In my young, naive, and impressionable mind alcohol seemed to elevate me up and away from all of the pain and confusion I was faced with; all of the circumstances created by the adults who were supposed to protect me; all of the events that had been put into motion that I could not control; so many things that were absolutely terrifying for a fifteen year old girl.
What seemed to work at fifteen, didn't work so well by the time I turned thirty. What began as a way to escape and cope (at fifteen that was really all I knew to do) ended as a prison situated deep down in the darkest recesses imaginable. Between thirty and thirty-four I developed a strong belief that there was no hope for me. I had somehow banished myself for life in a terrible place with no possibility of escape. My spirit totally broken, I surrendered to the downward spiral of my disease and allowed myself to slip beneath the surface of the living. I've heard it said in the rooms, "Alcohol wants to get you alone and then it wants to kill you". That was the tragic story weaving itself through my life. It took awhile, but ever so slowly alcohol had gotten me alone and cornered me in the dark. The final act had commenced; the curtain already making its way down; alcohol waiting patiently for the story to play itself out and come to an end.
The story of alcohol is all too familiar to me- it can be found throughout the history of my family for several generations. In fact, if I were to place a map of my mother's life over a map of my own, the path that she had followed and the one that I had chose would both be leading to the same destination. Her path ended abruptly at the age of forty-nine when the hand of alcohol slipped its fingers around her heart one last time and squeezed until it no longer had the strength to continue to beat. Her story played out- her life extinguished- her body unable to cope with the abuse of alcohol.
I am only fifteen years away from the age my mother was when she passed away. I did not have much contact with her over the last fifteen years or so of her life (I was too consumed with resenting her), but I can gather, from information passed around the family and then down to me, that her existence was pretty bleak. And, from my own experience with alcohol and the places it took me, I don't have to stretch my imagination very much to get a good picture of what the final years of her life must have been like. Another fifteen years and I would not have need any imagination at all- her life would have become my own reality had I continued to drink. It's strange because I was so determined not to be like her. I had such stronger resentments and anger towards her and the choices she made. And I'll be damned- that the more I condemned her behavior the more I became just like her: making the same terrible choices, employing the same self-destructive behaviors.
Fifteen more years. It sounds like a long time in the future, but my alcoholism had progressed so much that the last four years passed in the blink of an eye. Time doesn't seem relevant when I think about the last four years- it seems like a foreign concept. Large chunks of that period are missing; what's left if blurred and melted down: everything runs together. If the last four years were represented as a large sheet of aluminum foil, then alcohol worked to crumple it all up into a tiny little ball and that is how that period is held in my memory: indistinguishable from its original form. And truthfully, I don't think there was much worth remembering anyhow. That is exactly what my life had become- an insignificant, balled up piece of garbage, useless and worthless; at least, that's how I felt about it.
So, given all of that, my biggest fear where alcohol was concerned was not what it was doing to me, but what I was going to do without it! How was I going to survive without alcohol?! My life was going to be over! What am I supposed to do with myself?! I hope to someday find the humor in my initial reaction to getting sober, but for right now I can only see it as extremely sad. What I take from this is that these thoughts and fears are perfect examples of my alcoholic thinking; and I use them to gauge just how far-removed from reality I had become. I didn't have a life when I drank- that was the reality. That is what I didn't want to see or think about or admit. My life no longer held any true meaning or purpose whatsoever- I didn't want to face that; I couldn't face that and I felt like drinking was the only way I could continue to deny what I had become. Drinking is what I did to prevent me from having to face the truth of my reality. It's what I learned to do all those years before and it was all that I knew.
I know something different today. My life is beginning to have meaning today. I am able to welcome feelings of purpose and usefulness today. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome it is to finally feel a sense of worthiness. I am so grateful to have the chance to move beyond the pain of my past and to have the ability to create a new life based on MY story- not that of my family's. I am so grateful to have found the courage to walk into the rooms. It was courage born from desperation, but courage nonetheless. I am grateful that I was so desperate I had the willingness to sit down and listen to the suggestions given me.
I remember how unbelievably scary it was to find that I couldn't not drink even though I didn't want to. I had to drink, it wasn't even a choice anymore. That's what comes back to me a lot: that I wanted to stop and I couldn't. Can you relate to that? I also remember my apprehension in reaching out and asking for help- I thought that humiliating and weak. What I've found is that stepping into the rooms takes more courage than most can muster- please keep that in mind if you are considering a program of recovery. Walking into the rooms takes courage and finding the willingness to listen may just turn out to be one of the bravest things you've ever done in your life.
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