I think most of us remember that first alcoholic beverage and how it made us feel, rather it be freedom and peace in the mind for once, or a loss of control of who we are and never wanting to feel that feeling again. For me, it was the former. I finally felt like I could be that outgoing, happy go lucky, “exciting” girl in front of everyone instead of just around my family or close friends. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and it gave me hope for the future that maybe things could be easier than I thought they would be, just as long as I was under the influence of something. Which I didn’t really click in at the time that this wasn’t any kind of life to live.   But the anxiety eased when I was drinking, I stopped feeling every movement I made, every heartbeat, every tendent in my body, the blood flowing through my veins. My mind stopped racing, the thoughts stopped controlling me, but instead I controlled them. Or so I thought at the time.   It wasn’t too long after my first drink at 15 that I became reliant on it, felt lost or unlike myself without it even. I was also smoking weed heavily at this point in my life, as well as taking any pills or drugs I could get my hands on. When I didn’t have something to alter my state of mind I felt so alone, so lost in this world. Little did I know at the time that alcohol as well as weed are huge downers and in the end, all they were doing was making my anxiety and depression way worse than it ever was.   The anger progressed as well. I couldn’t go a day without screaming at a loved one or self-harming myself, in need for desperate attention from the people I loved that “should have known” that I was suffering, that I was suffocating in my own mind and that I needed help.    I spent most of my days sleeping and all of my nights up all night in my room alone with my snacks, my books or tv shows, my oxys and mdma which were my drugs of choice at the time mostly because my boyfriend sold them and I could get my hands on em whenever I wanted. He also sold booze so whenever I could get my hands on that as well, I did. I was trying to escape reality.    I hated being awake during the day because that was when you were expected to not be lazy and get things done, work towards those future goals. But I was too overwhelmed by everything, I wasn’t smart enough, outgoing enough, fun enough, loud enough, cool enough to live a productive happy life. I knew I had talents but I would rather run from them because it was all too overwhelming. But at night time no one expected anything of you, you could be whoever you wanted and not feel like a lazy, good for nothing addict while doing so. Plus when I was under the influence I was cool enough, smart enough, outgoing enough to live a productive, happy life. So, I kept telling myself that tomorrow I would get out there and try but when the next day came and I was sober I lost all my confidence time and time again. I was stuck in a cycle.   The relationship I was in at the time was also very toxic and abusive but to me at the time it was the norm, but it was making me even more miserable day by day, making it easier for me to see no hope in my future, making it easier to want to escape the world I was living in. Anything was better than the feelings in that world. After high school I finally had the guts to leave him after all the cheating, hitting, bullying, mental turmoil. I was done convincing myself he loved me as he kept proving to me that he didn’t time and time again. I didn’t tell my family for a long time after about the abuse. I retreated into myself even more and really never left the house.  My parents kept telling me I needed to get out more, go do something productive or make friends or get a job, anything. For years I stayed in the same cycle until finally they convinced me to go up north one Summer and get out there, have some fun. They sort of forced me to do so, despite my attempts to stay at the house alone that summer as they all went up north.   So, in the summer of 2015, I got a job up in Wasaga beach. My family has been staying there every summer before I was even born. In a trailer park called Bell’s Maple park where we have made so many great memories at over the years. This summer was the first summer that our parents gave my two sisters and I the trailer they bought a few years back and we had to start paying the lot fees to stay their every year, it was ours and it was so exciting for us at the ages of 19, 20, and 15. My parents bought another trailer in a different park about 15 minutes from us so they were still up there if we needed them.   So, that summer my older sister and I got a job cleaning the bathrooms on the beach and the tables at the little strip on the main beach with the burger king, ice-cream shop, sushi shop and convenient store. It sounds like a dirty job and trust me it was, but it was the most thrilling job I ever had. It really helped me break out of my shell and climb out of the rabbit hole I had dug foy myself for years. I was working but I hardly felt like I was, I felt like every day was a party. I could drink all the time, I had freedom and it felt amazing. I met so many cool people along the way.   My sister and I would bike from the trailer park to the beach, do our shift and get ready to go party afterwards. I met other people who worked at the shops on the beach who were all around the same age as me and I ended up going to some of their villas and cottages, having fires, drinking, staying up till the sun came up. Drinking made it so much easier to be comfortable in my own skin. If it wasn’t for the alcohol there is no way I would have guts to make a single friend that summer.   We also have a lot of friends we grew up with in our trailer park and we spent so many nights staying up with them until the birds started chirping, then we would do it all again the next day. Drinking every night was glamorized and I loved it. I was having the time of my life for the first time since I was a child.   Then the guy I met that summer, started dating and fell in love with, started to stay with me at our trailer instead of going home to Vaughan where he lived. No one has ever made me feel the way he did, I finally felt complete. But he wasn’t much of a drinker but he was having fun with us too staying up all night, drinking beer with us and having a great time. When the summer was coming to an end, I was not ready to go back to Cambridge and back to reality. I was living in my little fantasy world and going back to the real world terrified me. I stayed up there until the park closed for the season at the end of October and he stayed with me. My sisters went back home and so did my parents but I stayed until the very last day.   The job on the beach was finished in September and it was supporting both of us so the money started running out pretty quick. But I still managed to get a few beers every day, most of the time for both of us and the times I couldn’t afford it for both of us, I got enough just for me or took it from a friends trailer that left their door unlocked and always had beer. Not caring at the time about how I was going to replace it, I just wanted to drink. I always ended up replacing it though. I asked my parents or sister to borrow money or my boyfriend would ask his parents and I would go buy more beer to replace the ones I took. Which I ended up taking again, just to replace again. It was a cycle.   When I first starting drinking it was an escape thing, then just a social thing, I could be funny and cool and people liked me when I drank, things were easier. But then summer was over and it was time to get back to reality, get out in the real world and start making a name for myself, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I was scared to say the least.   I went back to Cambridge and my boyfriend went back to Vaughan to live with his parents. I was so miserable. After such a fun summer I thought maybe the depression and anxiety were gone and it would be easy for me to get out there again. But it wasn’t. I just wanted to escape again so I went back to my lonesome with my drugs when I could get em, my weed and my beers whenever my parents gave me money to get some. I would just steal from them rather it be my mom’s pills, or money if they didn’t give it to me so they did most of the time.   They were scared I was going to hurt myself or someone else so they walked on eggshells around me most of the time and gave me what I wanted. They finally got me to go to a doctor where I was prescribed depression and anxiety pills and put on the waiting list to talk to a psychiatrist to see if there was any other mental health issues going on.   When my parents stopped giving me the money I needed to get my fixes I became very irritable every day, throwing fits, having temper tantrums. They called the cops on me more than once in fear for their safety but mostly my own. I treated my boyfriend like shit at the time, unaware that I was slowly pushing him away. I needed a change so finally I put on my big girl pants and started applying for jobs. Anywhere and everywhere in town.   About a couple weeks later, I got a job in a kitchen and very quickly moved my way up to supervisor and then manager. At first I was an anxiety filled wreck starting in a kitchen with people who have done it for so long and had no patience to teach a new person. But I have always had this thing where I felt like I had to prove myself because a lot of the time people look at me as a little shy girl who has no balls or guts, which I really didn’t at the time but I knew I was a hard worker and right when I started working in a kitchen I knew I had a knack for it and that this is what I could see myself doing my whole life and being happy doing so. I again felt as if things were falling into place and that maybe I did have hope for a bright future.  I met some of the coolest people I’ve ever met...