Seven years ago I NEVER thought I would be able to say that I have been six years sober! I didn't think I was physically addicted. I never got the shakes, never morning drank, never drank daily unless on vacation, never got a DUI (even though that was lucky), never lost a job or a relationship because of drinking. I was, however, incredibly emotionally and mentally addicted.
I am 56 years old and started drinking in high school. Except when pregnant, I drank 90% of all weekends from the ages of 17-50. I never did anything socially without drinking....ever. If I couldn't drink, I just didn't go. If I had to go, I got out as soon as I could. My whole life was built around my weekend drinking.
I loved drinking in my 20's - we would go out every Friday with our friends, get pretty wasted, have a ton of fun, wake up Saturday with a small hangover, wait for it to go away and then party again on Saturday. Sunday was for eating crappy, recovering and getting ready for the work week. Weekdays were spent going to college to get my teaching degree and then working as an elementary teacher. I loved my life!
I loved drinking in my 30s - I had two beautiful kids, had a great teaching job that I loved, a pretty decent marriage and great friends. We moved into a brand new neighborhood with lots of new families and quickly made plenty of drinking friends! Every weekend was block parties or getting together with neighbors drinking while the kids were playing. The kids were having fun, we were having fun, no one was judging my drinking and nobody had to drive...perfect! I still was great at my job, felt pretty successful as a mother and was happy!
Things started to shift in my 40s. I think the biggest thing that changed, honestly, was the severity of my hangovers. My hangovers were getting out of control. I was still having fun when drinking and there was no way I was giving that up but the hangovers were becoming 2-4 day events that just crushed me. My 40s were when I started making deals and promises with myself. I spent hundreds of hours reading self help books about drinking less, spending entire summer breaks trying to figure out why I could not cut down, adding thousands of pages to a journal and hundreds of entries to my blog. I could write a book! Why my drinking was starting to happen on Thursdays (Thirsty Thursday) and on Sundays? Why I would find myself waking up at 2:00 every Saturday and Sunday morning with extreme anxiety, heart palpitations, nausea and mentally torturing myself about how I didn't keep my promise to myself and yet again and drank too much? I was starting to have more instances of embarrassing behavior where I basically lost it while drunk. I would wake up so ashamed of myself, so disappointed in myself, making promises to myself yet again but also not understanding why I was having such a hard time keeping those promises. I mean....I wasn't that bad. I wasn't like my father. Now he was an alcoholic - losing many teaching jobs requiring us to always move and me to attend six elementary schools, going completely off the grid on a bender, getting DUIs, losing his family....choosing alcohol over us. That wasn't me. I had a great job, great family, great friends, a great credit score and was a responsible, loving, caring human! I remember reading once that I felt like I was standing on a burning bridge trying to figure out why it was burning instead of just getting off the damn bridge! I spent years on that bridge while the flames were destroying me. I hated myself while also keeping up the facade that everything is fine...it's fine...it's all fine! I am happy...everything is perfect!
I spent at least 5-7 years in this pattern - drinking Friday and Saturday at least, having extreme physical, mental and emotional hangovers Sunday though Tuesday beating myself up and promising myself that I would not drink the next weekend. I would feel so firm about that decision until Wednesday night when I convinced myself that I am not that bad, that I don't need to stop, that I can control it and then spending Wednesday, Thursday and Friday planning my drinking for the weekend. I would plan a party or a get together or an outing so I could say, "Well, I can't stop drinking this weekend." Over and over and over and over. I felt like I was on a torture hamster wheel experiencing groundhogs week every week for years. It was exhausting! I was just dumbfounded why I couldn't figure this out. I am an intelligent, loving, caring woman who is not an alcoholic! I have a masters degree for God's sake! Why couldn't I keep my promises to even drink less?
Here is how I finally did it. One Saturday, June 10, 2018, I was at my sister's house drinking of course even after promising myself I would keep it under control. I was probably on my second bottle of wine playing cards at around 11:00. My husband wanted to leave and I didn't want to stop. I think everyone else probably wanted me to go home as well but I was ready to PARTY!!! He left and my brother in law drove me home around 1:00 am. Of course I woke up feeling terrible, physically, mentally and emotionally. I felt like such an embarrassment, such a failure, I just wanted to take some pills that I had left over from a surgery. I almost did. I didn't want to kill myself, I just wanted this day to be over so I could stop feeling so bad. I very well could have accidently overdosed that day...that is how low I felt. I just wanted to go to sleep to stop thinking about what a miserable piece of shit I was but I couldn't sleep because I was sweating, nauseas, my heart was racing and my mind would not stop beating the shit out of itself.
