Shara Grove Holistics

A lot changed in this moment. I remember the evening so clearly. I had two bottles of gin (both as gifts one unopened), two bottles of bubbly, one bottle of wine and some ciders in my fridge.

A bomb had gone off about five days before this date. One that left internal damage which I had to mask so strongly because if I was crumbling at home, I could not crumble outside of it. Something had to stay ‘normal’ and I needed to keep my boundaries. My home was my haven, my safe space, my sanctuary, my freedom to be who or what I wanted/needed to be. Home was my break away from the false smiles, masked personalities and basic conversations. My home was my place to breathe.

Things were rough. I spent evenings wailing on my porch. I screamed to the stars; I crumbled to my lawn and spent so much time frozen in being neither here nor there. There was a part of me that truly was broken from finally realising and admitting that I had been raped, multiple times but his manipulation managed to keep his actions masked within my psyche. So for years I went through life knowing within my gut that something wasn’t right, but not believing in my intuition because he had made me so disconnected from myself.

I arguably cried more tears and harder tears processing this than I did whilst grieving the death of my dad.
I used alcohol to escape for many years and have always had a bit of a rocky relationship with it. I knew when this all came up that it was gonna go either way for me.

I remember my drinking times. I was pretty reckless because I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose. I didn’t care about myself, to some degree I didn’t care about others and I certainly didn’t think I had a life worth living for. The only time I felt like I was living was when I was pissed. This time round though, I had a lot to lose if I ended up falling off that wagon. I had created a life for myself, a life that I was super proud of and happy with, I couldn’t risk potentially throwing that away by using alcohol again to ‘help’ me get through this.

I remember going back and forth with myself.
“But some of the bottles are un-opened, what a waste”
“These were gifts, you can’t be that ungrateful”
“Don’t be wasteful, trust yourself”
“You’re being dramatic with this one”

There was a part of me that did feel as though I was being dramatic, attention seeking or fake. That what I was predicting could happen was just all for show and tell. I had a voice in my head, perhaps the little devil on my shoulder telling me to carry on as normal through this but it was nothing right?

I did put a lot of thought into the decision; I did hesitate before I poured but I still fucking did it. In that moment, I felt strong. I went out onto my lawn, popped the bottles of bubbly open and poured them on my lawn. That was my celebration.

It’s perhaps such a random event to remember, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget this evening. It’s hard to get across the damage alcohol did to my psyche over the years I was drinking, and then to say no to the only pattern my psyche really knew for getting through shit, yeah, I’m pretty fucking proud of myself. And in doing all of that, I found new ways of helping me get through it, ways that I’m so grateful for and still practice now.

This became the start of an incredible journey of mine.