Chapter 3: Booze - A True Love Story

You know those relationships that no matter how hard you try they just aren’t meant to be? That is what alcohol is to me. We just don’t mesh well. I’ve tried every which way to keep alcohol in my life, but every single time we let each other down. Prior to my real estate career / entrepreneur endeavors I was a bartender. It was inevitable that I was going to consume more alcohol than the average Joe. I mean come on - going to work everyday with an all you can drink buffet. Recipe for disaster for someone like me with an addictive personality. It started by just having a drink after my shift and escalated to having at least a bottle of wine every night. I knew it was a problem when I switched professions (real estate) yet my alcohol intake damn near doubled. I was extremely stressed out at work, I felt guilty about working so much to provide for Zoë because we hardly got to spend much quality time together and mainly I just wanted to drown the shitty parts of life. Can you blame me? I knew it became a problem when I wasn’t skipping a beat. Zoë was NEVER late to school, I made it to every school event , I was thriving at work and was even  hitting the gym a decent amount of times a week. That’s when it got scary because I was still functioning. It was one of the scariest moments to admit to myself that I was a functioning alcoholic. I had two choices to make :

A. Continue to use alcohol as a coping skill or

B. Own my shit and change my life.

January 1, 2018 was the day I decided to put the bottle down and my life hasn’t been the same since. Do I miss drinking ? Yup. Is it worth Zoë growing up having a mom as an alcoholic. Fuck no. No one can shame me out of telling my story or the demons I’ve overcome. No rehab, No AA meetings & No meds to ween me off my body’s desire for booze. It was the first time I told my brain what to do and not vice verse. I don’t think I’ll ever have a healthy relationship with alcohol so I’ve made the lifestyle choice to completely eliminate it from my life. Everyone has their shit and I’ll forever be a recovering alcoholic that’s just the way it is and I’m okay with that. Demons they calling my soul...I basically tell them “Fuck all of you hoes.” 

Light & Love always<3

xo Nneka