I Never Had An Off Switch With Alcohol....My First Drink Was A Blackout

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

Elena Sanders recounts her journey from a highly anxious childhood marked by family dysfunction and early sexual abuse to severe alcohol and drug addiction. After

Key takeaways

• Elena Sanders experienced severe childhood anxiety and was homeschooled for three years after struggling academically and socially in Houston.
• She faced relentless cyberbullying on Kik and face-to-face bullying in middle school, including being targeted by a boy who later died by suicide.

Main topics

• Childhood anxiety & family dysfunction
• Cyberbullying & social isolation

Notable quotes

"I never had an off switch with alcohol."

Conclusion

Elena's story underscores how early trauma and untreated anxiety can f

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) So I'm there and I maybe had like one or two drinks. I set my drink down and I get roofied. Speaker 1 (0:14) Well, I want to thank you for coming on. You are coming up on a year and two weeks. Speaker 2 (0:18) Yes, I'm so excited. So it's going to be my first birthday, as I've been calling it, in sobriety. Of course, I've been sober a couple other times before, but nothing really stuck. This is the first time I've really, truly been sober in my adulthood. So it's been very exciting. By Speaker 1 (0:36) the time this comes out, you'll have already had a year. So congrats on your year. Thank Speaker 2 (0:41) you so much. I'm really excited. Speaker 1 (0:43) Yeah. So you're from Alabama. Speaker 2 (0:45) So not originally. So I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, but I actually moved to Birmingham about 10 years ago. So I've kind of jumped around a little bit, but I was originally born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then kind of moved around a little bit too. Speaker 1 (1:00) Okay. What was early childhood like in Tennessee? Speaker 2 (1:04) It was weird. There was some good. There was some bad. I mean, like anybody's upbringing. So I am the oldest child. I have two younger siblings. I have a brother that actually has autism. He is 23. And then my sister, she is 15. So we have a little bit of an age gap. I'm 25. But growing up, I know like both my parents are together still. Speaker 2 (1:33) Things were pretty normal. I don't really remember like the early, early years, but I do remember whenever my brother was maybe two or three, he was nonverbal and he had been diagnosed. So being a small child and being told, you know, your brother has autism, he needs extra help. I didn't really know what to do. I just knew that I had to step in and be that older sibling. So I think that honestly. put a lot of pressure on me from a young age and it also messed with my parents a lot because they didn't know what to do for their child. Um, so it was weird for sure. Um, I just remember there were a lot of things that we couldn't do because of my brother's diagnosis. We had to kind of tread carefully, make sure he was okay. And it was just like instant, like I'm going to be the third parent from a very young age. So I took on that responsibility. Which Speaker 1 (2:33) is a huge responsibility at a young age. Speaker 2 (2:35) Yeah. I mean, it was hard because we didn't really know what to do for him. So we were trying. But I asked my mom a while ago, what kind of child was I like? And she said that I was very emotional from the get-go. So from a baby onwards, I cried a lot. There was always something wrong. I was always very highly emotional, high strung, very anxious too. So I've suffered from anxiety as long as I can remember and depression too. Speaker 2 (3:10) So I would say the early years, there were tidbits that I remember pieces of, not really. We lived in Knoxville until 2007. Then we relocated to Houston because my dad got a job offer that he could not pass up. So we moved to Houston. It was just my mom, my dad, me and my brother. Speaker 2 (3:35) That was a very difficult time because Speaker 2 (3:39) So to kind of backtrack with my family dynamic. So my dad's side of the family, there's a lot of mental health and addiction struggles. Like his mother has schizophrenia. She's also addicted to pills still to this day. And then on my mom's side, her dad is an alcoholic and abusive. So at the time when I was. under the age of six, whenever we still lived in Knoxville, we were kind of in and out of their lives. It was like a revolving door. So I never really knew what it felt like to have grandparents that were genuinely in my life consistently. But with my grandfather, I don't really usually call him that, but my grandfather, He was a big drinker, but he was also abusive to me sexually as a very young child. Now, of course, me being young, I didn't know what any of that meant. A lot of the stuff has been kind of blacked out. There's not a lot of details I remember, but the little tidbits here and there kind of started popping up later on. But I know at the time that we moved to Houston. we were not really speaking to them. So that's kind of how it was on both sides. So my dad would be talking to his mom, not talking to her. And then