My Most Terrifying Halloween, At The Bottom Of A Whiskey Bottle

Halloween 2013 – Welcome to my rock bottom. A rock bottom that had lasted a year; a turning point in my life.

I remember like it was yesterday, though I don’t recognize the girl I was.

Halloween 2013 – I am an alcoholic, and I am no longer attempting to hide it anymore. The scariest part of Halloween may have been the mask I wasn’t wearing.

I was getting as drunk as I could while waiting for my addiction to kill me. There was nothing left; I possessed no more energy to hide, and I knew I’d never quit – death was my only option.

“This is all you’ll ever be” I told myself.

Halloween 2013 – My brother invited me to a party. I had no friends anymore, he took pity and brought me along (despite his disdain for my alcoholic self). I knew I wasn’t particularly wanted, but I was used to the feeling of shame and humiliation and the party provided me an opportunity to drink openly .

I was the oldest to attend. The 25-year-old loser; no job, 2 DUIs, no license or car, no real home and definitely friendless. I dressed up in a girl scot outfit covered in makeshift marijuana leaves – I called myself a Pot Brownie. It was cute, but not on me – I couldn’t make anything cute back then.

Halloween 2013 – My darkest Halloween yet. I didn’t watch scary movies or cross paths with a black cat, it was my darkest Halloween because my life was darker than it had ever been.

I walked home from the party that night, my mom was in her front yard pouring out the whiskey I had stashed under the bed. My precious fucking whiskey. I see myself desperately running, screaming at her, begging her to stop. My soul can still feel the anger I felt then. Whiskey was my life, it was what my heart beat for, and to have that taken away from me was devastating.

I hadn’t always been that way.

I was blackout drunk since the age of 15 and I knew from the beginning, I drank differently than most – yet I never imagined it would end in this repulsive state.

Halloween 2013 – Something out of a horror film, but it was my reality. I was rotting on the inside, empty like a zombie – a monster of my own kind. Locked in a cage, trapped. Broken, lost, vile.

Waiting to die and welcoming death.

Halloween 2013 – I had nothing, I was nothing. Choked by demons and suffocated by addiction. My life was a constant blackout, my head filled with mayhem, while my world ate me alive.

The week following that All Hallows Eve, I went harder than I ever had before. I was drunk 6 days straight, my insides drowning in Black Velvet. I imagine my demons could feel the walls closing in, knowing I wouldn’t survive much longer – this was it.

I thank the Universe every single day that I somehow ended up in detox, rather than the morgue where I belonged.

Halloween 2018 – I’ll wake up next to my husband, the man I love the most. I’ll show up at my job, where my passion meets fulfillment. I’ll take my little boys trick-or-treating, and watch their eyes fill with wonder at the spooky decorations. My boys who know me only as Mommy – not the drunk, broken girl I was.

Halloween 2018 – God willing, I’ll wake up and go to bed, completely sober. That dreadful Halloween, 5 years ago, a faraway memory. Lingering in my mind, like a book I once read or a dream I can vaguely recall, occupying just enough of my thoughts to remember where I came from.

Melissa Kreutz

A sober boy mom & former self-loather. Coffee drinker, horror enthusiast and recovery advocate. | I’m not superstitious but I am a little stitious.

Leave a Reply