In 2014, I had my first real drink. Prior to the summer of 2014, my interactions with alcohol had been minimal, if any at all. I had sips of wine here and there, but those were far and few between. The first time I had a proper drink – if you can even call it that – I drank a red Solo cup of red punch at a friend’s party soon after I had graduated from high school. I had loosened up a bit after the drink, and talked to someone I would have never talked to otherwise. Under the influence of alcohol, over the course of the night, people who I had hardly spoken to confided in me with the deepest sense of trust and vulnerability, and I thus became privy to the magical effects of alcohol.

I hadn’t sipped alcohol since early June, but by Halloweentime, I was drinking nearly every weekend. Let me backtrack a bit and explain. I started my undergraduate degree at UT Austin, and I made a diverse group of close friends through a Facebook page for my graduating class, talking to people I met in my residence hall, and through friends of friends. At UT, I genuinely had the largest group(s) of friends I’d ever had in my life - a group of friends from my major, a group of friends within my residence hall, and my aforementioned group of (more immediate) close friends. I drank with them on occasion - maybe once every other weekend. I was the happiest I had been in a long time. For a while.

One night in mid-October, after having a “wine and cheese night” with a couple of my friends, I walked across campus to my residence hall. As campus was well-lit, I didn’t think anything of it and did not perceive any reason to be afraid. Without wandering into gratuitous details, I was sexually assaulted on my way back home. It wasn’t that bad, per se, but it impacted me nonetheless. I felt violated, confused, and scared to walk alone by myself, especially at night or in the dark. I made a point to avoid the building outside of which I met the young man who violated me, but it was unavoidable as I had a class in that building every other day. I had also recently learned that said building houses a very handy escalator - a shortcut that allows you to cut across campus and avoid climbing up a hill. I generally refrained from using the escalator and taking the shortcut unless absolutely necessary - a necessary nuisance to placate my anxiety and sense of dread from being inside of that building for even a moment longer than absolutely necessary. That Halloween weekend, my friends and I went to an awful party simply because it was thrown by upperclassmen in a house across campus and there was free alcohol. I don’t remember much from that night at all, but the next morning I was informed that a friend of mine who lived on my floor and her boyfriend at the time walked with me and consoled me as I cried the whole way home, revealing everything that had happened during a drunken meltdown. All of my friends were incredibly supportive of me, and went out of their way to prove it, but I felt uneasy opening up about it irrespective of their reassurance.

One day soon after, I was lurking on my friend’s boyfriend’s Facebook page, and saw that a handful of his pictures showed him laughing and smiling next to the man - fellow student, really - who violated me. I remember slamming my laptop shut and not knowing what to say or do. I now knew his full name, details of his personal life, and was acutely aware that somehow he was immersed far deeper into my social orbit than I had imagined.

I stayed mum. I told some friends not to worry about me, pushed some friends away because I felt they were worrying about me too much, and went out less frequently. As my social interactions gradually decreased throughout the rest of the semester, my alcohol consumption, particularly when I was by myself, increased steadily. I was coping with a traumatic experience…right?

2015 marks the point in my past where my memory starts to become a bit hazier, consequent to the rampantly swelling severity of my alcohol consumption. When trying to recall the events that transpired during the year, things get a bit fuzzy around the edges, my memory lapses from one piece of a puzzle to another and I am unsure of which recollections fit in and around each other chronologically, but I will do my best.

The first half of the year was relatively tame in comparison to the latter, in part due to an unplanned emergency surgery and subsequent recovery that necessitated complete cessation of alcohol consumption. That summer, however, I got hopelessly drunk once while traveling in Europe and unsupervised for the day - it was a miracle that I found my way back to the hotel room. Thrilled that I could legally drink there, I bought two bottles of white wine, a banana (to ensure I wasn’t drinking on a completely empty stomach), and sustained on the three, supplementing with a croque madame and another glass of red wine in the afternoon. That was merely one occurrence over the summer, albeit perhaps the most jarring.

In the Fall semester, I had moved into an apartment with my roommate from freshman year and 2 of his best friends. Initially, the one bottle of wine I requested he buy me to enjoy over the weekend turned into two, then three, then one for nearly every day of the week ending in Y.

My drinking got worse and I landed myself in increasingly bizarre and dangerous situations. I’d show up to classes and events hungover, or worse, still buzzed from the alcohol I had imbibed an hour or two earlier. Carrying wine in opaque water bottles and vodka in translucent became a norm for me. In one night’s memory that still haunts me, I was walking around the rather large neighborhood where I lived, hopelessly lost and very, very drunk. I couldn’t find my way home and was growing increasingly desperate, and really had to pee. I saw a fraternity house with its lights on and knocked on the door, hoping someone would answer and tell me how to get home. Nobody answered, so I tried opening the front door - it was unlocked and I slowly made my way inside. It seemed that everyone was in their backyard, and after looking around for a bit, I found a toilet. I peed, flushed, quickly washed my hands, and slowly opened the bathroom door, running through the hallway and closing the front door behind me softly.

I lost my wallet a day before I was meant to fly home for Thanksgiving break - running around trying to get a new license and student ID without the various proofs of identity and documentation ready was a challenge, but I somehow managed.

I hardly remembered the parties that I went to that semester. What I do remember, however, is crying on Halloween weekend (again) when a friend asked me how I really have been doing, lashing out at friends in a drunken haze, and accidentally breaking a plant at a friend’s Christmas party. That particular night, my parents had flown in for my brother’s graduation, and I Ubered home and had dinner with them while very, very drunk. I begged them not to come see me that night, but they did. I yelled at a neighbor I’d never seen before in my apartment complex who was having a screaming match with his girlfriend, before eating tacos with my family, which did little to sober me up.

