Falling into Darkness

Some people have a clear memory of when their lives took a turn for the worse, but for me, it felt like a slow, inevitable descent. Depression and alcoholism did not arrive suddenly; they crept into my life quietly, one heartbreak, one disappointment at a time. Looking back over my life, there were key moments that pushed me further into that darkness. Moments I did not recognize as pivotal at the time, but that laid the foundation for years of struggle.

 It may sound strange, but my relationship with alcohol began when I was just 3 years old. I grew up in Pennsylvania, where my dad’s side of the family would gather every year for huge reunions at the lake.

It was a time of laughter, joy, and plenty of beer. I have fond memories of those reunions—250 of my closest relatives celebrating life, catching up with what had gone on in their lives over the last year, eating and a great deal of drinking together. As a little girl, I would follow my dad around, and he would hand me his beer for a sip. I loved the taste. To a child, it seemed harmless, just part of the fun. But that early introduction to alcohol planted a seed that stayed with me my entire life.

 As I grew older, Dad and I continued our love of beer. We enjoyed going to the drive-in movie in town. Before we would get to the theater, dad would buy a 6 pack of beer, and I would get one while he took the other five. By age 16, we split the 6 pack, and then I got too old for my evenings with dad which meant I had the entire 6 pack all to myself. By that time, beer had become more than just a drink-it became a crutch. Whenever life felt too overwhelming, too painful, I turned to alcohol to dull the edges. It was always there for me when marriages broke down, when relationships crumbled, and when a business I had worked so hard to build,

“Failed”, my friend, in a can, made everything better.  Each failure, each, heartache, pushed me deeper into depression, and alcohol became my way of escaping the feelings I didn’t know how to handle. I convinced myself it was just a way to relax, to take the edge off, but over time, it became more than that. It became a constant companion, a coping mechanism that only made things worse.

One of the lowest points came on the night before my middle daughter’s wedding. It was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of my life, a time to celebrate the joy of seeing my little girl walk down the aisle. But instead, it became a moment of deep shame and regret.

During the rehearsal dinner, I had been drinking, as I often did at social events. Driving back to the hotel, I was pulled over by the police. The next few hours were a blur of flashing lights, handcuffs, walking the straight time hoping that nobody from the wedding was driving by, and the

reality of a jail cell only one block away from where the wedding was going to be held the next morning. I was arrested for a DUI and spent six hours in jail until I sobered up. The worst part was not the embarrassment or the legal trouble that followed -it was the fact that I almost missed my daughter’s wedding after driving from Montana to California without hardly any sleep. 

I was released at 4 o’clock in the morning and by some miracle, I made it back to the hotel, got dressed, and arrived just in time to see her walk down the aisle. God worked a miracle that night. No one knew what had happened, but I did. I tried to put on a happy face, but I found myself hiding in the shadows trying to blend in and not stand out. Afraid that I would not be able to hold back the tears if someone talked to me. What should have been one of the proudest moments of my life became a symbol of my downfall. The shame and guilt ate away at me. It was the beginning of a spiral that would take years to climb out of. From that moment on, alcohol was not just a casual indulgence – it became a way of numbing the pain….