ecovery
IT takes a lot of courage to battle through addiction
and come out the other end to tell your story . Add to that the amazing grit and determination to help others on a similar path and you come across one remarkable woman .
Any addiction can be a dark place , regardless of what it ’ s from . Alcohol , narcotics and even gambling can be problematic to many and it ’ s an ever-increasing epidemic .
Beth Burgess , 32 , lives in London and has turned her life from being on the brink of death to delivering the recovery message . A diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder was penned down on her notes but only given formally after questions from her dad to professionals .
Hospital can be a difficult place to go whilst at your lowest ebb . The complexity of dealing with both an addiction to alcohol and living with a personality disorder couldn ’ t have been easy for Beth which makes the story of recovery all the more heartwarming .
DIAGNOSED
She said : “ I was diagnosed when I had to stay in a Psychiatric Hospital after trying to kill myself for the first time . “ I wasn ’ t actually going to be told about my diagnosis , it ’ s just that my parents saw it on my record during a meeting with the Doctor and asked about it . “ No-one explained what it was ; they just said it was a collective of symptoms .
“ Even on my discharge sheet , it only said that I had an ‘ enduring personality disorder ’, never mentioning the word ‘ Borderline ’. “ My dad was really concerned though and bought some books on the subject as he wanted to know more . “ At that point , I didn ’ t care if I lived or died , so I just ignored the diagnosis for several years .
“ I already had alcoholism and Social Anxiety Disorder to cope with , and to me it was just another label that meant I was a screw-up . “ I was briefly offered some sort of specialist help from a psychologist , but he said I couldn ’ t go if I ’ d had a drink at all , even a sip . “ So , I stopped going .”
RELATIONSHIP WITH ALCOHOL
For Beth , the relationship with alcohol was a direct link to social anxiety . It became a compulsion to have a botleof spirits just to cope with the anxiety . Self-medicating is a harsh reality and it becomes a choice to survive . When things reached a critical point though , Beth knew it was time to hit the road to recovery .
Beth explains : “ I realised that I needed serious help at around the age of 27 , by the time I had recovered from my SAD and was trying to seek help for the alcoholism . “ I would relapse over and over again because I was so impulsive and reactive . “ Even when I did manage periods of sobriety , I was so emotionally-driven and angry , that I was still very miserable .
“ I realised I would never , ever be able to stay sober in the long-term unless I sorted the BPD out . “ In fact the constant relapsing was the first time I started to take the BPD diagnosis seriously . “ I looked up all the symptoms again and realised that not treating the BPD was completely ruining my attempts to move on , and so I needed to finally deal with it .”
NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
BPD doesn ’ t have a simple solution sadly and it ’ s modern psychotherapies such as Dialectic Behavioral Therapy ( DBT ) and Mentilsation therapy that are pioneering recovery in the field . Beth continues : “ DBT has saved my life . “ Funnily enough , DBT enabled me to both recover from my BPD and also has made a massive impact on my recovery from addiction .