Mission Assisted Treatment –
September 14, 2019 – I’ll never forget the last time I drank or my state of mind at that desperate moment in my life. I’d just left my job a week earlier and didn’t have much to live for. I had few friendships left; I became known as “Liv the liability” — no one knew how I would behave on a night out and I was often too much to handle. I’d either verbally attack someone or pass out in the bathroom of a random bar. My family was desperately worried but trying to maintain their boundaries in an attempt to stop enabling me. My depression was at an all-time low, and the prospect of ending my life seemed appealing. One Thursday, I did what I always did if there was wine leftover from the night before: I drank it, in the morning. As the acidity of cheap red wine hit my stomach, I tried desperately to quell the nausea. I’d eat just enough to line my stomach, and then carry on. I instinctively knew it was going to be a painful weekend. Yet as soon as the numbness of that first glass of wine began to radiate through my body, I had to have more. Back then, the purpose of my life wasn’t fulfillment and joy — it was chasing that rush of the first line, and the first glass of wine.