Let me tell you about my life. I just feel that I have to tell
somebody. Please excuse the brief diversion to begin with. It may not
be all that 'entertaining' but is necessary to fully appreciate what
follows.
In my teens, in the later 1970s, I was on the 'beauty contest circuit'.
After a few 'local' successes I won 'Miss ________ TV', which offered
me entry into the 'Miss Great Britain' competition. Unfortunately,
after giving it my best shot, I could only get a runner-up position.
After so much effort, and after such a disappointment, I never entered
a competition again. I had a few nice weeks/months as a very minor
local celebrity, and perhaps a couple of years of more local interest
before getting married, and settling down to have my children (now, 19
and 17).
This was a time of living in a normal life. The classic middle-class,
churchgoing, nuclear family. At that time i did charity work and
devoted myself to the housewife/mother role. I loved my life.
Unfortunately, my pre-and-early-marriage days were easily my happiest.
It has all been steeply downhill since then. Withing five years my
husband had departed for someone else. I was left alone, with my
children and a mountain of debt. I had had no real idea that our
lifestye was financed by credit cards and loans. And it was then that I
started drinking. And drinking.
Not much at first but regular. Every lunchtime without fail. The
lunchtimes dragged into the later afternoons and into evenings. At the
age of 40 I admitted to myself that I was, and am, a hopeless
alcoholic.
Since my husbands departure the houses rapidly got smaller and smaller,
until they became flats. The flats soon became shabbier and shabbier
and the areas rougher and rougher. At the moment I live on the inner
city estate from hell. I live on state benefits and have no real
friends. I am 43 and have no prospects.
Of course, state benefits cannot finance my drinking. Well, maybe about
3 or 4 days a fortnight. After that I am driven to rely upon others.
The pattern is always the same. I go into a pub around 11.30am or 12.00
and buy myself a drink. I will then 'nurse' it until I hear those
oh-so-magic words 'can I buy you a drink?' Of course he can, it does
not matter what or who he is, he certainly CAN buy me a drink. I NEED
him to buy me a drink. By the second drink we both know the score.
Thats when it starts, thats when he feels he 'owns' me. When he knows
he can have a touch here, a grope there. And for that moment, that
afternoon, he does own me. The bottom line is that I can't afford
drink, but he can. He is in control. And he can make me pay any way he
wants to. And they do, believe me.
That is my life now. Frankly, this breaks my heart. And until recently,
I thought that this could not get any worse. I was already living a
daily nightmare. Nine days ago the phone rang. It was a voice I didn't
know. It just said 'Hello ___, you don't know us but we live near you.
We have a bottle of vodka here...you can have it if you come over for
it.' 'we' turned out to be a couple of lads on the estate. I went over
and indeed I 'eventually' got my bottle of vodka. But I had to jump
through so, so many hoops.
Now I get regular phone calls from all over the estate. I don't go to
the pub anymore. There are a lot of unemployed men on this estate, who,
if they club together for a bottle of cheap vodka, can get an
afternoons 'entertainment.' Do you have any idea how that feels? Do you
know just how a group of (basically) sexual bullies can behave when
they know you have no choice? Perhaps you have no idea what a group of
unemployed (and often drunken) youths can demand of a woman, but let me
tell you it has brought me to an unimaginably low point.
I used to be a Christian, although not a perfect one by any means. But
now I feel abandoned. Survival seems, after all, to come at a price,
and my needs are costing me dear.
If there is anyone - anyone - who can help me, help to rescue me from
this I would be so, SO grateful. But I don't, if I am realistic, hold
out much hope. But for what it is worth, I come from a respectable
family, I went to a good school. I really don't feel that I really
deserve all this.
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