Hiding and Sneaking Alcohol

I was sitting in a meeting the other day and someone shared something that sparked a memory of a few of my drinking behaviors that I had forgotten about.

 

He said that even though he had been sober for a few years, every once in awhile he would cough as he popped the top on a soda as a way to hide the noise. This tic had developed, he explained, from a tactic he used in hopes that the cough would distract from the sound of opening a can of beer while standing at the fridge and fool his wife as to what he was really up to in the kitchen. Isn't that slick?!

 

I listened to him tell his story and couldn't help but laugh- because WOW! Could I identify with that. It's being able to relate to stories like that that, to me, which validates and compounds the fact that I was and AM an alcoholic.

 

I mean, let's be honest...

 

If you weren't an alcoholic, why would you feel the need to hide or sneak your booze?

 

Wasn't I hiding and sneaking alcohol because I knew the amount I was drinking was excessive and that drinking, at say, 8 in the morning wasn't normal behavior?

 

Ya, think?!

 

 

I remember getting up at 7 am on a Saturday to do laundry. I told myself that I was rising with the chickens to get that chore out of the way, but my real intentions weren't so simple and innocent.

 

My (ex)husband like to sleep in until at least 10 am on Saturdays and the bedroom was upstairs. So I would rise early, collect the laundry, and creep downstairs; stopping to grab a bottle of beer on my way out the garage where the washer and dryer sat. There was a cabinet by the machines which served as the perfect hiding place for my unfinished bottle. Throughout the morning and afternoon, I would take nips from the bottle and replace the empty with a fresh one as needed.

 

I remember refilling empty beer bottles with water and working to get the twist cap seated back on so it look like it hadn't been opened. I would then put the bottle (of water!) back in the 6-pack container so that if he went to get orange juice he wouldn't know I had already indulged. After doing this a few times, I learned to buy 12 and 18 packs because a few missing from those containers weren't as obvious as the 6-packs.

 

I put a lot of energy in covering up the fact that I wasn't an alcoholic and didn't have a drinking problem, didn't I?!

 

I also remember doing the cough think to mask the sound beer tops make as they are twisted off. I remember making noise in the kitchen, putting dishes away, emptying containers of food from the fridge, etc as a way to distract from the fact that I was taking vodka out of the cabinet where all of the liqueur was kept and was mixing up a nice strong drink.

 

I remember one afternoon in the car with my ex on the way to a late lunch, maybe 3 or 4 o'clock and getting into an argument when he said something like, "Are you drunk? You're drunk?!" and I emphatically denied it. Denied it even though I was completely sauced and I had to concentrate hard to keep my words from slurring. He was shocked and disgusted: I could hear it in his voice and see it in the way he looked at me. He turned the car around. We didn't go to lunch that day. The argument gave me great reason to go from sauced to oblivion that day. And I drank, not so much from his disgust, but the personal disgust that I felt. I didn't want to feel that. I didn't want to acknowledge the reality of my drinking. (Maybe, I didn't know what to do with that reality?)

 

I went through a lot mouthwash when I was drinking. Brushed my teeth a lot, too.

 

I employed lots of different tactics to hide my drinking.

 

The worst of these tactics were methods I attempted as a way to curb my drinking. My drinking had reached a point of excess that made it difficult to deny that I had a problem. It mentions some of these tactics in the Big Book; and I'll be damned if I hadn't tried most all of those to control a problem that I continued to brushed off as not being a big deal even though trying to control it took up the majority of my time; and for sure, it was taking the majority of my mental and physical energy.

 

My thoughts were consumed with not drinking as the urge and compulsion to do so consumed me; threatened to devour me.

 

I resolved not to drink until after 5 pm and I would do well for several days, then would come a hot Saturday afternoon...well, I've done good...I deserve to have a beer...perfect time for it...just mowed the yard...wouldn't a beer or two be fine. Deep down, I knew it wouldn't just be a few. I. KNEW. IT. But, that alcoholic in me was so loud and convincing, telling me I had this, I could control it. And, I really believed it. Until Sunday as the ugly truth confronted me as I woke with the realization that I had done it again.

 

I resolved not to drink during the week. I would do really good one week and into the next, but then on a Thursday night that voice would pop up again and that craving would ignite like a firestorm. The fight against that craving was just impossible. I felt as though there were strings attached to my body and I was pulled into the car, forced to drive down to the corner, and made to plop that beer on the counter. I truly did not want to do it, but it was miserably useless to resist. I had no defense against that compulsion.

 

I switched to hard liqueur from beer, because I sipped Crown and Jack and I chugged Michelob and Corona. Plus, when I drank Crown and Jack I felt special and exclusive and classy- until I put away most of a fifth and all that classy stuff went right out the window.

 

I switched to wine. I watered it down and added ice, to extend the bottle and therefore lessen my alcohol intake; I drank twice as much.

 

I resolved to only drink 'out' in hopes I would control my intake while in public- that didn't go so well. I could have resolved to only drink at home, but that's normally all I did when I was home.

 

Each time these tactics and ideas of how to control my drinking would come to me as though they were epiphanies: Ah ha! This is the way! Here is a solution that will work!

 

What a fool I was.

 

I would get so worked up; so convinced that I had my problem licked. I was so happy: I just knew that this was going to definitely work and I would never again do what I had done the night before...Never! Oh, yes! This is great! You'd think I was walking on clouds and flying like a bird; and I was, but then within a few days or even hours later I would be shot down. To fall from that height, to fail after being so adamant of sure success, is one of the most soul-crushing experiences and I put myself through that over and over and over again.

 

The more I subjected myself to that misery, the ups and downs, the more disgusted I got with myself. By the time I was done I was so full of shame and regret and self-hate that I couldn't stand my skin any longer. I was repulsed by myself, my life, and how I was living.

 

I was killing myself- in every sense of self, not just physically. I was scooping the life out of me until I became nothing but an empty shell of flesh. When I finally scraped the bottom I found waiting there- a gift. The gift. Desperation.

 

Desperation brought with it willingness and those two things brought me into the rooms. The rooms offered me a program of suggestions; and those suggestions were tools and methods and tactics that have kept me sober; that have not failed. It has been more than thirteen months since I have awoken to failure and misery and remorse and self-loathing. After all that I put myself through, that is a freakin' miracle!

 

The old voice of that alcoholic is still there, mind you. It still wants to convince me that my drinking wasn't that much of a problem, it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah and hell freezing over would be a normal occurrence, too! But now, that voice is tinny and small. The tools that I have to defend myself speak so much louder than that annoying little voice.

 

And for that, I am grateful.