That semester, I sought my university’s therapy and psychological services after two instances: I lashed out at a best friend of mine for chatting with my roommate for too long (?) instead of just picking me up and proceeding to our plans for the night; and after inadvertently and perhaps crypitcally speaking about my sexual assault to my mom on the phone one night. Was I drunk in both instances? Yes. Would I have spoken about these topics and sought help if I wasn’t? Probably not.

I was prescribed psychiatric medicine for depression and anxiety, which I rendered ineffective and aversive by mixing with alcohol despite knowing not to. I was told that if I drink, 1 drink could give me the effects of 2 or 3. For me, that was a win-win situation, and I happily took both, not realizing that they were not only canceling each other out, but greatly exacerbating the negative effects of both, as well.

I turned 21 on a flight to India that year. I declined when offered mini bottles of wine with dinner, but stole two from the drink cart near the restrooms in the back of the aircraft, drinking both while peeing and falling asleep in my seat very quickly afterwards. For all intents and purposes, however, I was completely sober throughout the duration of the month-long trip, which was a plus. I was getting better.

2016 was the year I actually wanted to get better…and I did. Sort of. After returning to campus to begin the Spring semester in mid-January, I got drunk two nights in a row, after asking a friend to buy me alcohol and sneaking a water bottle filled with vodka into my checked baggage en route to Austin. Reconnecting with my friends a couple nights after arriving in Austin, I remember being the center of attention due to my drunken endeavors, and felt incredibly low as a few embarrassing things came to light, having drunkenly mentioned them in passing, not intending for there to be follow-up.

When I woke up the following morning, I felt heavy. The heaviness I felt was not just physical - imagine if the pulsing detriment that a hangover causes to your head and stomach were to manifest itself all over - in your thoughts, perceptions, ability to comprehend basic information, and sense of time and reality. Nothing felt real to me, and yet the weight of existence, the weight of the night before and the thought of tomorrow and the day after were too much for me. My apartment was on the topmost floor of our apartment complex, the apartments arranged in a rectangle overlooking

a poolside courtyard and rows of chairs and tables three stories down. I stood at the edge of the gates preventing second and third story dwellers from falling down, and thought to myself - what is preventing me from hopping over the edge of the gate and propelling myself down? I tightly grasped the rails of the gate for what seemed like another lifetime - a lifetime that I didn’t want to endure, let alone prolong by existing in the grey area that stood between me in those moments and the reality going on around me. Oddly, I didn’t hear a sound as I stood on the edge - nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody seemed to exist at all. Although the silence seemed as if it could quell me in my present state, after a while, the silence became deafening… was it the thoughts echoing within me that were unbearable? In time, a door opened below and brought me back to reality…not my reality…but the reality that seemed to exist around me. I walked back into my apartment, threw my phone into a corner of our living room, and retreated to the darkness of my room to find refuge in the sooty grey space my locked door and closed blinds lent me.

I ignored all calls and texts I received for 3 days, only partially because I’d forgotten where I left my phone and thought, in my hungry, hungover state, that I had chucked it into the depths of the pool our apartments halls overlooked. I made one or two Facetime audio calls to my parents updating them on what was going on, but that was it. I had a dinner planned with a group of my best friends on the night before classes began. Not having responded to anyone, which was very uncharacteristic of my behavior, my friends who I was meant to meet up with, met up and came to my apartment to check on me. They found me dressed in underwear and a black sweatshirt, maybe catatonic, definitely unshowered and tear-stained. They waited outside as I showered, cleaned up, and got ready for dinner. In a protective pack, they guided me to the host’s apartment, where I told them all that had transpired over the past few days. They were patient with me, accepting, and understanding, but also understandably very concerned about me, and with the prospective of being my fellow roommates that coming August.

On the first day of classes, I scheduled an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist on campus and told him all that had transpired, as well. I distinctly remember walking the half block between my apartment and my psychiatrist’s office and thinking I was a ghost floating through the bustle of students and classes around me - unreal, a bit invisible, physically impenetrable, but mentally deeply fragile as to where I would fall apart if I was chipped away at in the slightest…My parents came to Austin and helped me pack up, I posted a sublet advertisement for my room, and I had a dinner with my parents and roommates explaining everything that was going on and what would happen in the next 7 months: I would withdraw from the university and resume in the Fall. While we were talking to the diner where we had dinner, I saw one of my friends who I had spent time with the last evening I had drunk walking towards me. I relayed what had transpired in the few days between seeing them and the present to that group of friends, and they were all incredibly understanding and accepting, as like my other friend groups. I waved at the friend walking toward me, the street so narrow that we could have bumped into each other. It would have been very difficult for him to not see me, but evidently he did not, as my wave was not returned and my gaze was not met. My parents asked me who I was waving at and I said I was shaking my hand because it was cramping up. Internally, I felt as if my whole body was cramping up excruciatingly. Where were my friends who were “here for” me? Evidently not here, there, or anywhere, even if walking in my direction from two feet ahead of me with inches of space between us as we crossed one another. The 11 or 12 seconds in which this moment played out was very telling of the next 11 or 12 months to come.

I moved back home to El Paso. I focused on mental and physical wellbeing. I went on a month-long yoga retreat. I reconnected with old friends. I saw a lot of new(er) friendships fall apart. I went to therapy and saw a psychiatrist. I got my driver’s license and attended AA meetings. Things were going well, for the most part. I stayed (mostly) sober for the first half of the year.

That summer, I went to London shortly before I was meant to start summer classes at a community college. The idea was that I would take summer classes to re-acclimate myself to the rigor of college classes, prior to moving back to Austin for the Fall semester. We were staying at a relative’s flat, who happened to have a few bottles of Pimm’s lying around. One evening, with the excuse that I had a headache (I actually did!), I stayed in the flat while my mom and grandma went to watch The Secret Life of Pets in a movie theatre.

