I remember the exact moment I knew my drinking had become a problem.
It was a Tuesday evening. Not even the end of the week yet—a freaking Tuesday. I was talking on the phone with an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in ten years, and we decided to have a few drinks while we caught up.
But I couldn’t stop.
The conversation made me want to keep drinking, and the more I drank, the more fun it was to stay on the phone. Then she had to get off because she had work the next morning.
The moment I lowered the phone from my ear and the conversation ended, everything hit me.
I realized just how drunk I was.
And it dawned on me that I was about to have a very, very bad night.
When I tell you I thought I was going to die… I genuinely thought I was going to die.
I kept blacking out every time I stumbled toward the bathroom to throw up. Halfway there I’d collapse to my hands and knees, crawling across the floor while the room spun so violently I couldn’t tell which way was up. I remember crying, “I need to go to the hospital.”
Instead, I was told I’d be fine. That I’d get through it.
So there I was, convinced I had alcohol poisoning, too drunk to even use my own phone, while the person I was with brushed it off.
Just silly ol’ Mileena.
Drunk again…
I couldn’t take care of my kids the next day. I called my grandma and lied, telling her I must have food poisoning. But when she walked through the door and looked at me, I could see it on her face.
She knew.
That was a wake-up call.
It wasn’t the last time I drank too much, but it was the last time I ever drank like that. Every time I slipped after that became another reminder that I needed a new way to cope with how sad life made me.
I’m still not perfect. Sometimes I still catch myself wanting a drink for the wrong reason. But instead of a few drinks every night, it’s a few drinks a year now.
There’s still more work to do.
But I’m so much farther than I was.
And I’m proud of that.