I was thinking about some of my drunks earlier and came to the conclusion that my most humiliating moments of my drunkenness happened when I was alone. Yep, my worst moments involved sitting in seclusion, fuming or fearful about something, and binge drinking. What I did to myself...just absolutely pitiful and sad. I’ve got a few dozen incidents that happened while amidst friends and family, out and about at a party or one of the local bars when I was falling over drunk, acting completely obnoxious, starting fights, passed out in the bathroom, puking in the parking lot or in the middle of the road or out the car window, having to be carried to the car, waking up on someones lawn, told to leave the establishment, etc.; yeah, I’ve got all of those. But those memories, while definitely embarrassing, don’t produce the same horrific, crawl under a rock kind of feelings that the stuff I did when nobody else was around does. I cannot bring up those memories without wanting to cringe- if I hold them in my minds eye for too long I become physically ill.
I didn't want people knowing what my life was like behind closed doors. I didn't want them to see what I was doing to myself- my drinking and self-abuse and self-hate were private. I was disgusted by my drinking and yet I loved it. Deep down I knew I had a sickness, but it was my sickness. Maybe I was afraid someone might tell me to stop if they knew just how bad it was. Up until the very end, I was able to keep my alcoholism hidden from pretty much everyone who knew me. The only ones who had seen the mess visible through the cracks were my two ex-husbands. Although, about two months before I hit bottom my one, and I mean one and only, close friend had been introduced to a couple of instances of troubling behavior of mine; one of which she suggested I may want to think about laying off the booze. And, I’m sure my boss suspected something was going seriously awry towards the end. I thought I was successful at hiding my problem from my boss, but how many times can you call in leaving a voicemail at 3 or 4 in the morning, slurring heavily as you claimed to be sick? How many mornings can you show up at work looking like total dog crap, eyes bloodshot, face ruddy red, and the lingering scent of booze popping out of your pores without your boss seeing you for what you are? I just barely squeaked by not getting fired the last two years for excessive call in’s. Both years, letters were sent home (like the ones for mommy from grade school) assuring me that I would be terminated for one more unexcused absence. What’s sad is that I was never like that before- I was always responsible and respectful when it came to my job. I rarely ever called in; that is, until my progression began making that free fall descent straight down toward the depths of nothingness. At that point, all bets were off.
Back to my humiliating moments… my first experience with alcohol contained three main elements that would turn out to be the framework built into my alcoholism.
The first was that I was alone. I felt completely isolated and alienated from everyone I cared about. I felt like I had no one. I was left holding the bag full of everyone else’s crap at fifteen.
The second was that I was extremely fearful of what was going on around me. I was scared to death that I was out there in the big bad world and I didn’t know how to handle that and I had to do it alone.
The third was that I drank too damn much! I drank until I was sick. I liked how the first few sips created a warm, numbing buzz inside my head. I liked how it seemed to knock that clenched fist of fear right out from the pit of my stomach. It was such an unbelievable relief! But then the effects from those first few sips began to wear off and all of the heaviness came rushing back to me; a freight train bearing down on me and I panicked. I realized I had to keep drinking if I wanted relief from the weight that was my life pushing down on me. I had no idea that afternoon I would set the benchmark for how I would live my life and cope with almost every situation I encountered. Over the nineteen or so years following that afternoon, my preference was to be alone with my fears and lots of alcohol.
As I got older, I was one of those people who, whenever something bad occurred, I would look toward the sky and demand to know why me? Why is this happening to me?! Why are people out to hurt me and make my life miserable? Nobody understands me! Why?! This, I have come to understand, induced a never ending cloud of self-pity; and since my problems were caused by everyone else, kept me from addressing or taking responsibility of my own behaviors.
It blows my mind that I was doing everything in my power to pull drama and chaos and suffering to me. I was a havoc attractor. If there was a difficulty in the vicinity I was ushering down the fast track aimed in my direction. I had no clue that my behaviors and negative thinking were magnetized for strife and stress. Like attracts like; it didn’t dawn on me, until after I put away the alcohol, that I was the one who had created this huge space for all of that crap to cling to me. I was too self-involved and too caught up in my messes to notice all those other fingers pointing back at me.
It helps my sobriety to reflect on who and what I became when I drank. It helps me to embrace the first step wholeheartedly. Reflecting on how out of control I was and how unmanageable my life once was. It gives me something to chew on when I think about picking up and drinking over some situation. I can ask myself, “What kind of impact will alcohol have on this situation?” and I can answer with unflinching honesty, “Nothing good.”
I have to close with how grateful I am to be sober- to have found a way that leads me away from that life I've just described. I don't ever want to be stuck in that hell ever again! Sobriety is serving me very well and I am thankful.
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