While I did genuinely want to rest and sleep off the headache, I knew two things:

1. I was home alone.

2. There were bottles of Pimm’s in the kitchen.

I’m sure you know how things went that night.

The following morning, I withdrew from the summer classes that I had signed up for. I decided not to go back to Austin in the Fall, as well.

I enrolled in a month-long intensive outpatient program in a mental health and substance abuse treatment center. It was healing in several ways: I unraveled why I drank, became privy of my mental health triggers, and processed my sexual assault experience in great depth. Surely I would stay sober after, right?

Not quite. A couple weeks after graduating from the program, I procured a bottle of tropical fruit-flavored vodka.

I’m sure you know how things went that night.

I remember us calling my counselor in the treatment program and asking what to do in light of a relapse. I remember the day we made the call, we soon left for dinner with a set of family-friends. I cried most of the drive there.

A couple of other instances (that I don’t remember) aside, overall, the year was a mixed bag of growth and acceptance, slipping up and starting over. It was a cyclical blend of broken promises, voicing various (un)desired aspirations, and trying to get better for the sake of everyone else but myself.

A little aside: The afternoon I graduated from my intensive outpatient program, I went straight to a diner to have lunch with one of my favorite teachers from high school whom I’d reconnected with. I told her all of what I’d been up to since, my life at UT, about the intensive outpatient program, and so forth. She asked me if I was happy in Austin. I replied “yes”. I really cherished my many friendships there, the vibrancy of the city, and the prospect of partaking in new experiences almost daily. She asked me how my friendships were. I don’t remember what exactly I said, but I must have said something to the effect of “I have a lot of friends who really care for me in Austin and El Paso. Everyone has been really supportive and accepting”. She asked me how many of my friends had reached out to me during my time in El Paso from late-January to late-July. I paused. Not very many, actually. I named whoever I could think of, which maybe totalled 7 or 8 people over the course of 7 or 8 months. That gave me pause again. She looked at me in the eyes and told me (I don’t remember the exact words): if somebody hasn’t reached out to you in months, especially if they know you’ve been at your lowest, are they really your friends? Do they really care for you, or do they only do so when convenient? Their (in)action was very telling. I made a few excuses for them - they must be busy, maybe they don’t think about me because I’m not in Austin, maybe they don’t know what to say, etc. She shook her head “no”. This conversation has stayed with me since and helps me evaluate and reevaluate friendships over time, as people, circumstances, similarities, and the factors that brought us together evolve and morph in confounding ways.

I wrote in detail about my experiences with depression, anxiety, and alcohol abuse, championing mental health issues and creating a space where many opened up to me about their own struggles. In the essays and poems I published, I omitted one small detail. It’s trivial, really. I did not let slip that in order to gain the confidence to write and publish with such vulnerability, I would often have to drink beforehand. Silly, isn’t it?

What good is being a champion of a cause if you yourself do not follow what you’ve preached, or you do in bits and pieces, digging up certain coping mechanisms and behaviors in situations when convenient, expected, or the socially appropriate thing to do.

Evidently, when one is not one’s own biggest advocate on the path to recovery, things quickly slip through the cracks, despite the privileges an abundance of external support and resources may afford me.

2017 was a pivotal year in my journey to wellness. I resumed classes at UT Austin with much external encouragement and excitement. I was making my comeback.

I was also perhaps a bit delusional, in hindsight. My semester can be summed up in a few different modes of survival: hiding my drinking, retreating from friendships, barely managing in my classes, and trying desperately to pass off my comeback as raw and natural - nobody needed to know about the rose-colored filter I put on everything I said and published.

Needless to say, things worsened over the course of the summer when I returned home to El Paso. In college, hiding is easy if no one can see you. At home, hiding is easy if you never get caught. I got caught often, and continued to drink again and again.

That summer, I signed a lease to room with two other guys in an apartment. I arrived in Austin roughly two weeks prior to the start of the Fall semester; I really wanted to settle into my new apartment before the semester began. One of my dear friends very kindly took me to Ikea and helped me pick out new furniture and kitchen supplies for the apartment, tried building my bed for me, and generally spoiled me rotten. I felt really good about starting the new semester, and tried unsuccessfully to convince everyone within my orbit that this semester would be a success, based on the two weeks prior spent in productivity and enjoying the city in all its glory.

In reality, I went on a roughly two week long bender, during which time I:

● stayed in my room for roughly 20 of each day’s 24 hours

● managed to spill boxed Franzia boxed wine on my phone and render it unusable

● reconnected with friends and worried them endlessly after making plans and ignoring them the day of

● and make friends with my new roommate’s dog

One of my very best friends moved to Austin that summer, as well, and I had made plans to see her new apartment and spend time with her. The day of, I was completely unresponsive, which again, was not really like me. Rightfully worried, she contacted my roommate and asked if I’m okay, and when he said he didn’t know, she came over. I remember her and her cousin finding me in my room with pieces of unassembled Ikea furniture, articles of clean and dirty clothing, half-eaten meals, and boxes of Franzia red and white wine aplenty. They found some trash bags in my kitchen and picked up the messes I had made, wiped clean the sticky puddles of wine I had splattered around my room, and took me to their apartment to spend a couple days with them to recalibrate and reassess.

I decided to withdraw from UT for the semester again, feeling very silly that this would be my second withdrawal from the university in the span of less than two years.

