Promote Healthy Aging in Finland

When Maria was two years old, her parents got divorced. She liked to spend time with her dad on week-ends, but she remembers that he would always drink a lot. After several unsucessful suicide attempts, her dad died after another suicide attempt. Maria remembers being drawn to death herself after that. At the age of 14 she started to heavily drink on weekends with a friend of hers. But also at school, Maria’s life wasn’t easy. Since Maria has a visual disability, she got bullied at school and was always ashamed of her disability. One day at high school she decided to become a bully herself, so she wouldn’t get bullied by others anymore. Her behavior ended in losing all her friends and her boyfriend. So Maria continued to drink. “I realized long before that I had become an alcoholic.” Her only friend Sanna, started to use weed and pot, so Maria soon was addicted to the same substances too.

Maria started to seek attention from men at an early age. She got pregnant and stopped using drugs, also during breastfeeding. But as soon as she stopped breastfeading, she relapsed again. Her relationship to the father of her daughter was really destructive, a lot of violence, alcohol and drugs being involved. Maria also started to use a lot of pills. Eventhough she wanted to stop and wanted to be a good mother, she couldn’t stop. Child protection got involved and told her, that she had a substance abuse problem. At that time Maria broke up with her boyfriend and finally managed to get sober. For a couple of years she stayed sober and cared for her child, but then she met a woman who had children the same age as Maria’s daughter. Unfortunately she was a heavy drinker and drug user so Maria started again to take pills and drink alcohol.

Maria was really ashamed of her visual disability so she made sure that she was drunk, so people wouldn’t realize that she was disabled. The worse Maria’s situation got, the more she asked herself if she really wanted to die as an addict. When her daughter told her that she was pregnant, that was Maria’s turning point. She knew she wanted to be a sober grandma. Maria got help from a clinic and got counseling. For three years she got accompanied by a therapist who helped her to deal with her past. Today Maria’s grandchild is the important thing in her life and she enjoys spending time with her. She got herself a dog and cat, spends a lot of time in nature and started to do sports. Besides from sleep medication, Maria hasn’t touched any drugs or alcohol since.

Maria’s story shows, that it is never too late to quit using drugs and alcohol. That’s exactly why the Finnish Blue Ribbon is committed to support elderly people all over Finland. Thank you so much for making our work possible!

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