I could tell you that I drank because I was neglected and beaten as a baby. Severely. And then into childhood and really until I left home. I could tell you that I drank because we were either starved or force-fed. Turning down dessert was the first time I remember my mother being interested in a choice I was making. I was six or seven as I recall. The eating disorder didn’t develop, (I don’t believe) because of the many child molesters that paraded in and out of my childhood home, one of whom ended up becoming a drug-dealing buddy of my drug dealing/using paternal figure. My dad’s response to my horror upon finding “him” in my home again was to ask, “What do you want me to do…beat him up?” I was well acquainted with violence against women, children and animals so it wouldn’t have been the most absurd idea anyone could’ve come up with.
I could tell you that I drank because I was locked in my room for seven years. Or, I could tell you that I drank because of the loaded shotgun in my face or the violence between my parents or my parents and us kids. I could tell you that I drank because of the rapes. I could tell you that I drank because I never had any friends because I never knew how to be one. I might temper the story or ad lib a bit if I don’t think I’m keeping your attention.
But ALL of those things, while devastatingly cruel and unjust and incredibly heartbreaking doesn’t compare to what my life would look like when I took my last drink. My life changed when I took my first. I was five. That was my first drink. It wasn’t a major swig. My parents didn’t host parties and I didn’t steal backwash and get giddy from the punch. It was beer. In a white can with black lettering that said… “beer.” My dad told me to bring it into the house and get him another one. So… like any normal five-year-old, I drank what was left. Who knows. Maybe I was genuinely thirsty.
My first blackout I was eleven. I was partying with a friend of a friend. She was 16. She was dating a 24-year-old Air Force B-52 bomber pilot. So. At the age of 11, I was drinking thirstily with a bunch of young pilots. I remember how it felt. It burned going down. I was grateful for the hint of juice. It went from my tongue, down my throat, and warmed my belly in an old familiar way. It was comforting. No one was paying attention to the way “the kid” was making her drinks. A full glass of vodka with a little bit of juice. I proceeded to power puke all over the ugliest bathroom ever. One pilot was kind enough to come in and see if I was okay. I remember him rubbing my back as I hurled my whole body forward and projectile vomited everywhere. To this day, I am sure that is all that happened. If anything else happened, I’m sure to never want to remember. Besides, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t had prior experience with how to lay there and take it. But I digress.
I hated that experience so much that I kept having them for the next 24 years. I tried everything. I even tried abstinence, believe it or not. When at certain dark moments of my drinking career, I’d concede that I couldn’t power puke in my patent leather mary janes like a lady and I’d wander over to other feel-good goodies that you could smoke, pop, snort, and put on the tip of your tongue. It wasn’t ALL bad. I met people in my life who tried to help me. I met people who tolerated me, who used me, much like the same way I used others. Everything and everyone a commodity, right?
I ceased being that creature I was put here to be. The beauty in me just faded with all the daily blunt force traumas. The sweetness was gone. I became a zombie. I couldn’t think or feel anything anymore. There was nothing left but pain and I did my best to blot that out. The innocence was gone before the first drink really, but by the time I was done everything was gone. Who I was. What I liked. Who I loved. Any plans for the future. There was just nothing left. By this time I had brought a bright soul into the world and just was so unavailable on so many levels that any dream of redemption I may have whispered out and about my lips blew away with this little boy’s wish for a mommy who could be present.
Some of those regrets will never go away, no matter how fervently promised to do so. Nor, in my humble opinion as a former Catholic do I think they ever should. I think those nightmarish mirror images are like tokens on the ride of recovery. I think keeping those in the back of the brain help me remember why I stay on the straight and narrow.
See, despite all that I wrote above, that’s not why I drank, although, back in the day I would have insisted it was all those things and more. I would have suggested that you walk in my shoes. I would have told you that if you had my life, you’d drink too. The truth is I drank because I’m an alcoholic. I can’t curb the desire or quell the obsession. I HAVE to drink. That is what an alcoholic IS. I drank because I liked the effect. I drank to remember and I drank to forget and I drank because it was a Tuesday afternoon. I drank to celebrate and to mourn. I drank to feel empowered and I drank to drown my self-deflated spirit. I’m the best at feeling the worst about myself and I’m so modest I’ll tell you all about it.
I don’t drink today. In fact, as of today I haven’t had a drink in fifteen years. I have experienced many of the same experiences sober that I have drunk. I’ve been a single mother my son’s entire life. I’ve worked jobs I’ve hated and have hated myself. I’ve hated and I’ve learned to forgive. I’ve learned to forgive myself for hating myself so brutally that It came out sideways and it always seemed like I hated you too. But I didn’t. I was afraid of you. Terrified really. You were always cuter, nicer, cooler, sweeter and otherwise better put together than me. But yes, I’ve learned to forgive.
I’ve spent a lifetime smashing through plate glass walls of delusion. I’ve never really been sure what’s been true and what’s been false. I’ve always been keenly aware that the world we live in is a mirage and it’s meant to be confusing. It’s how we decipher. Whenever I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of reality, I’m blown away by how unreal wherever my head is at actually is. I’m reminded of my faulty mind when really, in the moment, I realize the moment is all I have. It’s only in the moment when my mind is NOT faulty. It’s perfect and it’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. I feel like a square peg in a round hole and then I think of all the sleeping people. I envy them and pity them all at once. I’m just that human that isn’t very good at humaning and then I realize I’m EXACTLY humaning exactly as I should.
I’m not sure if I should be sad that after fifteen years of sobriety this is as good as it’s gotten. And then I think, wait a minute! I don’t have any need to make any excuses for any… thing. I, for the most part, am exactly who I say I am. I take names and no bullshit. I have my insecurities but will carry anyone to their next level. I will show them their own truth as I understand my own and rip the mask of deception off the eyes of the blind… if they want to see. That kind of vision is a choice and I’d never force anyone to open them before they were ready. I’m like that I guess. I used to apologize for it; for being brutal but I never got well with the padding of a velvet glove.
I used to drink because of all those reasons stated above and now I don’t drink… no matter what. I can say with 100% certainty that I am grateful beyond belief that I have the life I have today. I have people who I love and who love me. I have great employment with supportive people in my life. I don’t get angry when I see truth and I don’t feel the need to push it on anyone. I can just keep small gifts of light for myself and not proselytize as if to validate my own existence. I don’t need to do that today. I don’t need to act on a lot of old behaviors and I can have new beginnings any moment of any day.