Still smiling in photos

I was so alone.
I could be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.

At first it was drinks with other people — restaurants, parties, laughing too loudly, pretending everything was glamorous and under control. Then slowly it became me alone in my bedroom. Curtains shut. Bottles hidden everywhere. Washing sheets because I’d pissed the bed again during another blackout.

I lost myself so gradually I didn’t even notice it happening.

I didn’t know who I was anymore.

I made drunken phone calls I can’t remember.
Had conversations I can’t remember.
Sex I can’t remember.
Meals out I can’t remember.

People would tell me things I’d said and done and I’d stare at them in horror because it felt like they were describing somebody else.

The scariest part of addiction wasn’t even the alcohol itself.
It was disappearing while still being alive.

I preferred drinking alone in the end. That’s when I knew it had become something darker. I would do anything to get alcohol. Sometimes I dated people just so I wasn’t the only one drinking, but eventually the same thing would happen — blackout, shame, chaos, apologies, silence.

I became physically present but psychologically absent.

At 22, I was buying four bottles of wine a day from Tesco Express while at university. By 32, it had turned into six bottles of rum and Coke a day. My whole life revolved around surviving the next withdrawal, the next panic, the next promise that “tomorrow would be different.”

Then something traumatic happened that left me with PTSD.

I told myself:
“I’m never drinking again.”

So I stopped cold turkey.

That’s when I discovered stopping alcohol suddenly can actually be dangerous.

My body trembled violently. I broke out into sweats so badly a friend thought I’d wet the bed — which honestly wouldn’t have been surprising because it had happened many times before. I stayed awake for nearly ten days straight. My mind didn’t feel connected to reality anymore. I thought I was losing my mind.

People romanticise “quitting everything overnight” like it’s strength.
But alcohol withdrawal can kill you.

Detox and medical supervision matter.

Once my body recovered, I drank again. That’s the part people don’t understand about addiction. You can survive hell and still go back to the thing destroying you because your brain convinces you it’s the only thing keeping you alive.

Addiction stripped away my identity piece by piece.

The loneliness was unbearable.
Not just being alone physically — but spiritually disconnected from myself, from other people, from reality.

I became somebody who hid bottles, hid bruises, hid fear, hid shame.

And somehow still smiled in photos.

Here are photos of me the day I found out my dad died and I dressed up as an air hostess and drank (back then downing one bottle of red wine would cause a blackout)…I woke up in hospital with no memory