same with my mom and her parents. So I knew dysfunction very early on. There was also a lot of dysfunction between my parents in those early years because they started to fight a lot after my brother was diagnosed. They were very stressed out. Again, they didn't really know what to do. Their marriage was falling apart. So. I feel like pretty much from age five, six on, that's when the anxiety really started to grow. When I was... When we had first moved to Houston, I remember my first day of kindergarten. I only had like two weeks of school left at the new school. My mom like walks me up to the door and I'm like hiding behind her and I'm like, I don't want to go in there. Like, please don't make me do this. So I was very anxious right off the bat. I kind of just always felt like on the outside of other kids. And I still feel like that as an adult. I'm always kind of like on the outside of social situations. I Speaker 1 (6:12) can relate to that. Speaker 2 (6:13) Yeah. It's just when you grow up feeling uncomfortable in your skin from the time that you start to have memories, it's kind of hard to break out of that cycle. But essentially start school, go to school for like two weeks. Everything was kind of okay. I liked living in Houston. I made a really close girlfriend and things were okay. Stuff at home was not perfect. Again, my parents were just in a really difficult time. My parents have never really been the addictive personality types. I think I get a lot of those attributes, if you will, from my grandparents, other people in my family. My dad drank for a little bit, but I don't really remember him drinking. And then my mom, she never used anything. So fast forward into, I would say like second, third grade, I was struggling so bad in school. On top of the anxiety that I was constantly feeling within myself, I was sleepwalking at night. I would like go into my parents' room, sleepwalking, talking to them, like acting all crazy. And then Speaker 2 (7:34) I also... Speaker 2 (7:37) I can't believe I'm going to say this on the internet, but I also used to wet the bed for a long time too. And I didn't know until years ago that that was a sign of sexual abuse. Speaker 1 (7:46) My Speaker 2 (7:47) parents had taken me to doctors, but of course, like I wasn't saying anything. They weren't seeing anything. So they're like, okay, we don't know what's wrong with her. She's just very. all over the place. They thought it was just, you know, the distress of moving, I guess. And everything with my brother. So by the time I was in third grade, I think I was like a month into the school year. And my teacher told my mom that I was going to have to be held back. She was like, she's not doing anything. She's not doing the work. I remember when I would get handed a test. I was like, fuck this. I'm not going to put in any sort of effort. I would just. Write random numbers down and then like turn it in like five minutes later and my teacher would bring it back to me and be like, you didn't even attempt this. Like, can you try? So. Speaker 2 (8:45) My parents tried to help me with homework and kind of get me more motivated. I was always really bad in school. I never cared about school. I was severely ADHD. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until later on, Speaker 1 (9:00) but Speaker 2 (9:01) it was very apparent. Like, I just did not care. I was like, I'm going to sit in this classroom. I'm going to sneak toys into school and I'm just going to talk to other kids and whatever. Speaker 2 (9:14) Kept getting worse. My mom ended up pulling me out of third grade and then she decided she was going to homeschool me for three years. So. Speaker 2 (9:24) One thing that really affected, I think, my anxiety more and my social development was being homeschooled because I was a relatively social child. I had anxiety, but I would at least talk to kids when I felt comfortable. And I think I was always seeking out attention from others. Like, I wanted to feel. validated by kids my age. I wanted to feel validated by the adults around me, everyone. So I was always trying to be like the goofy little kid at school. And so whenever I got pulled out of school and was homeschooled, it was a very lonely three years. Speaker 2 (10:06) I was eight years old and then I was homeschooled all the way up until seventh grade. So I was 12 when I went back to public school. Speaker 2 (10:18) I just felt like it was a culture shock when I went back. And my parents didn't want me to go back to public school, of course. One Speaker 1 (10:27) thing I've learned in my own recovery is that you can't do this alone, and you don't have to. I know that firsthand. I went through inpatient treatment at Karen Treatment Centers, and it changed the course of my life. That's why I am proud to announce that I have partnered with Karen for nearly 70 years. They've helped people and families not just break free from addiction, but actually heal and transform their lives. They're in network with all major insurance providers and same day admission is available. So if you or someone you love is struggling, don't wait. Call Karen at 855-352-0103. That's 855-352-0103. Help starts