I moved across the country to stay with relatives as it seemed like the best environment for me to truly recover: the AA community was abundant and active, the scenery was lovely, and I was able to escape to somewhere where I was unknown. I managed to stay sober, attending 90 meetings in 90 days, took up biking and swimming (sort of), and had free reign over what my next moves may be. Attending AA meetings and being surrounded by those who understood my (flawed) mentality completely helped keep me afloat, as did the generosity and numerous sacrifices made by my relatives to house me.

Despite staying sober, however, I was what is known as a “dry drunk”: the drinking was out of the equation, but I was miserable. The destructive habits and behaviors that I’d accrued while I had been drinking stayed, and without the buffer of alcohol, I experienced my twisted perceptions, social ineptitudes, and general sense of heightened anxiety at all times, head-on. Think of it like a surgery without anesthesia: you’re ripping yourself open to try and fix what’s damaged, sans the numbness to quell the pain and stress brought along with it. It was painful and debilitating for me to learn that I really didn’t really know who I was, what I was interested in, what I liked to do - I tried to latch onto old coping mechanisms and activities that brought me joy, but nothing stuck. Combined with my antidepressant not working as it once was - I noticed that over half the time my head felt “foggy”, like it was stuffed with wooly cotton balls and not allowed the clarity and space needed to truly think. I felt crazy.

I wanted to be happy for the sake of being less of a burden to others, but that only exacerbated the extent of my sense of hopelessness, dread, and waning desire to keep going on. I voiced suicidal ideation and had a brief stint at an in-patient mental health treatment center. I think it helped, but I literally don’t remember any of it aside from meeting a few young men who I’d end up running into at AA meetings and later living with in a halfway house.

A lot of my memories from the latter half of 2017 have been repressed. I think it’s a mix of my medicine inhibiting my ability to think clearly, being sober and immersed in a new environment completely unfamiliar to me, some instances of trauma, and seeing and hearing different alcoholics share their stories everyday. Around November or December, I had convinced myself that AA was a cult and I was being gaslit into believing I was an alcoholic. I wasn’t an alcoholic, though. Not really. The stories I had in morning, afternoon, and evening meetings were far more abrasive than any experiences I’d ever had. Yes, my life had become unmanageable, but it was because everyone else had a problem with my drinking - I didn’t. Constantly consuming thinly veiled “spiritual” literature and hearing the lingo, I was afraid. While I was accepted wholeheartedly, skepticism and all, I didn’t feel like I belonged. If not here, there, anywhere, where will I belong?

In December, I started my first job working as a barista at Starbucks. I loved it. I’d never held a formal job before, and my fellow Starbucks partners quickly became like a family for me. When family feels more like family than the family you are staying with, is staying there really the best thing to do? Especially if you are questioning the viability of succeeding in the very reasons you escaped there - to get sober and feel better?

To put it mildly, 2018 was a lot. Throughout January and early February, the belief that I was not an alcoholic burned within me, so much so that in every meeting I attended, I felt as if I’d erupt at any moment and loudly scream that I am not one of you people. Around Valentine’s Day, I made a plan. I would test myself. The opportunity was perfect, as was the feasibility of executing it. I snuck into a liquor store in the same complex as my Starbucks, purchased a bottle of vodka, went to the restroom in Starbucks, emptied a plastic water bottle I purchased, and filled it with the vodka. If anyone were to look at it, they’d see a liquid that was undeniably clear and unreplicable in the way only water can be. No one would be the wiser.

By now, I’m sure you’ve guessed how my plan went. Under the cover of retreating to my room for bedtime, I made sure that everyone in the house was asleep. I did what I’d do most nights anyway - read, watch a series, watch YouTube videos, with a bit of alcohol in me to make the experience a bit more fun. I don’t remember what transpired that night at all, but apparently I was yelling at uncharacteristically loud volumes, clearly enjoying whatever I was watching or doing.

Over the next couple of days, everyone (but me) went into crisis mode. I was fine - I was just having a bit of fun - I slipped up once. Big deal. Well, it was quite a big deal for everyone within my proximal and long-distance orbit, which in turn, left me feeling annoyed, unsettled, and a bit embarrassed because everyone around me was overreacting. I was given an ultimatum. Option 1: I can stay at the house, provided I sleep in the living room (where everyone can keep eyes on me at all times) for at least a month, take up housekeeping responsibilities, and double my meeting attendance while also working. Option 2: I can pack my shit up, as I am “nothing but an entitled piece of shit” and move into a halfway house a 10 or 15 minute drive away. I chose the latter.

In the beginning, moving into the halfway house felt like the best decision I had ever made. I was independent and free to do whatever I wanted, provided I stayed sober, attended meetings daily, if not several times a week, and helped around the house. I lived with guys from all walks of life - ex-chefs, lawyers, construction workers, ex-husbands and ex-fiances and ex-fathers. They were a bit unnerving at times, but they were protective over me as I was the youngest and most inexperienced in the house.

Almost everyday, I would walk the 35 minutes from the halfway house to Starbucks, and every night I’d do the reverse. I often used work as an excuse to wiggle my way out of attending meetings (as frequently as I was told to), which was true, most of the time.

I’d taken to staying at the Starbucks even after my shift ended because I didn’t want to go back to the halfway house, go to meetings, and be around those who thought I was like them. I’d often bring my laptop and some headphones and just watch whatever I wanted to, passing the time mindlessly and guilt-free, as I was still at work. There was a CVS across the street from where my Starbucks was located - I liked popping in there frequently and browsing through the shelves, spending my salary on useless items I probably would use only a handful of times.

