At first glance, Amanda, a 38-year-old woman from California, looked like she had it all together and was thriving in life, but, beneath that surface, she was silently struggling with alcoholism for years, until she realized it had taken all of her.
In her thirties, Amanda found herself turning to alcohol as a way to cope with stress and depression. At first, she used it as a tool to soothe her pain while keeping up appearances, but then it slowly became something that she couldn’t live without.
“I knew I had a problem when I needed to drink as soon as I woke up in the morning,” Amanda told Newsweek.
Eventually, she realized she couldn’t go more than an hour without drinking, and that every time she tried to stop, she would only feel sicker, weaker, and even more angry and depressed.
It began interfering with all her relationships, including a very important one, the one with her son.
Now that she is over it, Amanda is sharing her experience with alcoholism and her journey out of it on her TikTok profile, where she spreads awareness about the catastrophic consequences that alcohol can have on one’s life.
In a viral clip shared in June, under the username @blackheartsober, she reveals how to spot what she calls a “closeted alcoholic,” or a high-functioning alcoholic. This is somebody you may not know is struggling with this issue because they don’t otherwise show signs of it.
“I would like to add that it is not my place or anyone else’s to call anyone an alcoholic,” Amanda said. “The intention of my video was to expand on my own behaviors in my active alcoholism while lending perspective to those who have loved ones exhibiting similar behaviors.
“Not so they can judge them or tell them to stop, but so they can see them as human beings who are in a very daunting battle within their own souls. The disease of alcoholism has one goal, and it is to destroy you and everyone in your life,” she added.
Amanda says in the viral video, which has been viewed over 579,000 times and has so far received more than 7,400 likes, that there are three main signs to look out for in a closeted alcoholic that will immediately give it away.
One is that they will lie, and their stories will either make no sense, or too much sense, with too many details to them. Sign number two: they are going to disappear for a while and won’t say why. And, lastly, they are always preoccupied with something else. “The lights are on, but nobody’s home,” Amanda said.
A 2023 survey by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that over 224.3 million Americans over the age of 12 reported drinking alcohol at some point in their lifetime.
The number was higher for females than it was for males, especially during their teenage years, from 12 to 17, which is also illegal. Over 134.7 million people reported binge-drinking the month prior to the survey, and about 1 million of them were again underage.
The turning point for Amanda came after a serious car accident in which she discovered she was pregnant with her daughter. She had to stop drinking on the spot. Not only that, because she had fractured her pelvis, she had to heal without being able to drink or take any medication.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Amanda said of her sober journey, which started in September 2023, about three years into her alcoholism disorder.
“You might think that getting sober and getting through life without alcohol is impossible, but it’s not. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Recovery and sobriety are possible for all of us,” she added.
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