Drinking to Forget, Loving to Survive: A Trauma Survivor’s Guide to F*cked Up Coping


 

Content Warning: This post talks openly about childhood trauma, alcoholism, addiction, and relationship struggles. It’s real, it’s raw, and it might stir some things up. Read at your own pace—and know you’re not alone.

Childhood trauma doesn’t politely stay in childhood. It grows with you. It threads itself through every relationship, every craving, every fear of being seen too closely.

Let’s not pretend this is easy to talk about. It’s not. But if you’re here, reading this, chances are you’ve felt the weight of unprocessed trauma, bad coping habits, or maybe just wondered why the hell your life feels stuck on repeat.

I didn’t grow up in safety—I grew up in survival.

And for a long time, drinking was the only thing that made survival feel bearable. But more than that, it led to a cycle of losing myself in other people—and in the substances I thought was helping me forget.

I was an alcoholic for 25 years. I’ve got three DUIs under my belt and enough emotional wreckage to fill a lifetime movie. But I’m still here—and I’m done pretending this sh*t didn’t leave a mark. A trail of broken trust, chaotic relationships, and shame that stuck to my skin no matter how many times I tried to scrub it off. But the deeper truth? None of that started with alcohol. It started with trauma. 

This isn’t a pity party. It’s a permission slip—for me, for you, for anyone trying to crawl out of survival mode and figure out what healing even looks like.

What the Hell Is Childhood Trauma, Really?


I grew up around chaos—the kind of pain you can't always name until it’s poured into a glass. Physical, emotional, and boundary-erasing trauma shaped me. But I wasn’t walking around thinking, “Oh, I’m traumatized.” I was surviving. That’s what a lot of us do. Survive the moment, survive the people, survive the silence.

Trauma isn’t just the “big” stuff. It’s anything that left you feeling unsafe, unseen, unloved, or unprotected when you were too young to deal with it. Abuse. Neglect. Chaos. Addiction in the home. Constant instability. Emotional distancing. ANYTHING.

You adapted to survive. Maybe you shut down emotionally. Maybe you learned to stay invisible. Maybe you turned into the fixer, the performer, the parentified kid. Whatever it was—it worked. Until it didn’t.

Because eventually, all those survival skills start bleeding into everything: your relationships, your self-worth, your ability to function without numbing out.

When You Learn to Hide Early, You Never Really Feel Seen

I learned to hide when I was young—hide my feelings, hide my pain, hide what was really going on. Shame was the first emotion I ever got good at. It taught me that being honest was dangerous, that being vulnerable was weak, and that the safest way to exist was to disappear.

So I did. I disappeared into alcohol. Into other people. Into relationships that made me feel needed, even if they weren’t safe.

And the worst part? I still felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I could be in a room full of people and still feel like I was on another planet. That’s what early trauma does—it wires you for alienation. You start to believe that no one really sees you, and if they did, they’d leave anyway.

Let’s Talk About Booze

Drinking was my Band-Aid. It was how I silenced the noise, the flashbacks, the panic attacks that came out of nowhere. It helped me sleep, helped me pretend I was okay in a world that never felt safe.

It wasn’t about partying—it was about escaping.

Drinking didn’t start out destructive. It started out helpful. Booze quieted the noise, made me feel warm, gave me courage when I couldn’t bear being seen sober. It let me show up in rooms I didn’t feel safe in. It let me fake intimacy. It numbed the triggers I didn’t have names for yet.

I didn’t realize I was building a cage with every sip.

And here’s the thing nobody tells you: quitting doesn't start when you stop drinking. It starts when you stop lying about why you were drinking in the first place.

And yeah, it cost me. DUIs. Broken relationships. Blackouts. Shame. So much shame.

But you know what? That shame didn’t belong to me. It belonged to the pain I never got to process, the grief I never got to name, the fear I never got to release.

Rehab Didn’t Save Me. It Made Me Feel More Alone.

I tried the “right” ways. Therapy. Rehab. Programs. I did the things that people told me would help. But most of the time, I felt like a guest star in someone else’s recovery narrative. I didn’t fit the mold. I didn’t talk the talk. 

You name the program, I’ve probably sat through it, nodded along, and felt more alienated than healed. Those places weren’t built for people like me—not people whose trauma wasn’t “polite” or palatable. I walked out of treatment centers and therapist offices feeling more broken than I did going in.I felt even more dislocated—from my family, from myself, from any sense of hope. 

My family didn’t understand the ways I was trying to change. Instead of connection, healing made me feel even more alone. So I drank more. Hurt more. Isolated more.

Instead of helping, those systems deepened the sense of alienation I already lived with. They made me feel like the problem wasn’t just my addiction, it was me.

So I spiraled harder.

I Became My Own Damn Case Study

Quitting for good didn’t come from a sponsor or a step—it came from me. I studied my own brain like it was a full-time job. I learned about trauma, addiction, the nervous system, attachment wounds. I tracked my triggers. I called out my patterns. I stopped trying to be “fixed” and started getting real about what was actually broken.