One day, browsing through an aisle completely unrelated, I saw a little shelf of single-serving boxed wines. This was convenient, as it was a) not in a delicate, tinkling glass bottle, b) only a droplet of wine when compared to a full-sized 750ml bottle, so I couldn’t get too drunk, c) easily disposable, and d) easily disguisable, especially if mixed into a Starbucks refresher. While a, b, c, and d were technically true, my return to alcohol was easily discernible for all. Mind you, I lived in quite a small town where I stood out and unmistakably me. I had met loads of people in AA and NA meetings - there’s a joke that alcoholics love caffeine - I think it is true, at least where I was. Who better to suss out an alcoholic’s return to alcohol than another alcoholic?

As I could have been detected more easily before nighttime, I’d wait an hour or two, before the store closed for the night, to start drinking. One night, I’d drank a bit more than my one box of single-serving wine. I felt really happy, really free, and remember walking home at night and whooping in excitement. My memories of what followed deteriorated considerably with every step I took, and at around the halfway point between work and the halfway house, my memory completely escapes me.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a hospital. I was very confused. Was I hurt? What happened? The nurse attending me didn’t really answer my questions, which was annoying. I still don’t entirely understand what happened, but in my drunken state, I suddenly became very sad as I knew I was very drunk, and knew that I would be caught instantly when I entered the halfway house. After asking the nurse attending me for the dozenth time, she told me that I had voiced suicidal ideation because I “didn’t want to live” and “didn’t want to go back” (where? she had no idea). A kind couple called the police on my behalf and were instructed that it would be best to check me into a hospital, just to ensure I am not a danger to myself or others. As I was trying to make sense of this information, I had a nurse in another room loudly say the name of an old coworker of mine who left Starbucks due to unknown reasons. This was his second time here, and he still kept drinking even though he repeatedly landed up in hospitals and treatment centers for his drinking. His name is incredibly distinctive, and in a small town, I knew that it had to be him. After ensuring that I was not, in fact, a danger to others, I was transported to a mental health treatment facility. Oh, I think that this was also the instance where I’d lost my phone and headphones. Or was it the other instance? Or the one after that? Who knows.

Anyway, after exiting the facility, I had promised that I would change and be much more diligent in following the principles of the halfway house. However, a few weeks later, I woke up in a jail cell. Let me explain.

I had discovered that there’s a Taco Bell on my route from Starbucks to the halfway house, and I would routinely go there in the evenings for chips and nacho cheese sauce. One night, a bit more sauced than usual, I really was craving chips and nacho cheese sauce. It was 8:52 and the store closed at 9:00, but they could give me a quick order of chips and nacho cheese! It seemed that there were no customers in the store, but technically, I thought they were open. Frustrated as I was, I banged on the door and tried pulling it open as a scared employee was trying to finish up her closing shift for the night. Understandably frightened, she called the police while I waited outside the door, banging and yelling, waiting for her to please open the door for me so I could get my chips and nacho cheese sauce. I don’t remember anything else from that night besides saying “I don’t know” and “no I can’t” and screaming louder than I ever had in my life.

I came to in a dark holding cell as my arrest was being processed, noticing that it reeked of pee, was damp, and every surface and fixture made of concrete, except the toilet and sink. The smell of pee was so bizarre, as was the dampness that seemed to permeate from everywhere. After a while, somebody opened the door to the holding cell and told me to take my clothes off so they could strip-search me. Take everything off, I asked? “Yes”. Even my underwear? “Yes”. Reluctantly, I began to peel off my clothing, and it is only then that I realized that the smell of piss and dampness emanating around me came from me - I had peed my pants with fright. My pee-soaked pants and underwear and shirt were shoved into a bag and I changed into an orange and white striped jumpsuit. I gathered a cup, a mat, a pillow, and made my way to the bottom-most row of cells. The cells had walls bordering the two sides but were completely exposed from the front, so it felt like a giant sleepover that I really did not want to attend, but was evidently forced to. As I entered the giant, exposed row of cells with a giant metal table and benches in the middle, everyone stood by their beds and stared at me. They were jeering at me, telling me I didn’t belong here, asking me what I did. I was still very hungover, so I mostly tuned it out. As I was lead to my cell, I heard someone yelling my name. I was confused. How does that person know my name? I looked and saw it was my old Starbucks coworker again - a strange coincidence I found even more baffling given he was also at the hospital I’d woken up in a few weeks ago.

A while after, I was handed a couple of papers: one with numbers scribbled on it in what I later realized was my own handwriting, and a pamphlet on how to avoid being raped in prison. This was not particularly comforting, but wanting to avoid talking to anybody or meeting anyone’s gaze, the pamphlet suddenly became the most engrossing and essential reading of my life thus far. I noticed, as I was nearing the end of the back cover of the pamphlet, that someone was hovering over me. I looked up and saw a young, good looking man smiling at me. He introduced himself to me and asked if it was my first time - he’d figured as much.

He literally gave me a tour of the confines I found myself in - these are the exposed toilets and sinks, up above are the open showers, this is where we eat, these are where we make calls to the emergency contact numbers we’d written down when being processed, etc. He had been arrested countless times - he said that it was better than living homeless or being on the streets. He was incredibly nice and we talked at great length - even when we broke off, he would come check in on me every half hour or so, which I found even more disturbing. I remember the meals being undistinguishable - I literally couldn’t tell what I was eating. I was advised to take every food/drink offered to me, even if I didn’t want it, as I could trade it with others for other foods/drinks/or favors. The person in charge of giving out meal trays laughed at me because I didn’t know what to do - should I take a tray or will he hand it to me?

Using what I finally realized were phone numbers I’d written down, I used the phones available on one side of our floor to get bailed out. Every number I’d try said that the caller does not accept collect calls - I had no idea what that meant, and couldn’t use my phone to Google it. After exhausting every number I could, I reluctantly called my home phone number. My dad picked up the phone on my second try - he knew what happened, my relatives were somehow alerted when I was arrested and wanted nothing to do with the situation, and he was working on arranging someone to come and bail me out.

