SOBRIETY

Sobriety is not something you ever take for granted,  

I know this because I’m sober, for now anyways, and I hate the influence that alcohol has had on my life.  And the pull it maintains upon me today.

Any good time, almost every good time that I’ve had in my life, is associated with drinking.  Beer was my glue, my response to everything, the constant, the thing that tied everything else together.  

When I drank, I wasn’t a dirty drunk, a falling down drunk, a crash into the Christmas tree kind of drunk.  I never drank and then operated a motor vehicle.  I didn’t fight or slur my words.

I was happy.  I was content.  I was funny.  I was smart and articulate.  I could even work while I was drinking, pounding out policy papers, directing communications for serious enterprises, and playing prominent roles in election campaigns.  I taught for over thirty years.  My students over that span will attest to my commitment to them.

And I drank through all of it.  Maybe not every day, maybe not all day, but often enough.  And every time I “quit,” which is the word often employed when we actually mean “stopped,” I came back to it stronger than ever.  The cans got bigger and there were more of them.

The way it goes I guess.

I absolutely detest people making any effort to control me, to have sovereignty over me.  I defend my independence with rigorous effort, and I’d rather be alone than have somebody thinking they can tell me what to do as if they’re in charge.  I’m adamant about this.

But all the while, I’ll let my good friend Bud do that very same thing to me and not raise a complaint, not a whisper of one.  And unlike my other friends, Bud usually sends me to bed knowing that his work will show up in the morning in the form of a headache, or shaking hands,  and digestive and waste management issues.  And even with all the coping mechanisms that I could employ against that hangover, I never thought of using those same strategies, that same strength, to fight back against Bud himself.

So I’d manage to feel like shit throughout the day, and then 3 PM would show up, and away we’d go again, me and Bud, best pals forever.

And on and on and on it goes.  

I feel bad.  So I drink.  Which makes me feel bad.  So I drink some more, because I feel bad about my drinking.

A hamster on a wheel.  Chasing my tail.  No steps forward and plenty of steps back.

That Bud’s a hateful little prick.  He has me thinking he’s my best friend, and yet he’s the greatest threat to my life and well-being.

Alcoholism is isolating for many people.  Their drinking loses them friends and family, even employment.  They hide their drinking, and become very adept at erecting elaborate schemes and mechanisms to shield everyone from the truth.  They’re personally embarrassed by it but they do it anyway.  

And on and on and on until there’s nothing left of you.

I think I was the biggest drinker of all my friends, I’m not sure but I think so.  But I didn’t take my social cues from them.  I wouldn’t have been with them in the first place if it weren’t for the drinking.

I come across as a fairly bright and friendly chap, and I am.  I’m kind and considerate, and I will stop to help a stranger if I feel that help its required.  I have a fairly highly-developed moral compass.

There are people who love me.  There are even people who loved me all through that drinking.  People who cared about me and wished for something better for me.  This was almost tough for me to handle, like I didn’t deserve it.  It’s like it made men feel uncomfortable.  So I drank to suppress those good feelings because I didn’t know what to do with them.

I never drank because of sadness and failure.  I drank because of too much positive feedback and success, and honestly, is that not the strangest thing? To suppress positive adrenaline?

But I got it into my head that I needed to drink to fit in, to feel comfortable, to work up the courage to go anywhere socially.

I guess I was a “functioning” alcoholic.  I guess maybe I still am, just not one who happens to be drinking at the moment.

You’d never know any of this if you saw me professionally.

On the job, I projected as alert, confident, caring, and standards-driven.  Professional when many weren’t.  I dressed the part, walked the part, talked the part, and succeeded at the part.  I was confident and had presence.  I could speak to a room of 1000 people no problem.

People would look at me, my outward-facing life, and my professional persona, and conclude that I was a guy that had it all together, who had life by the tail.  And they were right, except for the drinking.

The drinking locked me up in my downstairs, made me a prisoner of myself.  I wouldn’t go anywhere because it would interfere with my drinking.  People would ask and ask, but eventually they stopped asking.

A man who could charm a thousand people in public, relegated to a television-watching, beer-swilling caricature.  A comfortable public speaker, but one unable to go along with a one-on-one for any period of time without needing to break it off and find a way to get back to my splendid isolation.  With my best friend Bud.

Me and Bud, forever.  I should just go ahead and get the tat.  The friendship bracelet.  Because me and Bud are besties.

There does come a time when you know you’re killing yourself.  When you’re up to 10-12 beer a day, and that’s after the bottle of wine at dinner.  I used to take cannabis too, 25 mg a day, then 100 mg, then 100 mg in the afternoon and another 100 mg in the evening.  And by 11 PM, I couldn’t even feel any of it anymore, my tolerance levels forcing me to keep pounding myself with all of this and not feeling drunk, or high, at all.

That’s what did it for me this time.  Reaching into the fridge at 10:30 PM, seeing only three beer cans in there, the big ones, and knowing the evening started with fourteen on hand.

It brings up a fair question:  How much is enough?  How far will you go?  Twenty beer?  A whole two-four?  400 mg of cannabis?  Like a guy once told me, one is too many and a thousand’s not enough.  Seems to me that guy knew what he was talking about.

I stopped that night and I’ve been sober for over a year.  But as I said, I’ve “stopped” before, and for as long, and found a way to get back into the whole thing.  So no celebrations for me, because I don’t trust myself.  I truly believe I will drink again.

I don’t know the circumstances, don’t know the rationale or justifications that will be employed, but I will drink again, I just know it.

I had some stuff happening recently in my life that led me to drink the way I did, only now in overdrive. It was how I coped, which is a fancy way of saying I just wanted to blot everything out, to pretend stuff wasn’t happening, to smother it in intentional inebriation.  I also didn’t care if I lived anymore, a very sad and low place to find yourself.  And a horrible place for anyone close enough to see.

For three years it was like that.  Until I reached into the fridge and finally put it all together what a loser I was being.  That I was the Reverse Jesus, turning fourteen cans of beer into three.

And here I am today.  More or less happy, much healthier, and actually healthier than I have any business being considering the abuse I put myself through.  But I’m on my feet, equal parts personal courage and no doubt the assistance of a higher power.

I do what I want, I go where I want, and have no problems talking to all the people I meet when I’m out and about.  But I don’t go out socially.  I have a tough time going out anywhere after dinner in the evening.  I avoid places that I strongly associate with my drinking, which is pretty much any place out there outside of work.

When I’m invited I say no, because I’m afraid.

So I’m still a prisoner of alcohol.  Before it kept me in because I wanted to drink.  Now it keeps me in because I don’t want to drink.  

Nice.  Figures.

I sat outside on my deck Monday for the first time in four years.  A beautiful day, but for the past little while I didn’t go out there because I associate that sort of thing with alcohol.  You know, me and Bud pounding out a few beers poolside, working the barbecue in the steadfast knowledge that you can’t adequately cook hotdogs in anything less than six beers.  Everybody knows you don’t cook hotdogs on high. You cook them while high. But I don’t eat hot dogs anymore, so I managed to do the backyard thing without any alcohol.  So good for me, I guess.

But I’ll be absolutely honest, that would have been a hell of a lot better with Bud.  Because everything is better with Bud.

So it seems my fight’s not over, not by a long shot.  They say keeping a journal of sobriety helps with the process, but that’s not what this is all about.  This is no journal.  There is no journal.  This is just this.

But Bud’s good at what he does.  He talks to me more and more often these days, even though it’s been over a year.  He doesn’t like it that I tossed him overboard.

He wants me back.

One day, I’m sure, he’ll succeed.

I love him and hate him at the same time.