Since I have been in recovery I have started to get flashbacks from some of my previous abuse of alcohol. One that comes to mind of late is the time I was overseas, I went out drinking, and had my drink spiked.
Trip of a Lifetime
In 2012 I embarked on the trip of a lifetime, I packed up my life, loaded up a backpack and went backpacking around around the world. My alcoholism on this trip started pretty low key, however by the time I got to Africa it was back with a vengeance.
THAT Night Out
When I arrived in the beautiful coastal island, a travelling friend and I met up with a group of other travellers and found out there was a beach bon-fire party a few hotels down. Whilst I (thought) I was pretty savvy with drinking on tour, it turns out I wasn’t. After a few drinks, I hit the dance floor thinking I could trust the group I was with. I came back to my drink, and that’s the last I remember. I don’t know what happened, but my drink was obviously spiked because I don’t recall drinking as much as I could drink.
Alcohol Abuse – Waking up in another hotel room
The next morning, I woke up in another hotel room, I don’t know how I got there, but when I asked the reception, apparently they found me passed out in the bushes and relocated me to a room. I was so ashamed of my situation, I got angry at the hotel staff and demanded the key back to my room so I could go and hide from the world for the next 24 hours.
I wasn’t raped, I am sure of that, however I don’t know what happened to me from when I had that last sip of a drink to getting back to my hotel. I was so ashamed and embarrassed of my behaviour, because this wasn’t just a normal experience and being found drunken, passed out and incoherent was my worst nightmare.
The shame of alcohol abuse
When I look back at that situation, I am completely full of shame, alcohol abuse put me in some very vulnerable situations and to this day, I don’t know what happened to me. I am so grateful that my higher power protected me from rape, but I don’t know what happened to me. So many women are raped when their drinks are spiked, and this didn’t happen to me. I was however fairly bruised and battered, but I believe this was from falling over.
At a recent Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, the topic of sexual behaviour came up and one experienced AA Member shared how as a lady, when she went out drinking she didn’t care. She didn’t care about the relationships she was in, or the people she was hooking up with. There were times when she had passed out, times when she had one night stands and times when she was put into extremely vulnerable positions.
I’m the lucky one
As I go through my alcoholism journey and look back at my abuse of alcohol, I feel so blessed that someone was looking out for me. In Australia in the past few years there have been a number of occasions where women have been raped and murdered whilst sober, and walking through relatively public and ‘safe’ places. As an alcoholic, there were times when my drinking put me in situations where the outcome cold have been catastrophic and I thank my higher power for keeping me safe.