My husband, who had always supported whatever I wanted to do...probably to the point of enabling, never gave me shit about my drinking or hangovers. He just wanted me to be happy whatever that meant. He supporting me drinking or quitting. He said to me that day, "Either quit drinking or be an alcoholic...you choose." He was pissed and what he said devastated me. How could he say that to me? Couldn't he see the personal hell I was already living in - how much I was already beating myself up? How could he be so mean to someone suffering so much? Somehow I got through the day of crying and anger and misery and made it to Tuesday and guess what! I fucking wanted to drink again the next weekend!!!!! What the hell! What is wrong with me?!?!?! All day Tuesday, June 13, and Wednesday, June 14, I had the most intense internal battle I have ever had. One voice begging, "You are fine, you just slipped up. You are strong, not an alcoholic and can do this. Just try harder! You have a little drinking problem that you can beat. It is all about moderation management....harm reduction." The other voice was pleading. "You need help!!! You can't do this. You have been trying for years. You are getting worse. Make the misery stop! Make the call. Call the doctor. Reach out. Get out of your own head. Get help!!!"
On Thursday, June 15, I made the scariest phone call of my life. I was just sobbing when I said, "I need to make an appointment because I think I might have a drinking problem." They asked me some questions to determine that I did not need to be admitted for detox and made me an appointment in 2 weeks. 2 weeks! How was I supposed to go that long without drinking??? I wasn't sure I could, but I just stayed home, probably in bed, terrified about what the future held. Was this the right decision? Did I really need to get this extreme? Was this really necessary? How would I ever have fun and enjoy anything again in life ever again without drinking? This was stupid! I am just going to cancel the appointment. I am not that bad! I don't think I want to stop. I don't think I will ever be happy without drinking.
But, somehow, I did it and made it to the appointment. I told the doctor what I was going through but I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I think I had an alcohol use disorder. The doctor asked me, "Have you tried to stop and cut down? Have you been unable to?" My answer was yes. He said, "Call it what you want but you are an alcoholic and alcoholism is a progressive disease that will just get worse. You need professional help." I sat there in shock, much like when my husband said that to me. I just said to him, "That wasn't very nice" and he said "Sometimes the truth isn't nice to hear." That took me days to process. Could he be right? Could I have been fooling myself? Could I have been in DENIAL??? What, not me! Would I just get worse? Would I become like my father, who lost everything and eventually died from the disease? I was so confused.
I finally came to the truth. I did have a problem. And I was physically addicted as well. My excruciating hangovers were withdrawals to a drug that my addicted body and mind were craving. When I would watch the show Intervention, which I was weirdly (except not really) obsessed with, I would see people detach from everyone, get a hotel room and just drink as much as they wanted without anyone judging them. Or this one guy left everything and went to the Florida Keys to do the same thing. I had a craving to do that! Like this deep down hunger to fill....like I wanted that...I needed that....I craved that. That was a scary thought.
That along with what my husband and what the doctor said finally got me to take off my "rose colored glasses" and see myself more clearly. I was a mess and had been for a long time. I was so dysfunctional in my relationships and with my behavior and I was finally able to see that alcohol was killing my soul. All of the embarrassing moments, the broken promises, the feeling like complete shit about myself just were destroying me. I was living my own personal hell inside my brain that I fiercely protected because I didn't want anyone telling me I should stop drinking or judge me. I decided to take the next step.
I signed up for outpatient therapy with group support meetings three times a week and individual therapy once a week. I did this for six weeks. I like to think of this time period as when I walked out of the fog. All of these people, who were clearly worse than me (lol) with their DUIs, their court ordered attendance, their multiple relapses on heroin or opiates or alcohol, had the exact same thought processes as I had been dealing with for decades. I was overcome with wonder, awe and curiosity that the addicted brain tells all of us the same lies no matter how "bad" you are, what your drug of choice is or how bad things have gotten. We all had the same addicted voice torturing us - begging us with all types of rationalization to not stop feeding it. When they spoke, I felt like it was my own voice. How could this be?
