Image credit Melanie Wasser at www.unsplash.com
Imagine you were in an abusive relationship which was literally destroying you – your self esteem, your physical and mental health, your strength, your bravery, your ability to laugh, to make good decisions, to trust yourself. Everything good in your life.
Imagine you gathered all your remaining courage and kicked the violent fucker into touch, you got free somehow, you rescued yourself. You got yourself in a position where the only way he could hurt you again would be if you went back to him (‘he’ for ease of reference, I know abusive people are not always male).
But imagine that your abuser is not only famous but the darling of the nation. There are pictures of him everywhere. He is on the telly, on your Facebook feed, your family and friends talk about him positively all the time. People don’t applaud you for leaving him, they think it was your fault because you should have been able to control him better. They assume there is something wrong with you that brought this violence and abuse from him down on your head.
People say you should take him back, but just see less of him. Even your closest family and friends might say this, even if they knew how abused you were by him, how he nearly destroyed you. They say ‘oh you’ll be fine now you’ve had a break to sort yourself out – just don’t get so obsessed with him this time and he won’t hurt you’.
Relationship experts write books about how people who can’t handle relationships with him are ill and defective and the whole world conspires to make you believe that a ‘normal’ person won’t be at any risk from him, in fact it will be the most wonderful relationship of their life.
Now exchange the violent ex in that story for alcohol.
This is the reality of alcohol addiction. And this is what we face when we stop drinking.
Thankfully your toxic ex puts himself about a bit. There are millions of people, all over the world, who have also been abused by him. Have lost friends or jobs or even their kids because of him, have been injured or driven to physical or mental illness because of him.
So even when our heads are being messed with by everyone around us telling us what a great guy he actually was, there is a place we can go where people know the truth. Where people know the simple truth that it was not your fault in any way, the rest of the world has been fooled, and as long as we stay the fuck away from our hideous mutual ex, the only cause of all the abuse and misery we suffered, then it will all work out ok.
More than ok, trust me.