I had to become the expert on myself, because no one else had been.
That’s how I quit drinking. That’s how I started to live.

Trauma Doesn’t Just F*ck with Your Head—It Follows You into the Bedroom

When your foundation is built on fear and betrayal, love feels like walking through a minefield. I wanted intimacy, but didn’t trust it. Wanted closeness, but panicked when it got too real.

Some patterns I lived (and still untangle):

  • Clinging too tightly, then ghosting before they could leave me first

  • Saying “yes” when I meant “no” because I didn’t know how to hold a boundary

  • Using sex for validation—or avoiding it completely because my body wasn’t a safe place to be

  • Repeating toxic dynamics because they felt familiar, not because they felt good

Sound familiar?

When Trauma and Addiction Link Arms

For a lot of us, it’s not either/or—it’s both. The trauma feeds the addiction. The addiction feeds the relationship issues. And round and round we go, thinking this is just who I am.

But it’s not.

These aren’t character flaws. These are survival responses from a brain that never got to feel safe.



I Quit On My Own Because No One Knew Me Like I Did

Here’s the truth I don’t hear enough: I didn’t get sober because someone “saved” me. I got sober because I finally stopped trying to be someone I wasn’t.

I started studying myself. I didn’t need a step program—I needed a damn manual on trauma, nervous system responses, and the survival patterns I’d built as a kid. I learned how my brain had been wired to cope, how my body had been screaming for years, how booze had become a translator for emotions I never learned to speak.

It wasn’t linear. It wasn’t cute. But it was real. And it was mine. 

Okay, So Now What?

Healing isn’t cute. It’s messy. Nonlinear. Full of setbacks and awkward therapy sessions where you sit there going, “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

But it’s worth it. I swear.

Here’s what helped me—and might help you, too:

  • Trauma-informed therapy worksheets (not just your run-of-the-mill “how does that make you feel?”)

  • Addiction recovery journaling actually helps you dig into why you use, not just what you use, and helps you start to recognize your triggers

  • Open Minded Friends—because healing in isolation rarely sticks and being able to bounce ideas, what-ifs, and maybes not only helps you, but them as well

  • Naming the patterns—because you can’t change what you can’t see

    Love? That’s a Whole Other Minefield -Loving Isn’t Easy, Either

    Love was another battlefield. Trauma taught me that intimacy = danger. That people who say they love you will also hurt you. That boundaries were optional—or worse, punishable.

    So I became a shapeshifter. I chased love

    If alcohol was my anesthesia, love was the scalpel I kept handing to people who didn’t know how to use it.

    I chased connection but ran from intimacy. I clung to people who mirrored my own self-abandonment. I was terrified of being alone, but equally terrified of being known. That’s the push-pull that trauma plants in your chest—it tells you that love is the reward for shrinking yourself.

    Sex was complicated. Sometimes it felt like power, other times like punishment. I didn’t know how to say no—or how to say yes without guilt. My body wasn’t mine. My pleasure wasn’t mine. It took a long-ass time to figure out that consent isn’t just about other people—it’s about me choosing me, without shame.

    The Pattern Wasn’t Self-Sabotage. It Was Self-Protection.

    Everything I did—drinking, hiding, attaching too fast, pushing people away—it all made sense when I saw it as protection, not destruction.

    I wasn’t broken. I was wired for survival in an environment that gave me no tools for peace.

    What I Know Now

    I know now that healing doesn’t come from performing wellness or quoting therapy buzzwords.
    It comes from burning down the shame.
    It comes from being honest about the mess.
    It comes from building a relationship with yourself so strong, no relapse, no rejection, no rehab can take it away.


If You’re Still In It

If you’re drinking just to function…
If your relationships feel like war zones…
If you’re tired of pretending you’re okay…

f you feel alienated…
If rehab didn’t work…
If therapy made you feel more lost than found…
If shame still wraps around your ribs when you try to speak…

You’re not alone. I see you. I am you.

I see you. You're not failing. 

You're just not broken the way they said you were.
And maybe, just maybe, your path forward doesn’t look like anyone else’s—and that’s not only okay, it might just be the thing that saves you.

You’re not weak. You were surviving the only way you knew how.

And now? Maybe now it’s time to survive differently—with help, with support, with truth. More importantly, with YOUR truth!

Still here. Still Surviving. 

But Now I'm Speaking Up. 



Moving Forward

If you recognize yourself in these patterns, remember that awareness is the first step toward change. Your responses to trauma made sense given what you experienced—they were survival strategies. Now, with support and resources, you can develop new strategies that serve your adult life better.

Healing isn't linear, and it's never too late to begin. Whether that means reaching out to a therapist, joining a support group, or simply starting to name these patterns in your own life, each step matters.

If you're struggling with substance use or relationship difficulties, consider reaching out to a mental health professional who specializes in trauma. You deserve support, and you don't have to navigate this alone.

🛠 Tools for Healing & Support

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