"Addiction."

Addiction for me started when I was 15, I started shaking when I was about five years old, by the time I was a teenager my anxiety and panic attacks had progressed to the point I was sometimes unable to stay conscious and would hit my head if standing when the attacks happened, one time my sister thought I were dead, another time I had ringing in my ears and I couldn't see out of one eye till the next day. I noticed drinking would ease some of the physical symptoms and didn't stop till I were forty two. Deciding to stop was initiated by a mental health nurse I was seeing regarding my suicidal ideation exacerbated by homelessness, she suggested I try rehab, the waiting list was long and so was the geographical distance but I made it, it was one of the most difficult decisions I ever made.

Rehab was a lot of work, a lot of self reflection and internal seeking, we did a lot of cognitive behavioural therapy resulting in acceptance and minimisation of blame through strength of purpose. I chose to be sober and I willed it into being. Now I am at Carinya, a transitional house operated by Live Lived Well for people that have successfully completed a rehabilitation and are not yet ideally positioned to return to the wider society. I am still learning how to be an adult through the Carinya program, I am continuing to study many things I did not learn as a child like making and navigating boundaries, even simple things like how to home keep will be very useful in the future which I now have hope for, I am studying, exercising, eating, sleeping, I now feel I can do the sort of things regular people do, maybe not quite yet but soon, I am in no hurry to rush my recovery. I would not have been able to do as well as I have in my opinion and in comparison to how I was doing, without the support of Carinya, staff and the program and intend to be doing better and better as time goes on.