with taking that first step. They didn't want you. They Speaker 2 (11:18) didn't want me to. They wanted to continue Speaker 1 (11:19) to homeschool you. Mm Speaker 2 (11:20) -hmm. Speaker 1 (11:20) Okay, and you were the one saying, I want to go back. I was Speaker 2 (11:22) begging them. So Speaker 1 (11:23) you were feeling it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (11:24) You Speaker 1 (11:24) were feeling the absence of everyone around you and at that young age. Speaker 2 (11:30) Yeah, I was feeling kind of isolated. I didn't really care about the school aspect. I just wanted to be around people again. And at this time, We had moved back to Knoxville in 2011. So we only lived in Houston for four years. So whenever we moved back to Knoxville, I had been there for about two years before I went back to public school. So a lot of our family on my mom's side, they are in Knoxville. So I was really close to one of my cousins at the time. She lived in the same neighborhood as us. And I would hang out with her. And she kept telling me, like, you should come back to public school. It'll be really cool. Like, we'll hang out. But it's kind of crazy looking back. My cousin bullied me. Like, she was super mean to me. She was like, you have to act this type of way. She was kind of one of the popular girls. And she was basically trying to make me her project for back to school, if that makes sense. Speaker 2 (12:35) begged my mom. She was like, no, you're not going to that school because the school that I ended up going into for middle school, just to put things in perspective, you can Google this, the high school, the year that I was there for my freshman year, there were four suicides. Speaker 2 (12:56) Four suicides at that Speaker 1 (12:57) school. What's the reason for that? Speaker 2 (12:59) So it was an area that had a lot of money. And it was a huge school. And I think there were... There was a lot of bullying. There was a lot of drug use. There was a lot of drinking. There was a kid in my neighborhood that ended up committing suicide a year after I actually had moved. Speaker 2 (13:26) And when I saw that, I was like, wow. So it was a bad situation. My mom did not want me to go to school there because she had grown up in Knoxville. She went to a different public school. Speaker 1 (13:41) But Speaker 2 (13:41) that school had a reputation of those kids being very prestigious. They were rude, you know, high dollar, like basically just rude people. Speaker 2 (13:55) So I start going to school in seventh grade and I was like mute like my whole school year. As I say, like I did not speak. I was terrified. I knew like a week into going back to public school. Oh, my God. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know how to socialize. I was terrified to even say like, hey, how's your day going? Or like, I like your outfit. So I would. Go to class. I would sit there silently. I would like watch the other kids and then just do my schoolwork and go home and I started getting bullied because I was quiet and awkward and like my parents they were They were doing not the best financially at this time. So we were just trying to make ends meet. We didn't have like a shitload of money like these other kids do. So it was basically like if you went to this school and you didn't have like a North Face backpack or you didn't have like name brand clothes, you were instantly like. Speaker 1 (14:59) Targeted. Speaker 2 (14:59) Yeah. They're like, oh, my God, your parents can't afford to buy you a $200 backpack. Like, no, I have a $20 one that works just fine. So my seventh grade year was pretty rough. And my cousin, she turned on me again. She was just like, if you're not going to act a certain way, I'm not going to associate with you at school, basically. And she never said that, but I could tell that that's what was going through her mind. So... Speaker 2 (15:32) It was a very strange time for me. I didn't feel very supported. Very weird. So she had this friend that she was really close to that was also just one of the popular girls. And I think it was summer going into eighth grade, something like that. She had this girl over at her house and they decided that they were going to invite me over to sleep over. And I went over there and got. bullied by them the whole time. So it was very rough, especially when you're in middle school and you're a girl, you're already feeling super awkward, uncomfortable in your skin. And it just got worse. And I didn't want to tell my parents what was going on because they were going to pull me back out of school again. And I didn't want to not have some sort of social situation, even though I was terrified to speak to people. Speaker 2 (16:30) So summer going into eighth grade was when things really escalated with the bullying. I don't know if you used Kik or if you've heard of it. Speaker 1 (16:42) I know Kik. Speaker 2 (16:43) Yeah. So that was like a huge communication platform when I was in middle school. Like everyone had a Kik account. And I think a lot of us used it so that our parents didn't know what we were talking about and what we were doing. Speaker 2 (16:57) I started going on there and