During the 24-48 hours I was in the cell, I mostly read books that were available for us to read, kept to myself, and slept. Fortunately, my dad had arranged for a cousin who lives a couple hours away to come bail me out. Even though I don’t remember if I voiced it or looked like it, I was incredibly grateful for all that he did for me - took me out to lunch, waited for me as I showered and cleaned up, took me to see a movie, and dropped me back home. I am so grateful for that.

A few weeks later, I called him because I was drunk and upset in a bar close to the Starbucks I worked at. I don’t remember why. I ordered 2 or 3 glasses of wine in quick succession and then was cut off. I was waiting for a coworker and wanted to drink with her, so I needed a drink of some description. I think I was given sparkling water, which I did not drink enthusiastically. The rest of my memory is completely blurry until I find myself in the lobby of a hotel. I’m confused. Apparently, or at least as I think it was told to me, after being cut off I was very upset, I was disorderly, I was being kicked out of the bar, and when I refused to leave they said that they would call the police - or had they already called the police? - I don’t remember. Not knowing what to do, my cousin arranged for me to be driven to a hotel where I could spend the night and avoid another arrest. The hotel’s manager was incredibly understanding of the situation - by this time, my dad was informed and he’d spoken to her as I sat in the lobby dazed and very confused. Very generously, she booked me a taxi to the halfway house.

Things settled down after that… for a while, anyway. As I increased my attendance at AA and NA meetings, I found myself feeling deeply uneasy again. I don’t think I’m an alcoholic - I’m just depressed and misunderstood because I use alcohol as a crutch. This crutch consistently beat me down more than it had ever served as support for me, but that didn’t matter. I did an in-depth evaluation at my therapist/psychologist’s office, which revealed that while I do exhibit a number of symptoms that denote moderate alcohol use disorder, it was compounded by a host of other issues. I broke up with my AA sponsor - he laughed and told me that he would always be here for me whenever I wanted to come back to him - and decided to check into an intensive inpatient program at a reputed treatment center, then plan for independence: maybe an apartment, returning to school, another job, something like that.

A couple nights before, feeling excited and wanting to treat myself before joining the program, I booked a motel room for myself for 2 nights. My therapist and psychologist warned me that there is a liquor store within walking distance from it, but I said I don’t think it should be a problem. As soon as I’d settled into the motel room, I went across the street and picked up a bottle of lemon flavored vodka - I loved it because it reminded me of what I used to drink in Austin and was the most palatable (read: bearable), in my opinion. I was scheduled to go into work the next day, but a little night of indulgence wouldn’t have much impact. That morning, I had a telephone check-in with my therapist which I wasn’t able to pass off as smoothly as I thought I had. I told her I would go into work later; she said she might happen to swing by and pick something up from the drive thru to make sure I was working; I said that was fine and that she’d see me at work. When I didn’t show up to work, however, she was rightfully concerned.

After that, I woke up, sprawled across the bed, because someone was banging on the door to my motel room and yelling my name. I was confused. Not having attended work even though I said I was, my psychologist (and CEO of the mental health services center where I saw my therapist, as well) did a wellness check on me. I was far from well, however, and she asked if I wanted to go to the inpatient program I was due to attend a few days in advance. I said yes. She asked if she should drop me there (it was somewhat far away), or if I could make other arrangements to get there. I said that I could maybe Uber there - she took me up on that option - and off I went to my intensive inpatient program with greater need than ever before. After I told everyone in my unit that I got there via Uber, everyone called me Uber throughout my stint in the program. I became really good friends with a girl who had to leave after a few days because her insurance could no longer cover her stay, but she left me and only me her name and number on a piece of paper, which I’ve lost since.

It was here, my third stay at a mental health treatment center in less than a year, that I noticed that the counselors who came in to do sessions with us didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. What they said sounded more like it came from a book or article than it did personal experience. I’ve kept that observation in mind ever since.

Miraculously, I was able to come up with a plan to complete my pretrial intervention program (because I was arrested, remember), then fly back to El Paso where I can be transferred to another Starbucks location and resume school - a semblance of normality and stability at last. On July 18, I flew back to El Paso. For whatever reason, I was home alone for a couple days, and I decided to have one last hurrah and drink. The following morning, I went to a dear friend’s house to bake cookies, and I was so hungover that I felt like I was dying. She must have sensed I was very out of it, but she didn’t pry too much. She took a picture of me baking and decorating cookies and I posted it. I received comments and private messages from people I hadn’t spoken to in such a long time, saying I looked so healthy and happy (at last), but they didn’t know that I literally felt like I was dying when that picture was taken. Smiles and social media can deceive.

That Summer and Fall, I worked at Starbucks. It was far busier than the store I worked at previously - learning to adapt to the exorbitantly increased sense of urgency was a process. Adding frequent hangovers, showing up to work still drunk from the night before, and calling out of work if I felt ill did not help at all. One day, I came home from work and went to my bedroom. I opened the door and saw 3 bottles of wine that I had previously hidden sitting on my desk, artfully arranged. I was shocked. I was also fooling no one.

The ebb and flow of turbulence and cushiony smoothness remained throughout the rest of the year. I was sober, not sober, working, not working, reconnecting, isolating. I was gearing up for my return to university at UTEP after several semesters of absence. I was so excited to be back in school.

That Winter, I was home alone for Christmas. My best friend very kindly invited me to spend the day with her family days in advance. My invitation was quickly rescinded after I tried to gaslight her into thinking that I was not drinking/drunk at the time. I hurt the ones I loved so much just to maintain my wine-soaked house of cards, growing flimsier and dangerously susceptible to falling apart as each second of each day ticked by.

2019 was fulfilling.

