During the week, a friend emailed me to let me know that she’s there for me and is thinking of me. I was very touched, of course. Somewhere during our email exchanges, it came out that she’s been struggling with the same issues with alcohol, and after thinking about her circumstances and being able to empathsise, I offered her to write it all down and guest post here. Writing is great therapy and I know it’s helped her immensely for she has said so.
Her identity will remain anonymous. Here she is.
Last Saturday morning, on a long car trip with an aching head, I decided to quit drinking.
I’d ended the night before crying, face down on the floor. So drunk I couldn’t get up and somehow ended up on the phone to my partner, who was an hour away, begging him to help me.
I decided the next morning to help myself.
I’ve never “craved” alcohol, so I never considered I might have a problem with it. I could go weeks without a drink, and I’d cut down the frequency I’d been drinking in the last few years from several times a week to once a week. I’d given up smoking, and given up most of my other vices. It seemed like I had the addiction thing under control.
Drinking was the one constant. Not that I constantly drank, but when I did drink, I would drink fast. Hard. And the amount I would consume before I finished was getting more and more. Two and a half bottles of wine on a weeknight for no reason? Thanks very much! Bottle upon bottle of champagne at a wedding? Don’t mind if I do! It wasn’t every night, or even every week, but whenever it was, it was done to excess.
But last Saturday morning, something in me snapped. I realised that I’d gone from being an occasional binge drinker – someone who’d always had a problem saying “no” to the next drink – to someone who literally had no ability to stop. No way to monitor myself once I was slightly tipsy. No off-switch, no inhibitions.
In short, I had no control. And I wonder if I ever did.
It scared me. I was tired. Not just tired from lack of sleep, but tired of worrying about what I had gotten up to the night before. Who had I cornered and not let get away with my incessant prattling? Had I done anything I shouldn’t have? Said something I shouldn’t have said?
Mostly, I could remember.
Sometimes I wish I couldn’t
I think on some level, it might have been a problem for a long time, but I’ve controlled it – with varying success – over the years, or maybe just haven’t been comfortable enough to examine my behaviour in relation to alcohol up until now. There’ve been times it’s gotten away from me, and times where I’ve had a very firm grip on it, but it always comes back to times where I felt like I didn’t have control over it.
For me, I think it’s a two-fold problem. My metabolism is such that I can drink hideous amounts and it takes a long time to hit me – all at once. Also, I don’t think that I’ve had a lot of exposure to environments that frowned upon heavy drinking. I’ve spent time in sports that encouraged it, and in social groups that did the same. My father is a light drinker, and frowns upon losing control, but my mother is a heavy drinker and it runs in her side of the family.
I wish I’d realised all of this sooner. I wish I’d looked at this pattern of behaviour seriously, and contemplated what it meant to keep drinking in this way.
I don’t think I was ready before. I do know that I’m ready to try now. And if I find it hard to give up something I know is doing me nothing but harm, then I know there may be a deeper problem than I think there is.
I think to some degree I have an addictive personality, but to a larger degree it may be a form of escapism that I used to engage in – smoking, casual sex, whatever – that I no longer do. Alcohol was probably one of the things I should have given up as well but thought was more “harmless”. I didn’t take my binge-drinking as seriously as I should have. Now I have nothing to hide behind, and it is something I HAVE to address.
My biggest fear in all of this is the reaction of others. My partner is relieved. Some will be surprised, some will think me weak because I couldn’t control my drinking. Others will wonder why I’m doing this and think I don’t need to, that perhaps I’m being melodramatic.
I feel good about my decision. It’s been over a week without alcohol, and I’ve thought more about NOT drinking than I’ve thought about having a drink. Most of all, I know tomorrow I’m going to wake up without a hangover, without fear and without the sense of shame that accompanied my drinking.
But for now, I’m sure I’ve made the right decision.
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