My story: the path to BarbellsAndSobriety

My name is Megan, and this is my journey as addict to fitness fanatic. This personal battle led me to discover the profound impact of wellbeing and fitness. It was through this transformative process that the vision for BarbellsAndSobriety was born – a platform to share my experiences and help others.

So what’s my story?

It begins young, drinking was very normalised growing up for me, babychams at Christmas, WKD’s at the weekend, you get the jist… I loved alcohol and what it did to me, it felt good, warm, comforting so when I began to have an increased access to it, well, I began to take things too far.

One of my first memories, if you can even call it that because I blacked out, was when I drank a litre of vodka as a teenager and nearly died. Surely that was enough to put me off getting drunk again? It certainly wasn’t. At every opportunity I would steal spirits from my parents alcohol cabinet, pour little bits of each into a plastic coke bottle and go down the park to get drunk with my friends.

When I hit my later teens, I started going clubbing and I bloody loved it. Thursday nights were the best, all you could drink for £10 in Chicago’s was a sure fire way to get absolutely blackout and have what seemed like fun at the time.

At 18 I was introduced to cocaine and MDMA, what a buzz! I could drink more, be more confident and dance all night without getting tired. Little did I know that my weekend using would overtime spiral into full blown addiction.

For the next few years I managed to drink and use in a fairly controlled way, at times I could put it down, others I would go to excess but for me the consequences hadn’t started to stack up yet and I didn’t see a problem with what I was doing right? I mean I wasn’t hurting anyone.

Fast forward to about 2020 when the drugs really started to take over, cocaine was no longer a weekend thing but rapidly becoming an increasing occurrence during the week. I wasn’t going out as much socialising when I used, but using at home. Music on low, feeling sketchy and staying up for days. This continued for the next few years.

The consequences were now getting bigger, my mental health deteriorated quickly and I spent several ‘holidays’ in the psych ward. Things were getting bad, but I just couldn’t see that the drugs and alcohol were the problem.

The last year of my using and drinking was just pitiful, when I drank it was to blackout putting myself in dangerous and stupid situations, and when I used it was mostly alone justified by that fact if I used in the daytime then at least I’d still get a full nights sleep, insanity right? Breaking point came on November 17th 2024 when I was again admitted to the psych ward where I decided that coke was the problem…

So I had a week’s holiday at Canterbury psych ward and made a firm decision to give up drugs entirely, but fear only kept me clean for so long. Within a week of leaving I had used again, moderately but I had still used. Slowly it started to creep back up on me, I could put it down for a week or two but ultimately I couldn’t stop entirely.

Things finally came to a head in early February 2025 when I went on an almighty bender, quite frankly I don’t actually remember the last two days of it at all. I wanted to die, when I had drink and drugs in me I felt ok but the moment they ran out I felt hopeless. I broke down to my best friend who took me to hospital and told them everything, as much as I hated her at the time, it really is the best thing anyone has ever done for me. At that moment, I didn’t want to die anymore, I just didn’t want to carry on living the way I was. If I continued then I was going to end up overdoing, killing myself or ending up in a ditch somewhere.

That was the 8th February 2025 and I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol or drugs since. It really has been a journey and for me a 12 step fellowship really has saved my life. For the first time in my life I got honest about my addiction and myself. Now I’m the last person to sit here and tell you that sobriety, especially early sobriety, is easy because it isn’t always. Life can start to get life’y and you have to deal with all the repercussions of those consequences you’ve been burying your head in the sand about for years. But I can honestly tell you that keeping it one day at a time really does work.

So what’s life like now? Bloody brilliant, it’s peaceful and I’ve started to relearn who Megan is. I’ve reignited my love for fitness and focusing on healthy habits now, not ones that will kill me. Fitness and wellbeing are a massive part of my life now, things I neglected for so long. All I can say is that taking each day as it comes and doing the right things has brought me a long way since those dreary days of addiction.

One day at a time, we can recover.

Megan

Xxx