talking to kids from school, starting to kind of become a little bit more social. And they would make group accounts on Kik, these boys that were in my grade, and they... So my Instagram name at the time was like Lainabug. That was my nickname. I don't know why. It was just like a cute thing I had with a couple of my friends. You're in Speaker 1 (17:23) eighth grade, of course. Yeah, Speaker 2 (17:24) Lainabug. And for some reason, there were three boys in particular that just decided they hated me for no reason. So they would go on kick and they would say, what's up, Cutterbug? What's up, Cutter Island? Keep in mind, like. I had never self-harmed. I didn't know what that was. I was very sheltered. And they would just constantly harass me on there. And I thought, oh, they're just being funny, like whatever. But it hurt because I was getting all these weird upsetting messages. And they'd be like, kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself. Holy Speaker 1 (18:04) shit. Speaker 2 (18:05) Yeah. Kids Speaker 1 (18:07) are fucking mean. Speaker 2 (18:08) It's terrible. We were like 12, 13 years old. It's summer. Keep in mind, I wasn't really going out and doing anything because I'm a kid. So I'm literally on my iPad getting messages like, hey, you should kill yourself. And I'm sitting there like. Speaker 2 (18:29) What? I thought it was a joke. Looking back, it's not really funny. But I would just be like, I'm not going to kill myself. Ha, ha, ha. Like, why would you say that? So it was very weird. Speaker 1 (18:44) I'm very sorry you went through that. That is bullying is there's nothing worse than that. Bullying. It's Speaker 2 (18:54) terrible. Speaker 1 (18:55) Listen, I will say this. When you're young, when you're 12, when you're 13, when you're 14, I am by no means making excuses for them. You don't realize how much it impacts someone. And you think it's fun and games and it's funny, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You said there were four suicides in that high school. Speaker 2 (19:13) And that's a weird thing too. One of the boys that was telling me to kill myself was actually one of the ones that ended up taking his life years later. Speaker 1 (19:23) He's bullying because he didn't feel good about himself. Hurt people hurt people. Speaker 2 (19:28) Exactly. We Speaker 1 (19:29) don't know what was going on inside of his household. He could have been one of those rich kids who had parents that didn't give a shit about him and neglected him. So he outwardly would bully people to feel good because he wasn't probably getting – this is obviously me just speculating, but maybe not getting love from home or whatever it is. Or maybe he's getting bullied. Maybe he's getting beaten by his dad at home. Who knows? We don't know. Speaker 2 (19:53) Yeah, you never know the situation. But hurt people Speaker 1 (19:56) hurt people. And I have a daughter. She's seven years old. This scares the shit out of me. Speaker 2 (20:02) It's terrifying. The media makes it so much worse because, of course, me being Gen Z and all these apps are coming up like Snapchat and Kik and Facebook Messenger, all these things like. My parents didn't know how to navigate all of that. They thought it was pretty harmless. And then when they started going through my phone, I would delete all of the messages that were, you know, people telling me to kill myself. But there was a lot of inappropriate communication and conversing going on. Speaker 2 (20:33) Especially at that age, it wasn't just the bullying, but being sexualized by kids your age too is very bizarre. Now, of course, as someone that went through sexual abuse, I knew what sex was from a very young age, and I always felt very scared of men. Scared of boys my age, scared of older men. Did not matter. If you were a male, I was terrified of you, but I also loved the validation. So that made no sense to me. So I think even though they were saying the things they were saying, I was like, oh, but they're still messaging me. They're reaching out to me. It's weird. I know that is the most alcoholic thing to say. No, that makes sense. The attention seeking. No, Speaker 1 (21:19) that makes sense. I get it. I mean, not from a female's perspective, but just negative attention, getting that negative attention, even from someone Speaker 2 (21:27) who Speaker 1 (21:28) may represent the gender of your abuser, you're scared of that person, but then you're still getting attention. So it's confusing for you too. It's Speaker 2 (21:39) very confusing. Speaker 1 (21:41) For the parents that are listening out there, and selfishly, because I have a seven-year-old and I want to make sure I can stay ahead of it, you had said you didn't say anything because you didn't want to get taken out of the school. That is so valid for a 12-, 13-year-old. I Speaker 2 (21:56) think I was embarrassed, too. Yeah. Because you don't want to go to your parents and say, hey, I'm – being bullied, kids are not accepting me. And my whole life, I always felt like I was outside of the box. Even as an adult now, it wasn't until I started using and drinking that I felt like I was a part of something. I think the only