January 3, 2019 was the last day I consumed alcohol. I only remember slivers of the day, and yet it changed the course of my life. The day started off like any other…almost. I went downstairs to the kitchen and looked at the two bottles of red wine I had stocked for my day off of work. I opened one, gulped a glass down, and poured another one or two. I noticed that there was an annoying beeping from my living room. The fire alarm was beeping. I thought the battery just needed replacing, so I FaceTimed a friend and he told me how to replace the battery. While I was wobbling on a chair trying to reach the alarm’s battery, I must have accidentally triggered something while fumbling with it. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events after this, as it happened in such quick succession. As my head throbbed from the incessant beeping, I soon heard knocking on the front door and someone calling my name from outside. I opened the door to see two of our family friends - I was confused. They were notified when I had triggered something in the alarm system, and wanted to make sure I was okay. Soon, firefighters and police came and I had no idea what to do - I was drunk, confused, disoriented, and scared. If I remember correctly (I probably do not), the beeping was indicative of a carbon monoxide problem, hence why the alarm was going off.

My hands were shaking as I made far too strong, milk-less chai for my family friends that came to check on me. They said not to worry about making chai, but I insisted on making it anyway, spilling a quarter of it and dumping some of the black tea leaves on the stove as I strained it into two mugs.

I felt so embarrassed - I had alarmed everyone: the police, firefighters, my family friends, neighbors on my street, simply because I was drunkenly hobbling around trying to shut the alarm up. Somehow, it seemed like every aspect of my community had converged to stage a mass intervention for me that morning - something I had unwittingly triggered. After having strained the chai and bringing the mugs over to my family friends, my memories are completely obliviated aside from laying in bed, in and out of sleep, trying to convince my parents (both in India) that no, I was not drunk, and it was just a carbon monoxide problem. They both questioned whether I was ready to, or even wanted to go back to school. I insisted I did, but they were both rightfully skeptical.

When people ask me how I got sober, my mind goes blank. I remember bits and pieces of January 3rd, but in retrospect, the day wasn’t that bad in comparison to others I’ve had waking up in hospitals and coming to while in a holding cell. Yet, something within me shifted that day. I realized that I did not want to live like this anymore. Despite the alcohol and the commotion and the shame I felt, that realization was made out of lucidity. I did not want to live a life of uncertainty and regret and shame, all of which were compounding day after day and night after night by my own doing. No one was forcing me to drink - I was the one who went to grocery stores and gas stations, picked out a bottle or two of wine for myself, paid for it, and went home.

I had orchestrated every minute of each instance I entertained this cyclical routine, yet my mind would start playing an intoxicating tune of its own and I would lose myself to the tunes of my own deceptive reasoning, preventing me from listening to my conscience, a conductor frantically gesticulating to me in hopes to steer me away from disaster.

Towards the latter half of January, I had resumed my college experience, albeit in a completely different environment that was so familiar and yet so foreign. I had shocked myself by doing well in my classes and managing the moderate course load with ease, and I wanted to get involved in the university somehow, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. My question was soon answered after I was scrolling through the feed of an old Instagram account I made with one of my best friends to post food we’d made. He told me that it would be wise for us to start by following everyone we could remember from high school, even if we hadn’t spoken to them in years; we had to start following others in order to gain a following back. Sometimes I liked logging into the account to check in on old acquaintances and people I hardly remembered, just to lurk and pass the time. I scrolled past a post that had momentarily caught my attention, and decided to satiate my curiosity by scrolling up and finding it again. I’m glad I did.

An old acquaintance from high school had joined UTEP after his own struggles with sobriety, and was advertising a tentative organization for students in recovery on campus. I quickly messaged him (on my personal account, not my food account), telling him that I was interested in what he had written about the organization and wanted to help in any way possible. I said that I love writing and organizing; he said that they needed a secretary in order to officially apply to form a student organization. It was serendipitous.

Officially forming the organization - writing its constitution and by-laws, having weekly meetings on and off campus, and having friends who were new to sobriety as well, was such a blessing - it was a huge backbone for me and one of the highlights of the year. Additionally, I approached a girl whose mental-health centered comment in class appealed to me, telling her that I really liked her comment and found it insightful. We started talking and became fast friends, deciding to do a semester-long group project on campus and hosting a mental health fair of sorts, where we gave information and helped to destigmatize prevalent mental illnesses amongst college students, had a speaker who shared their experience, and had stress-relieving activities. The fair (and project) received phenomenal feedback.

By reframing what I once considered weaknesses - in part due to my own internalized stigmatizations - as strengths, I was able to lean into the alcohol use disorder, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and use them to my advantage to bring about positive change within my community and my own personal life.

2019 was fulfilling.

2020 was…2020. There is little to mention besides the obvious.

While it did not necessarily impact my sobriety, the physical and mental isolation, intense instability, confusion, tragedies and heartbreaks of the year made for prime conditions for people to slip back into destructive tendencies, coaxed by insidious temptations of numbing and quelling.

Products of prolonged isolation include overthinking, rumination, hopelessness, and dread. As the pandemic upended everyone’s semblance of normalcy, many were able to sit with and listen to their thoughts for the first time. This was distressing for some, enlightening for others, and depressing for the masses. We had to learn to feel at home with ourselves, which can be an unsettling experience if never previously necessitated. And yet, we got through it.

In 2021, I paused and reassessed. After nearly one year of school from home, I thought of working at home as both a convenient comfort and a source of impending anxiety, as I knew that when I reintegrated into the outside world again, I would be marginally socially inept. After not really seeing anyone or going out unless necessary for months, social conventions that I had garnered and refined over the past couple of years went out the window completely.

