I was looking through some stuff I had written previously and came across this kind of musing I did shortly after my six month mark. I thought it might be a good posting as it has some details on my history. I thought about editing it, but came to the conclusion it might be best left as is. I also had doubt of posting, as I do about any posting, because of my tendency to be overwhelmingly self-critical; thankfully, I am making some progress in that area.
May 7, 2012
I will always be an alcoholic, but I don’t have to be a drunk. There are times when it seems overwhelming difficult to make the choice not to be a drunk, but today I am aware that I DO have a choice. Being sober for six months doesn’t sound like a whole lot of time and compared to the time I spent wasting my life being wasted, it isn’t a whole lot of time; however, it has been enough time to show me that I have a choice, that I am not hopeless, that my life can be meaningful, and that even though I had somehow convinced myself otherwise, I am worthy of happiness.
For years I had a wish for a better life. I wished to respect myself. I wished respect from others. I wished to have confidence. I wished to be successful. I wished to be healthy in mind and body. I wished to have nurturing relationships. I wished that I had the ability to love myself. I tried in so many ways and tried to employ so many methods as attempts to bring my wishes into solid form. I drove myself crazy; desperately reaching, grasping, and running in circles to change what I saw as broken and flawed within myself. I could only get so far before my negative behaviors, traits, and characteristics regained control and I would find myself in similar situations with similar circumstances reacting in the same way even though I wanted to react differently. I felt like such a useless failure. I hated myself. I hated that I couldn’t fix myself. I hated that I saw myself repeating the same thing over and over without the ability to prevent it or stop it from happening again. My wishes to be whole seemed unobtainable: an absolute impossibility. With each failed attempt, my self-hatred and hopelessness progressed and so did my alcoholism.
I was comfortable in my drinking. It served as my coping mechanism. I drank when I was sad, confused, rejected, unsure, and insecure. I drank when I wanted to be creative, when I had to socialize, and for celebratory events. I drank to sleep. I felt I needed to drink to enhance my personality, to feel cool, to feel okay, and to feel alive. I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I drank too much and I did really stupid things when I was drunk, but I refused to fully acknowledge that my drinking was the reason all of those wishes stayed well out of my reach.
My drinking had reached a point where it was the center of my existence; it consumed me. It is only through sobriety that I have been able to step back and see my drinking from a clearer, more objective perspective. In sobriety, I am on the outside of that life looking in and what I see saddens me beyond belief. It is what I can see, now that I have removed myself that life that helps me to stay sober: I don’t ever want to be in that miserable hell again, not ever again.
I was 15 the first time I drank. My life was falling apart. I was forced to deal with things that people much older than I would have had trouble coping with or comprehending. My dad has passed away. My mother removed herself from the picture for days at a time, only returning home to scavenge for anything left of value to pawn for her drug habit. I was alone. I was lost. I was so full of fear and terror. I had obtained a bottle of wine. I sat in my room alone and scared in the fading daylight and I drank the whole bottle. I drank it to forget. I drank it for some kind of relief. I drank it for solace. I drank it to numb the parts of me that were in so much pain. I drank it because in my family that’s what was done, that is what I was taught to do. Drinking as an emotional support system was the example I was given throughout my childhood and in my young, inexperienced mind, on that day with that bottle, it served the purpose of escaping what I was feeling. I continued to use and abuse alcohol as a means to escape and to cope with my life for years. It became a knee jerk reaction, when I felt any of the emotions that I had felt on that day with that first bottle of wine, I immediately wanted to drink until I was so drunk I could not feel anything. I didn’t have to feel it if I was drunk. I didn’t have to fear it if I was drunk. As I got older, however, this coping mechanism prevented me from growing and evolving as a healthy, functioning adult and had devastating consequences branching out into every facet of my existence.
Drinking kept me from living. It kept me angry and locked inside of my head. I surrendered to it. I alienated myself for it. I passed up opportunities for it. I gave up for it. It was my only friend and my worst enemy. It kept me from loving myself and extending love for others. It kept me paranoid and obsessive while giving me the impression that I had everything under control. It made me think I was more social able, witty, and attractive under its influence all the while not seeing that I was obnoxious, offensive, and ugly while in its clutches. It made me think it could solve all of my problems by hiding inside of its effects yet the problems only mounted and expanded as I ventured into oblivion. Alcohol made it so easy to delude myself. It made it so easy not to care about anything else. My loyalty to alcohol began to seem impossible to break. I put it first, everything else was second. Where I had initially began using alcohol to take away the fear, in the end all that it offered was a never ending supply of fear which had encased my life.
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