community that I feel accepted in now as an adult is the sober community. Like I know I can go and talk to other people that are sober, say what I've been through, and they're not going to look at me crazy. But I think that was a huge part of it too, was Speaker 2 (22:38) I didn't want to be honest with how I was feeling or what I was going through because it was normal for me to not feel. Accepted. Speaker 1 (22:48) How can parents keep that open line of communication with their child so that, you know, it's upfront that we won't remove you from the school. Don't feel embarrassed to bring things to us. Your parents totally did the best that they could. I get that. They had Speaker 2 (23:07) a Speaker 1 (23:07) lot going on in the household. Speaker 2 (23:09) Oh my gosh. Yeah. At this time with all of that. Yeah. Speaker 1 (23:14) What could your parents have done or what could parents out there do for or with their child to keep that open line of communication? Because look, if you went to your parents, I mean, if my daughter came to me at 12 years old, I mean, I would pull myself back. You'd want to Speaker 2 (23:31) kill those kids. Of course, I would want to kill them, Speaker 1 (23:34) but I would pull myself back emotionally and get the proper help. that she needs with this school, whatever it is to ensure that it does not happen moving forward. What could parents do? Speaker 2 (23:48) I mean, there's so much information out there now about the destruction within social media with small children, adolescent age. I think a lot of it is just super negative in general. I mean, even as an adult, there's always going to be criticism. There's always going to be. Speaker 2 (24:08) Someone sending you harassing messages or people being creepy or saying things that are harmful. And that is something because my sister is almost 10 years younger than me. So I've had to be transparent with her about the things that I've been through. And I've had to tell her, like, if someone is saying something like that to you, like, you let me know if you don't feel comfortable talking to mom and dad. But you have to be honest because there is no need for you to have to go through that or take that. Yeah. Especially from someone your age that they've barely lived. They don't even know the harm that they're doing. And I used to hold a lot of resentment towards the people that caused me that discomfort. But the older I've gotten, I realized we were all kids. And obviously. It really put things into perspective when that boy committed suicide. Like, oh, they're just as damaged as I am. They're hurting just as much as I am. And there's no telling what they're into now. Speaker 1 (25:14) Yeah. Speaker 2 (25:15) You can't put your head on your pillow at night and feel good about those things. Right. But. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (25:22) Now, you're 12, 13 years old. You're in middle school. Had it come out yet, what had happened with your grandfather? Speaker 2 (25:30) So it's interesting you ask that because when I was in eighth grade, I had like my first boyfriend essentially. And that was a traumatic situation in itself. Speaker 1 (25:44) I started dating. You don't really date Speaker 2 (25:47) in middle school, but of course it's like you like a boy, he likes you, and it's like we're dating, we're together. You put the names in the Instagram bios, whatever. And most of it seems pretty innocent, but unfortunately... The person that I was seeing, he... Again, being someone that longed for validation, that was deeply insecure, someone that had gone through sexual trauma and already viewed men as... Speaker 2 (26:16) I am nothing to them if I don't do certain things. Speaker 1 (26:21) I Speaker 2 (26:21) got into a lot of really bad situations with this boy at a very young age. So I was 13 and we started kind of experimenting sexually, things like that. And of course, my parents ended up finding out about that. Speaker 2 (26:39) I broke down. I was terrified. I knew I was going to be in trouble. My dad was like, why would you do that? You were so young. Why are you doing these things? I don't understand. And it just kind of came out. Speaker 1 (26:52) You told them. What did they say? Speaker 2 (26:58) My dad was kind of in disbelief at first. He didn't want to believe it. He did not want to believe it. My mom, she didn't know. Speaker 2 (27:09) She didn't really know how to respond because that's her dad and she was never close with her dad. I mean her dad was an abusive drunk. He used to beat the shit out of my mom with a belt. Speaker 2 (27:21) So she knew he was a little messed up, but she never thought that he would harm one of her kids. Not like that. Yeah. So that changed the trajectory of my life, their life, because it had been under wraps. And for years I was scared to even say anything because I was like. Speaker 2 (27:41) what's the point? We're not around them. But also I didn't want to damage things further, if that makes sense. I felt like I was responsible to keep that hidden. But also, I think just based on what a lot of people have told me with their own abuse stories, you almost feel like it's your fault, even