My Drinking Habit
Drinking never scared me.
It should have, but it didn’t. I was able to
compartmentalize different areas of my life so well that I allowed myself to
believe that I was fine… no problem here, sir… keep on walkin’ along.
Drinking didn’t scare me when I got nearly arrested. It
didn’t scare me when some of my friends slowly drifted away, tired of my
preoccupation with finding the next party. It didn’t scare me when I spent many
mornings and some full days in bed hungover. It didn’t scare me when I was
making a mess of my finances because I was drinking too much to act like a
responsible adult. It didn’t scare me when I lied about having migraines or
food poisoning to get out of going to work or college because I felt too bad to
go. It didn’t scare me when I acted like a jerk with many of my close friends.
Drinking didn’t scare me when I had a horrible car
accident and spent two days with a head injury. Well, that’s not exactly true.
It scared me for two or three weeks, but I was 19 and thought that I was
invincible. Eventually I felt better, my head healed, and I began
drinking once more.
Drinking didn’t scare me when I had a two-day bender that ended
with multiple friends looking at me and one of my girlfriends breaking it off.
Actually, that did scare me a little. I was scared of losing my friends ( but
not my girlfriend), so I quit drinking for a month. Once I realized I still had
my friends, and the girlfriend was history, I had no problem slowly returning
to my previous consumption of daily booze.
Lately, though, drinking has scared the hell out of me. A
glass of wine to “celebrate” or a beer to “relax” soon turned into anywhere
from two to ten on each occasion. And the consequences just kept getting worse.
Did I need to lose my girlfriend, my family, my life in order to learn my
lesson?
Admitting that I had a drinking problem meant that I had
to admit that I let things fall apart in my life. How could I let it get
so bad? I mean, how embarrassing! In the end I couldn’t deny that I had a
problem without doing some serious mental acrobatics. I was horrified
to admit that everything was, in fact, NOT okay after all.
Denying that there was a problem, making excuses for all
of the “little things” that went wrong over the years, was easier than facing
up to this huge problem I hadn’t dealt with. That I didn’t want to deal with.
That I maybe even couldn’t deal with because I didn’t have the right tools, or
didn’t know that I had the right tools. But in the end, how could I NOT
deal with the big elephant in the room taking big elephant poops all over
my life?
I am not horrified or embarrassed about my path anymore. I
let my life get that way, yep, I sure did. I take the blame. Alcohol is an
addictive substance for (some) people, and I got addicted. I think I was born
addicted, but in the end I made choices and ended up where I ended up. I accept
who I am, warts and all. Alcoholic and all.
I think people who abuse alcohol on the regular
do not experience life in the same way. I was caught up in a cycle of ups and
downs, highs and lows, hangovers, depression, anxiety, anticipation, being
buzzed, wanting more, more, more and experiencing full-on drunkenness and
blackouts. The next day the depression, anxiety, guilt and shame would kick in
and the craving for booze would begin all over again. I would feel happy when I
was drinking because it gave me a brief respite from feeling bad about myself
and thinking about my life. I also spent a lot of time planning and thinking
about drinking… when, where, with whom, how, on and on. All of that takes a lot
of time! Hours, days, weeks, months, and years of my life spent thinking about,
engaging in, or recovering from drinking! Fuck me sideways!
I have been an alcoholic my entire life (till date). It is much
easier to admit now, but it still floors me. How did that happen? How did
nobody notice? Do I really like being alone so much, or am I scared to show
people who I really am? I don’t know.
I have always been kind of a loner. I have always felt
weird about being a loner, like it is somehow the ‘wrong’ way to be, but I am
starting to accept that that is who I am. I needed to be drunk to be around a
lot of people every weekend
I am not lonely when I am alone… I like it. But
the guilt and anxiety about liking it is still there. I feel that I should try
harder to be with others. I fear that I am missing out.
My old life is slipping away, and I am letting it go. That is
scary for me, but it feels good, too. I still have so much to figure out and it
takes time. Time and patience. My past is not going to magically be resolved,
but I am hoping that answers will become clear to me after more time passes. I
don’t want to leave my old life completely in the past, but I am not sure how
exactly to bring it into the future either. It is good to live ‘in the now’ but
you have to find a way to integrate your past into the now.
I have started over a lot in my life, and I am finding
that I have less energy for doing that now. I know that there are many things
that I need to leave in my past and things that I need to work to heal, but
thinking about my past makes me anxious. In the past few days thinking about
the past has been overwhelming me so much that I have been staying firmly
planted in the present as much as possible. I do know one thing- I am not the
same person that I was a short time ago.
My thinking is becoming less black and white
than it used to be- I both think and hope this is true. I am noticing the grey
areas, and actually feel comfortable living there some of the time. I realize
now that the black and white thinking that I was doing was childlike, probably
because I never completely moved on from my childhood. I notice when I
overreact to things, even if I am unable to completely stop myself from doing
it. Progress, progress, progress.
I am figuring things out slowly. I am letting go of control
little by little. I am realizing that life has plans for me, but sometimes I
have to get out of my own way. I don’t have the answers to all of my questions.