I also learned to truly understand the phrase, "there but for the grace of God go I" because I saw myself in them. They may also be loving, kind, intelligent people who are struggling with addiction just like me. I soaked it up. I couldn't get enough of the metaphors (riding the craving waves or watching the clouds pass by) and the personal stories. I spent those six weeks completely immersed in my own recovery much as I had spent the past 10 years completely obsessed with controlling it and the previous two decades in love with drinking. Alcohol had been my lifelong obsession both good and bad...bringing the best and worst of times.
I was diagnosed with OCD and General Anxiety Disorder. Well that was no surprise to me! I tried antidepressants but they gave me the brain zaps which scared me so I stopped. I often pondered the chicken or the egg question. Was I self medicating or did the alcohol cause these struggles but again...the burning bridge....what difference does it make?
I am not overly religious and did not attend any AA meetings but many of their sayings, which used to think of as so cliche, really stuck with me. One is "one day at a time". That became my mantra because thinking about how I was going to do holidays, weekends, parties, vacations without drinking was impossible to even comprehend and had led me to many a relapse. Thinking about how much the future was going to suck without alcohol made me not give up alcohol for way too long. I just focused on one day at a time. Each of those sober days under my belt built up my toolbox and strength to get through another weekend or event or vacation. I was strengthening my sober muscles every day that I didn't drink. That first year was not easy. I cried, had debilitating anxiety attacks, isolated myself, pretty much lost contact with all my friends. While I was so proud of myself and felt so much better I was also pretty sad, lonely and scared.
The last five years I have not been a walk in the park either. Life happens. It isn't all rainbows and unicorns now that I have stopped drinking. I still struggle a great deal with anxiety. I am struggling with a terrible case of an empty nest. I miss my kids so much! I miss them needing me. I miss the joy and anticipation I used to get from planning my next weekend, vacation or drinking event. I have a hard time looking forward to things. I don't have a lot of friends because I am scared everyone will just want to drink. I am not tempted to drink, just a little jealous at how much fun they are having so would just rather not attend. When getting over what I now know as social anxiety that I medicated with alcohol and actually do attend a social event, I am glad I went and it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. But, more often than not, I decline. I have learned that I am an extremely sensitive and insecure person. I can be overbearing and a bit controlling. I have built a life on what others think of me and putting up this facade that everything is perfect...trying to be the perfect version of myself...hiding all of my insecurities and obsessions with external validation. I am not great right now and am going to go back to counseling to deal with some of these issues. At least I can see myself more clearly.
But......I do not for one single second regret quitting drinking! I learned that I miss the anticipation of drinking more than the drinking itself. I absolutely do not miss the hangovers and the beating myself up about broken promises or drunken behavior. I, without a doubt, would have been worse today in my addiction than I was six years ago had I not stopped. I miss the high highs but do not miss the low lows. It just isn't worth it. The pain of stopping was more than the pain of continuing.
I am so much more present now. I can have conversations with other people and not have it always about me or when would be a good pause to refill my glass. I had become pretty self absorbed and while I still struggle with that, it is so much better. I can be there for people when they need me, I don't have to plan my whole life around when I am going to be able to drink. I have learned, shockingly, that many people don't drink. I am still amazed at how many people in a restaurant aren't drinking. I thought everyone drank!
I am so much better at managing my emotions and trying to always be a better version of myself. My negative self talk, while it is still there, is much better. I have also gotten so much better at understanding that everyone does not see the world the way I do and it is not my job to convince them to see it my way....that I am always right. I feel I am better at stepping back, being an observer, not trying to live in this constant state of trying to control everything. I am also recently realizing that I bring chaos into my life. I have remodeled a house, sold a house, cleaned out my mom's house, built a house, moved across the county, bought a condo and had four different teaching jobs in the past six year. Am I trying to replace the chaos of drinking with other chaos?
I have a long way to go in terms of being mentally healthy but at least I can see my shortcomings a little more clearly, a little more objectively, a little less emotionally charged, a little more rationally so I can work on them without self medicating with a drug.
Most of all I am so stinking proud of myself, and for something real! I did it! I didn't think I would ever stop drinking! I still have drinking dreams, especially when stressed, but they remind me how far I have come, how much work I did, how proud I am of myself and that I will never be cured. While not perfect, I am absolutely a better version of myself. I can rationally see my struggles without blaming them all on alcohol, I can try to deal with them. I am so grateful that I did not lose my loving, supportive family, my career that I love or my own life to this terrible devastating disease called alcoholism that I do accept I have. I am so proud to say that I am a recovering alcoholic.
