My place called drinking (A First Step--sort of)

Hi All. I just started reading my blog from the beginning and all I can say is that my writing has really hit the skids lately. Sorry. Life gets busy and then my writing just falls apart--or so it seems. That said, this is my attempt to get back in the saddle. Be patient with me, please. So as I said in my last post, I am working with a new sponsor and doing the Steps just like in the Big Book. I actually did write a First Step a few times already but am up for the challenge of doing it again. I am not going to publish my actual First Step in its entirety but I am going to give a little snapshot for myself and for anyone else who might wonder just what it looks like to hit a bottom with your job, car, apartment, family, friends, and dog still around.

So my drinking--starting at age 15. Always and forever my favorite place to be was at a place I like to call drinking. It was a chatty, happy, and convivial place. It was a place that was full of intimacy, secrets, and laughing. My first time at my drinking place I felt funny, confident, and pretty. Who wouldn't want to frequent a place like that? I always had a tolerance that was pretty wild--able to drink many women and some men under a few tables. I found my niche in the drinking world. I might not be the smartest, prettiest, or nicest but put me in a bar and I would feel like all three plus some. I felt safe, happy, and comfortable anywhere that served alcohol. During this same period of time I also made some of the best real friends that anyone could ever want or ask for. Most of them I still am in touch with--and any of them I would be in touch with if I could find them or lived near them. I grew up with this crew of people and in many ways they became a family for me. Unlike many other stories--I do not consider these people as part of the problem. The problem was me and my drinking and the protective factor was that I was around people who looked out for me and loved me despite my excess and issues.

So there I was--after highschool and then 4 years of progessively harder drinking in college...I am lost. I dont know who I am. I dont know what I want. I envy anyone who does. I miss my favorite place called drinking. I keep trying to get back there but things are changing there. It is harder and harder to get there. I have this tolerance. I get these hangovers. I feel ashamed and tired. I am 21 and a black out binge drinker. I look like a regular person. I behave in some ways like a regular person. I am a 21 year old girl, who is a college graduate, and who on the inside already knows something is very wrong. I am scared.

I move to NYC. I get a job in advertising. I am 26. I discover Happy Hour. I am a black out binge drinker who is drinking nearly five nights a week. I am a regular at Happy Hour but I have a secret. I cant stop. My friends go home, wash their faces, brush their teeth, and go to bed. I do not go home and go to bed. I leave the bar and buy more alcohol. I go home and really drink. I drink just the way that I want when I am alone. I drink until I pass out. I wake up with bottles scattered around the room--often. I am ashamed, terrified, alone, and more then anything I am scared. I use Visine, I use insane amounts of Ibuprofen, I take NoDoz, I use cough drops, breath mints, perfume, lotion, I have all of the tricks. I use excuses--my job is stressful, my job is social, my job is superficial and I keep drinking.

I am 28, I am still not a daily drinker. I still do not drink in the morning. I still do not hide bottles of anything. I still am not being told by anyone close to me that I need to stop. I begin to tremble by 5pm without a drink. I refer to this as "stress." I drink pints so that no one notices my hands shaking before my first drink. I get flown to London for work and blackout and miss the meeting I am there for. I lie. I get on a plane and fly home and go to a bar. I am ashamed, and scared. I am a 28 year old binge blackout drinker who is an alcoholic. I have no idea what is happening to me. I begin to have increasing anxiety when I am sober. I get hot out of nowhere. I sweat and feel shaky in the afternoon. I cant sleep without alcohol. I take sleeping pills every night with our without alcohol. I cannot maintain an intimate relationship with someone I love because I cannot be trusted.

I am 29, I am in Vermont. I have been layed off. I am with my new/old boyfriend. I try to stop drinking as much and dont tell him or anyone else. I cry for two days straight, and dont know why. I cant sleep. I am irritable. I sweat. I take sleeping pills to feel less shaky. I start using pot to chill out. I tell myself that I am ok. I think I am not ok. I have a solution. I use pot instead of alcohol for a while. On the weekends and some weeknights I drink like I want which is until I pass out or throw up. I do both, often. My boyfriend gets sick of this and after one evening when I come home and kick him and tell him how useless he is and then pass out he tells me I should "cut down" on my drinking. I cry. I cry because i cannot imagine a life worth living without alcohol. I cry because I know that I need alcohol to have fun and to be myself. I cry because I see that my drinking is out of control and am unable to stop. I cry because I know that I will keep drinking.

I feel totally helpless. So, I point my finger at him. I bring up his substance use. I tell him he has a problem. I put all of my energy into noticing his substance use and blaming him. I telly myself that I hate what he has done to me. I feel that everything is his fault and I will be fine once I am without him. I leave him. He tells me he doesnt drink that much anymore now that I am gone. He seems happy and ok.

I am 29 and heartbroken and an alcoholic living alone with my dog. I do what any good alcoholic would do. I get drunk and meet someone new. I meet a new really nice guy. I start drinking less during the week. I am tight but I am doing better. I feel vindicated. My new boyfriend is the solution. My old boyfriend was the problem and my life is just fine--pass the wine. The one problem is that nothing is fine. I miss drinking during the week. When I do drink it is to excess worse then before. I am lonely and sad and broken and cant feel really happy or really relaxed without a drink in my hand. I have blamed my drinking on someone else and woke up without them and still hungover. I have used other people to try to fill the holes in myself only to wake up guilty and still empty. I want to be a different person and do not know how. I know something is wrong with me.

I am 30 and visting my old roomate in NYC. I go out drinking without eating (as usual) around 4pm on a Friday night in April of 2004. I am in the bathroom of a bar in the East Village with a man I do now know who is a cocaine dealer. I look in the mirror and see someone else. I am detached from myself. I think: I dont care what happens to her. I wake up from a black out on Saturday morning. I dont know where I am. I am with the cocaine dealer somewhere in the East Village. I am ashamed. I think of the various things I must do, the first of which is lie about this. I hate myself more then ever before. I think: I could have been killed. I think: I do care what happens to me. I think: my drinking is going to kill me and is dangerous. I know I am in trouble. I think: I need help. I think: I am going to stop drinking--and I do.

So that is my mini story. How I stopped drinking and stay stopped is a longer and maybe more relevant story. What is interesting to me is that throughout my drinking there were times when I did consider quitting and certainly times where I was not drinking that frequently. Some people may have the mistaken belief that my ability to not drink for periods of time indicates that I was really in control. I was not. The simple truth is that for my entire drinking life--any time that I picked up an alcoholic beverage and began to drink it--I wanted more. I always wanted more. The wanting more was deep inside me. I could not think my way out of my wanting more. I tried to. I tried so hard. I would tell myself that I would only have one, no two, no three--and then I would tell myself that tomorrow I would do that and keep going. I could see that other people were not like this but I felt powerless to do anything about it. That feeling of powerlessness fueled my fear and propelled my drinking. Drinking took away my fear, my feelings of powerlessness, my feelings of being less than--temporarily. Of course though the next day, sober, the feelings were back only worse.

I know that my drinking story is no longer a completely uncommon story. I hope that it is helpful for someone. I wish I could reach out to every woman in college or working who is already drinking like this and show them that there is a different way but I know that I cant. The only thing I can do is keep on my path and hope that along the way I can help someone else too. Thanks for listening. xxK