Feature Story: Breaking the cycle of substance abuse: from blackout to boss babe

November 1, 2019

Breaking the cycle of substance abuse: From blackout to boss babe

Dec. 15, 1995, TORONTO - A baby is born. Who this baby would become was not yet known. No one would know that she would some day grow up with an alcoholic mother and a schizophrenic father. That she would start drinking as a teenager and often find herself in danger was uncertain. Nor was it known that she would one day wake up and choose to end drinking and drugs and begin a new life helping others find the same peace. That little baby born in St. Joseph’s hospital would come to be named Kira Dunlop and she would come to experience all of these things. For now, she sleeps and worries about nothing.

“I was about seven when we were living out in Mississauga and my Dad had a break[down]. He ended up locking himself in the bedroom for two weeks with a 36 pack of Alexander Keith’s,” Dunlop describes. “He was schizophrenic, and he wouldn’t go get treatment because treatment meant he’d have to stop drinking.”

“My last memory of him... we were walking down Spadina towards Queen and I was holding my grandmother’s hand. We were going to go get Chinese food for lunch and my Dad was walking the other way. He had a cigarette in his hand and he was muttering to himself and my Grandmother stopped and said hi [to him]. He gave us a hug and then he was like ‘I gotta go, I gotta go, I’ve got things to do’ and that was the last time I saw him.”

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Dunlop’s father would eventually kill himself, something Dunlop herself wasn’t told about until she was 14.
“They told me his heart stopped and that he took a bunch of pills but that it was medicine related. I was away at summer camp and my Mom picked me up and I thought everything was great... And she just said to me, ‘Dad’s gone to heaven’ and that was it.”

Dunlop’s father was not the only alcoholic in her family growing up.

“My Mother is an alcoholic and when my father died, it broke her. She used alcohol as a coping mechanism and that was what got her through.”
Dunlop explains that drinking was always prevalent in her family. “It was the Irish in us.” Alcohol wasn’t the only issue, her uncle John* got addicted to opioids after her father’s death. 15 years later and Uncle John is only now attempting to handle a part-time job. Sometimes she fears the cycle of addiction in her family.

“It goes in waves. it’s very much a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is what myself and my little brother are attempting to change.”

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June 12, 2017, CALGARY - When Kira Dunlop wakes up in the morning, she doesn’t know that this will be the last day that she will ever drink or do drugs. She doesn’t know that when she is out tonight that she will realize it comes down to a choice: continue to live her life drinking every night, blacking out or not knowing how or when she’ll get home or stop. When she gets home that night she realizes that if she doesn’t stop, she is going to die. She makes the choice. She stops drinking and doing drugs. She starts the next morning and she sticks to it.

“It’s one of these crazy things. When you start looking at patterns and you start looking at trauma and you realize, oh sh*t! That contributes to this [then] contributes to this [then] contributes to this and I’m a product of all of that.”

Studies show that a family history of alcoholism increases the risk for developing substance addiction disorders. It is also shown that biological family members who struggle with alcoholism can generally predict alcoholism in other members of the family. One specific study tracked the intergenerational transference of substance use and substance abuse by measuring three generations and 21 years of data. While the study didn’t deliberately find that alcoholism in one generation created the addiction in the next, it was clearly found that the effects of substance abuse, such as inhibitory control and poor discipline, can lead to addiction in the following generations.

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“I didn’t realize that I had a problem until I had a really bad night where I feared for my safety,” Dunlop says about the time in her life where she did drink. “I realized that by putting myself in the position I was in... I was going to die. It wasn’t that my liver was going to shut down, it was that I was consistently putting myself in dangerous situations because of my drinking and because of my drug use.”

“I woke up the next day and I decided to stop, which is not normal. Once I started, it’s like peeling an onion. You’re peeling [away] layers and you have to figure out what your recovery method is. Am I in recovery, am I an addict?”

“Coming to terms with the root of the problem is important. The stuff with my father, I think, is the root issue but since stopping I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I’ve unpacked a lot of trauma surrounding my relationships, my sexual choices, all of my loss and forgiving myself.”

Dunlop says that, while accountability isn’t extremely necessary for her, that she feels that starting the Boring Little Girls Club really helps to keep her sober.
“It’s kind of why I started this thing.” She says, laughing.

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Boring Little Girls Club not only helps to keep Dunlop accountable but it also provides a safe space for women and non-binary people in the community. It’s easy to tell from the website that this isn’t just a group of women hanging out, it’s a tribe. The website manifesto describes the club members as women who are doing what’s best for their bodies, their minds and their health. The women are described as saviours of themselves, and those who hit rock-bottom and chose to make a change.

“We need to humanize this issue and we need people to tell their story. That’s what the Boring Little Girls Club is about.”

When asked about what she would tell her past self, Dunlop has this to say, “I don’t regret anything. Honestly, I don’t. I would just be living in the past and I do that enough with how much anxiety I have. I would say, ‘you’re going to get through this. You’re going to live a really happy, healthy life’. I think the biggest thing is, ‘you are loved, you are worth it, you are worthy of love and you’re going to get through this.’”

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Oct. 25, 2019, CALGARY—In a library room at Mount Royal University sits Kira Dunlop. She drinks coffee, black. She has been sober for over 2 years. She lives with her partner and her dog and works as a bartender. She is going back to school in November and in her spare time she helps create a sober community in Calgary. She works with Alberta Health Services to educate about addiction and runs a speaker series with women, for women. The opportunities she creates for herself are endless.

Who would have known that 24 years later, that baby in St. Joseph’s hospital would be where she is today?

*- denotes name changed

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References:

Chartier, K. G., Thomas, N. S., & Kendler, K. S. (2017). Interrelationship between family history of alcoholism and generational status in the prediction of alcohol dependence in US Hispanics. Psychological medicine, 47(1), 137–147. doi:10.1017/S0033291716002105

Dunlop, K. (n.d.). Manifesto. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from https://boringlittlegirlsclub.ca/ manifesto-1.

Pears, K., Capaldi, D. M., & Owen, L. D. (2007). Substance use risk across three generations: the roles of parent discipline practices and inhibitory control. Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, 21(3), 373–386. doi:10.1037/0893-164X.21.3.373