How I Broke Away from a Life of Addiction and Found My Way Back Home.
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Escape. For some, it means a holiday from their self-described ordinary, stressful life. For others, a narrow miss from misfortune. For me, it meant a lifestyle.
Unable to understand life and all its complexity, with no anchor or direction and no one to notice the constant spinning, I found comfort in escaping — physically, emotionally and spiritually — creating a life I could make sense of and feel safe in.
My reality felt like a constant assault on the senses. Fear, shame, and guilt penetrated my battle armor even though nothing or no one else could. My only means of survival was escape. At first, it was through fantasy. Desperately disheartened by the emotional absence of my parents, I decided that I was adopted, and would spend hours fantasizing about my real family.
Most days, I physically escaped to friends’ homes and stayed there for hours, immersing myself in their daily lives, and imagined that this was where I belonged. Somehow I had been placed in the wrong family. Somehow, God had made a mistake.
My actual weekends consisted of beatings and hiding in my bedroom, but what I told friends at school was a different story — one of parties, picnics, and pretty dresses.
The line between fact and fiction became increasingly blurred, until I was unable to identify if my perception of reality was real or not. Did we go away for school holidays? Was my dad really a successful businessman? Who were these people I lived with? So busy pretending to be someone else, I failed to take the time to learn about the real me.
But there was no real me, just different versions of someone else.
Home was never a place of solace. I was put there as a little girl to become a skilled and talented escape artist. At school, I was outgoing, confident, and self-assured. At home, I was withdrawn, afraid, and bullied. At school, I was a fake. At home, I was alone, afraid, and confused. Always searching for different ways to escape.
There was no hesitation when, at age 12, I discovered what I thought was a better solution: alcohol. My first drink washed over me like fairy dust, a magical wand transporting me to another place, like a parallel universe. The same place, but much better. In this new world, I felt alive, not fake alive but actually full of life and connected. I was funny and silly. The guard had come down.
I felt liked and a part of, I belonged, and it was the most wonderful feeling I’d ever had.
I was desperate to escape from myself, desperate to escape the exhaustion of pretending to be someone else. Alcohol relieved me of that. Relieved me of myself. This magical elixir had lifted the heavy load and I was no longer self-conscious, self-loathing, self-pitying, self-harming. I was no longer full of my self.
The next 24 years are a blurred memory of half-truths. It was fun until it wasn’t. Sometimes I would wake up and wonder where I was. Try to put the pieces together. At times, covered in bruises and black eyes. Why? What happened? Sex became a currency. I already hated myself, so what did it matter? Suicide was my next escape. It wasn’t that I wanted to die, I wanted the pain to stop.
From my earliest memory, my need to escape was insatiable. My solution had taken me to emergency wards, police stations, grotty drug dens, and attempted suicide.
Now in recovery with debatable clarity of mind, I find myself wondering if we aren’t all on a quest to escape, a quest to find something better, something more. I’m not exactly sure what’s the basis of comparison or the benchmark, and I suppose there are varying degrees of acceptability.
What I do know is that we seem to be a global collective of Not Enough, and we constantly seek to medicate that suffering in some way. Life is not always fair, nor is it always kind, and if we can construct a truth that’s easier to accept, why wouldn’t we?
You see, the truth is, the pain and suffering escalated once I put the drink down. Waking up from a comfortably numb reality broke my heart. I had felt sad and broken before, but never allowed myself to experience the grief. I drank it, I drugged it, and I I fucked it down. But I never experienced it.
Emotions and memories, buried alive and waiting for their chance to be heard and healed, came to the surface for their day of reckoning. The polite way to describe this process is inner alchemy, but it’s more like the dead clawing their way out of the grave and roaming the dark shadows.
No one volunteers for recovery. The shift occurred when I realized that the suffering caused by my illness was greater than the fear of change, because in truth, if it wasn’t a matter of life or death, I’d be still basking in the glory of oblivion.
You see, dancing with your shadow on a daily basis is hard work, there is no getting off and there is no stopping. It’s impossible to go back to sleep once you awaken, because choosing recovery means choosing love, choosing you. It means seeing your shadows and deepest fears, and it’s frightening.
You realize that you are masterpiece and monster all at once, and even though I have experienced deep pain and harrowing sorrow, I have also experienced blissful, sunshiny joy, radical intimacy, unshakable self-worth, and freedom.
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Rachel Kitcher is a mother, lover, warrior, seeker, and writer. A curiosity outside the status quo. No box exists to place her in. She is committed to the work of inner alchemy and sharing her experience to help light the way for others. Rachel is vulnerable and open, but don’t be mistaken, she has no tolerance for fools or fuck-wits, and will bare teeth if necessary. Writing is a path to healing for her, and her words are raw and powerful. She hopes that by sharing her story, she can support and encourage women to explore their soul-self, step into their power, and take up space. No more playing small.
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