April 23, 2025
By: Natalie Rivers

I’ve spent my life trying to escape, to drown out the voices and the pain. My father is an alcoholic, and I hated him for it—resented him for the things he did, for the things he couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to end up like him. But here I am, 19 years old, and I’m already trapped in a cycle of addiction that I don’t know how to break.

It started a year ago, with my first drink. At first, it was just something to make the noise in my head quieter, to feel something other than the emptiness. But now it’s a habit I can’t shake. Every night feels like a battle to stay in control, but I keep losing. I see my dad’s face in the mirror and feel the anger boiling up inside me. I don’t want to be him, but I’m scared I’m becoming him anyway.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in seventh grade, I was already searching for ways to cope. First, it was cutting—just a way to feel something, even if it was pain. Then it became food, or the lack of it. I couldn’t control anything in my life, so I tried to control what I ate. But that didn’t fix me. It just made me disappear more and more until I was a ghost, floating through my own life.

I tried to stop cutting, but the urge always comes back. I tried to stop starving myself, but that hunger doesn’t go away. And now it’s the drinking. It’s all connected, all part of the same mess that I can’t seem to untangle.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I know this isn’t the life I want. I know I need help, but I don’t know where to start. The fear of becoming my father haunts me every day. But somewhere inside me, I know I don’t have to follow the same path. I just have to find a way to break free.