I started an internship at a suicide prevention/crisis hotline unit - I was the first intern they had hired to join the unit. Although I initially found the work quite fulfilling, in time, I’d begun to realize that my own mental health and wellbeing was deteriorating. At first, I was unsure of where my shift in stability stemmed from: was it the stress of the internship and schoolwork, the unpredictability of each call(er), and general anxiety from working outside of the sanctuary I called home?

One of the myriad factors that made crisis hotline calls such a large source of anxiety for me was that I was completely reliant on what the person was saying (or omitting, either unintentionally or deliberately), with no visual or nonverbal cues to determine the veracity of their statements. There were several instances when I genuinely wanted to know what happened to each caller and their unique situations after the call had either ended amicably or disconnected with no forewarning. The ones that ended suddenly scared me the most - what had that person done that led the call to disconnect? Was there someone else with them? Were they safe? Were they alive?

Whenever I tell people about my internship, they ask how I did it. I went into it thinking that my background and personal experiences with mental health issues would be sufficient to handle the stress and unpredictability of the hours I put in. While it certainly helped a bit, I felt completely unprepared and inadequate after a few weekends of training and shadowing. The fiery warmth, the feeling of hundreds of ants crawling inside of me that anxiety floods my body with only magnified with time. I reasoned that if my own mental health is not sound, how can I be of help to others, especially when the job is so erratic and demanding? One of my warning signs that I’m slipping back into a depressive state is that I have a seemingly sudden, acute inability to think clearly - my mind completely fogs over and loses the clarity and warmth it once radiated with. Coupled with anxiety and mounting schoolwork, I decided to take a break for an unspecified amount of time to focus on my own mental health.

A couple of weeks before I walked away from the internship, I wondered if the anti-depressant I was taking was clouding my ability to think clearly. I tapered off of it slowly, however with no medical supervision. I do not recommend this at all. Speak to your doctor(s) about changing and tapering off of medicines. You may think that you know what to do and how to do it, but if you can’t think clearly, should you really trust your own judgment? By self-tapering off the medicine, within a few weeks I was in the lowest state I had been in since before sobriety’s embrace. I started seeing a therapist, a psychiatrist, and changed my medications, as well as a few lifestyle choices. The combination helped quite a bit, and by the end of the year, I felt a calmness within me, a semblance of mental stability after becoming so used to the disquieting chaos that wreaked havoc through my head. It’s funny - when you finally feel like yourself again, you realize that your definition of “normal'' and that of those who have never had depression are two completely different concepts on opposing sides of the happiness/wellbeing spectrum.

The year was gearing up to end on a positive note, and mentally, I did. Physically, however, my body betrayed me suddenly.

Upon arriving at the airport to begin my journey to India for the Winter break, a sharp, persistent urological pain coursed through my lower half and made the 32 hour journey seem longer than 32 years. This confounding but veritable source of extreme pain affected much of my trip there, with countless scans, tests, and medicines to no avail. If the pain subsided, it was temporary, and within a day or two it was back and worse than ever. Every test came normal, for the most part, and I began to wonder if the pain was all in my head and had somehow manifested itself into a urological issue. I was unsure of what to do, but I knew that I was not okay.

By the end of January, the issue had become unbearable. I wasn’t able to sit in my classes without squirming and gasping with every jolt of pain - the spasms alternated at random from once a minute to once every five, to once an hour, to several times within a minute. It was debilitating.

Thankfully, with time and a lot of luck, I had finally received a diagnosis (funny thing: you’re diagnosed with this only when nearly every other urological issue has been eliminated), and began to heal and return to normal within a few weeks. A few months later, the pain is still present, but much more manageable with the right medicines, lifestyle changes, and even changes in what I wear and eat. I exchanged tight underwear and skinny jeans for loose boxers and sweatpants/athletic

shorts, and oddly, it helps keep symptoms at bay. Most annoying, however, has been an extreme upheaval of the diet I once knew and loved. I’ve ceased consuming caffeine, spices (even ones without tangible heat/pungency), nuts, seeds, acidic foods (fermented anything, pickled anything, citrus, tomatoes, vinegar, anything sour, really), chocolate, yeast, most (if not all) sauces and condiments as they have one or more of the aforementioned, sharp cheeses, and other foods that I am surely forgetting. I have intentionally and unintentionally eaten restricted foods as part of an elimination diet, but all of those that I have tried so far lead to varying levels of exacerbated pain within the next day or two.

As I love cooking/baking and indulging in take-out food interchangeably, depending on my mood and how lazy/busy I am, what may seem like a small change has actually impacted my life in several ways. For one, I almost never eat out anymore - not at a restaurant, cafe, friend or family member’s house - unless I am absolutely sure that the offending ingredients are not present. Essentially, I rarely stray away from eating what has been cooked at home, but the ingredients I (and likely all of you) use to spice up what you eat (literally), it’s been a challenge.

The above has consumed my attention a lot more than one might imagine, especially as someone who loves food. Sometimes I wonder if I should come up with flavorful recipes that still abide by my diet - surely someone out there with similar issues would appreciate it.

One another note, I began working on campus as an undergraduate assistant in a wellbeing initiative on campus, which aims to destigmatize and bring awareness to issues interconnected with physical, mental, and emotional wellness, to name a few. I graduate with a BA in Psychology in exactly one week from today. What I started in 2014 may have felt like it’s drawn out forever, stretched me and worn me thin until I snap again and again; and yet, it all simultaneously feels like a blur. Maybe much of it is a blur because my memories have faded, either due to alcohol or repression or depression or whatever have you, but to imagine myself here, one week away from graduation seems unreal. A whole host of loved ones are coming from around the world to attend my graduation and celebrate with me, which also seems unreal, but I’m sure it’ll set in once I see everyone together in the same room after years in between.