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I haven’t been to a Christmas party in seven years. It’s not that I’m wildly unpopular (well, not quite that), more that I realized, in my new sobriety, that they were no longer for me.
I clearly remember my last holiday spree, although I’m not sure the same can be said for the other people there. Because although on paper it seemed like a perfectly safe option: a small gathering at a friend’s house in south-west London, full of other young parents and organized by someone who had kindly called ahead to take my non-alcoholic drinks order . It quickly became the kind of party Hunter Biden might have favored during his wildest years.
As I stood near the Bombay mixing bowl, a glass of elderflower cordial in hand, I watched as many of my fellow party guests took turns using the elegantly decorated bathroom downstairs, sometimes in couples.
Either they had exceptionally weak bladders (always a possibility after childbirth) or something else was wrong with them. When I finally managed to find the free stall, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw a light layer of white dust on the toilet cistern; Almost everyone except me used cocaine.
I apologized and left, thanking the host for his hospitality. It wasn’t like I could take the moral high ground, given that up until that point, almost all of my Christmases had been white. By which I mean full of cocaine.
I was – am – an alcoholic, and the truth is that, like many people who rely heavily on alcohol to have a so-called “good time”, my alcohol consumption was made possible by this party drug, the use of which has skyrocketed. in recent years. The UK is Europe’s cocaine capital and is only behind Australia in terms of global consumption, with around 117 tonnes of the drug snorted each year. A line of cocaine once seen as the exclusive domain of rock stars and city dealers is now as cheap as a cup of coffee.
Figures published in October showed that deaths due to the substance had increased tenfold in just a decade, and most of them were middle-aged Britons, the so-called “silver snorters”, like the ones I witnessed at that party. Christmas.
I was a recreational cocaine user in my youth, and I was surprised when it began to return, along with heavy drinking, after the birth of my daughter in 2013.
You may be wondering why people would risk their health by using cocaine, and I’m here to tell you that it’s because it goes hand in hand with the most legal drug: alcohol.
Unlike opioids and MDMA, which many people take alone for their unique effects, cocaine produces a “high” that feels like it’s sobering you up. It returns you to the room and allows you to continue drinking without passing out.
It’s the perfect drug for a binge-drinking nation, especially at Christmas when otherwise law-abiding people go overboard (and I’m not talking about mince pies).
Cocaine is harmful and unpleasant. I used it from my mid-twenties until I was 37 when, as the mother of a then four-year-old boy, I knew I had to stop using alcohol and drugs if I wanted to support myself and my family. life.
I was a recreational cocaine user in my youth, and I was surprised when it started to come back, along with heavy drinking, after the birth of my daughter in 2013.
So shocked that I buried this truth deep inside, beneath many layers of denial, telling myself it was okay, that it was just an occasional throwback to my partying ways that gave me a break from the pressures of early motherhood. .
But by the summer of 2017, my drinking had become almost daily, as had my pathetic, desperate texting to drug dealers as I sat alone in my garden, drinking alcohol after my daughter had gone to bed. .
He needed cocaine to be able to drink and he needed to drink to live. And yet, like many young mothers I’ve known while recovering from addiction, I managed to mask this and convince everyone that I was “normal,” even successful.
I hid my drug trips with trips to the supermarket for milk and eggs, and I lied to my husband about my late nights, telling him I would go to bed once I finished writing. But, over time, the dishonesty and anxiety became too much.
I was suicidal, not only because of the chemical comedown caused by the combination of cocaine and alcohol, but also because of the way I behaved about it, doing sordid, unspeakable things that embarrass me to this day.
In fact, I look back at some of the places I ended up, at some of the people I ended up with, and I can barely believe I’m the same person. I was lucky not to lose my husband or my son, and I think about that as I feel safe at home, decorating the tree with my daughter, without consuming anything stronger than a Brussels sprout.
I guess that’s why I wanted to write this column now. Because while most of the year it’s easy for me to forget about those days of drinking and drugs, at Christmas it’s almost impossible to avoid it, even if I turn down all the invitations.
Just go to any restaurant or be out a little late on a Saturday afternoon doing your holiday shopping, and you’ll soon see groups of people incapacitated by alcohol and drugs in the name of Christmas.
So here’s a Christmas message for anyone struggling with alcohol and drugs right now. I want to let you know that no matter how bleak things seem, there is hope.
Because seven years after my first clean and sober Christmas, I now know that I don’t need fake holiday cheer in the form of cocaine to have a good time. I can feel the joy of the season, without any hangover or comedown, and there really is no better gift I could give myself than that.
Why would Apple want to be a debt?
The Internet exploded after seeing images of Apple Martin, daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, at a debutante ball in Paris. She rolled her eyes during the event, which she attended in a custom-made Valentino dress, prompting accusations that she is a “bad girl.” But who could blame the 20-year-old for looking a little upset? I thought ‘coming out’ as debt was something we had left behind in the 19th century, along with dowries.
Apple Martin, 20, with her mother Gwyneth Paltrow, wearing the custom-made Valentino dress she wore to a debutante ball in Paris.
Sadly, body shaming still exists, Kate
Kate Winslet has spoken out about the body shaming she experienced after being in Titanic, with one commenter claiming she looked “a little melted and spilled” in a dress that should have been “two sizes too big.”
“It was absolutely appalling,” Winslet said this week. ‘What kind of person must you be to do something like that to a young actress who’s just trying to figure it out?’
But the truth is that shaming public bodies was very common back then. I remember an older relative telling me that I could use some weight loss (I was 17 and a size 10). And sadly, it’s still going on – it’s just gone underground and done anonymously on social media, rather than face to face with people you know.
Kate Winslet has spoken out about the body shaming she experienced after being in Titanic, with one commenter claiming she looked “a little melted and spilled” in a dress that should have been “two sizes too big.”
trusted clinic
Good news: According to new data, just four minutes of “high-intensity physical exercise” a day can reduce the risk of a major cardiovascular event by 45 percent. And do you know what is considered ‘high intensity physical exercise’? Carry heavy shopping bags! Permission, as if you needed it, to do a little more Christmas spending.
It’s official: I live in one of the happiest places in the UK. Wandsworth, south London, has reached 19th place in a new national list, making me wonder how miserable everyone else must be, given the endless missed rubbish collections and incessant road digging…