on the weekends, and traffic fatalities at night.”

In yet more good news, cannabis legalization was linked with reduced state-wide rates of suicide in males, with an 11% reduction in 20–29-year-olds, and a 9% reduction among 30–39-year-olds."

-via Good News Network, 3/15/23

#cannabis #marijuana #marijuana legalization #pot #alcohol abuse #opiod epidemic #cw drug use #healthcare #united states #us politics #good news #hope #cw suicide