Monograph - 24
Physical Conflict:
PICKLED IN ALCOHOL
My girlfriend, at the time, saw an ad in a newspaper, which advertised a local group that helped people deal with drinking problems. She showed me the ad, and I decided would try this meeting that was supposedly for alcoholics who wanted to quit drinking. I was the youngest person there and felt very uneasy around the people even though I brought my girlfriend with me to the meeting. The people at the meeting seemed to have it all together. I remember listening to them carefully, and I actually got scared that this might work for me. I couldn't believe I went home that night without drinking. However, I just didn't get what the alcoholic recovery program was about from only one meeting. I was sure to drink again, and I did the next day.
It seemed like such a paradox that I wanted to stop drinking, yet I was also kind of afraid that this mysterious program that helped people quit drinking would work! I think I was worried because by following their program of suggestions, it would mean I would have to make other drastic changes in my life besides giving up drinking. My addiction lied to me. It said, "There is a peculiar comfort behind the misery of this drinking." I continued to drink for a few more months while unemployed. It was a 24-hour a day thing for weeks in a row. Blackouts were daily. I used a credit card to buy alcohol and spent a great deal of time using my girlfriend's new car without her permission. In other words, I was, 'stealing' her car.
I spent the days underneath interstate bridges to escape the harsh daytime sunshine. My girlfriend wanted me out of her apartment because I was not able to pay my part of the rent. I drank without seeking any more help to quit. I tried to quit by myself so many times. I suffered many, many times from detoxification symptoms: The shakes, anxiety, agitation, headaches, short attention span, racing thoughts, delirium, diarrhea, delusional thinking, hallucinations, feeling like there were bugs crawling on me, and the awful nausea and internal aches.
To drink again seemed like the only way to get rid of these symptoms that the drinking itself had caused. I finally had to move back into my parents' house. I had to beg my old employer for my job back because I quit a few months ago. I still drank daily and drank some on the job. But I began talking on the Internet to different people in other places who were involved in the very same alcoholic recovery program I mentioned before. At this point, I was very desperate to quit. Alcohol was taking quite a toll on me physically. I was hurting real bad when I wasn't drunk. I had pains in my stomach and muscles when I couldn't get enough booze to numb me. Alcohol had somehow become infused with my entire body.
Section - 24a
"THE 'WILL' IN WILLPOWER"
Not drinking involves such a great change in lifestyle, I am not sure if I can do it all at this time. My brain hates change and yells out, "Make me feel like usual. All I want is my beer, booze, or wine." When not drinking, my body tells me something is wrong and wants to be relieved of the tension of an unfulfilled need. A certain boredom, anxiety, and emptiness lurks deep down within just waiting and willing to be satisfied indeed. The first time one of these slippery friends of mine wants to buy me a drink, or when one of those slippery places gives me that feeling, "I'll just have one shot, I think."
I will do it. I will think the alcohol is breathing life into me and filling all that unwanted wide-open empty space. I will think it is taking away all my anxiety and stiffness by allowing me to relax with myself inside my place. I will think I can relax enough so I can love, accept, and give someone physical affection. I will think I am truly comfortable in expression of my feelings, wants, and desires with no rejection. I will think I can meet new people and smile without worrying about their first impression of me. I will think I can relax and take fun risks without worrying what others think, care, or see. I will think I have a friend for comfort even when I am alone. I will think I can laugh and cry freely all by myself, all on my own. I will think I feel loved from the inside out. I will think I have no worry, no concern, and no doubt. I will think this feeling will last forever. King Alcohol, I trust you. I will think if five drinks did all that...what will one more drink do? I will think this is my cure, my medicine, and my magic elixir. I will do it all over again tomorrow because I'll need a fixer. I will drink more alcohol to cure the anxiety and paranoia caused by the alcoholic psychotic effects from yesterday's alcohol. I will get more anxiety from drying out from the alcohol that I drank to cure the paranoia from the alcohol that I used to get over yesterday's alcohol and then I will buy more alcohol. I will stop the shakes and nausea from withdrawal by taking another drink. I wont be happy but I'll stop shaking and feel almost normal, I think. I will try to cut down on my drinking because I am drinking every hour. I will try to cut down on my drinking by using my own strong will power.
I will fail.
Monograph - 25
Life Conflict:
UNHAPPILY UNMANAGEABLE
I noticed that I had a lot in common with sober alcoholics who were on the Internet. Some of the things they told me sounded like it was my very own story. I also found out that there were millions of people in the world that were in the very same unique alcoholic recovery fellowship.
On the Internet, the people I found kept telling me to get myself to real face-to-face recovery meetings and share my thoughts. They told me every town has meetings, and they gave me phone numbers to call to find out where the meetings were near me. At that time, I just wanted to try to stay sober on the computer by talking to sober people. I could get a couple of weeks without a drink here and there (which was longer than I ever had sober before) but I was yet to find a long-term solution.
In the Internet chat rooms, I met this fascinating lady from a far away state that I had never been to before. She had 22 years sober after she quit due to about 20 years of very heavy and damaging drinking. I explained to her about how I was anxious around other people and afraid to go to meetings. At this point, I guess I basically had some minor agoraphobia and alcoholic psychosis. She invited me up to her house so we could go to meetings together and so I could learn about recovery from alcoholism. I moved in with her and her husband for almost a month. At first, I was suspicious of why someone would want to help me like that. I wondered what they would want in return. I would keep asking why she would go out of her way to help me. Finally, she put it very simply. She said that she wanted to give back what was freely given to her. She said somebody once helped her in the beginning by offering their time, their support, and their home. I was awed by such a concept. She insisted it was just God working though her. She said that to keep sobriety, one has to give it away by teaching and sharing the message.
I began to feel some type of human solidarity sentiment I had never known before. I began to have a desire to help someone else just like she and her husband were helping me. I wanted to give back too. She assured me it would happen in the future. By spending time with people who had years of sobriety, I learned a lot about myself and how people could overcome the obsession to drink and use drugs.
I felt so much better physically and emotionally after only a week or two. I returned home feeling really good after almost a month without a drink. Surely I had the drink and drug problem licked. I felt uncomfortable going to meetings around my area so I just went on with my new life. I actually had a whole month clean and sober so I felt like I could do anything. I made the decision to return to college. I was doing good for a while. I knew that I was doing good physically and emotionally but I did not know that alcohol still had a spiritual and mental grip on my life.
Since, I discontinued going to the recovery meetings entirely when I returned to my home state, the deadly disease lied to me again and I believed it. I thought it would be OK to get drunk for one night. I thought I would surely get away with it for one day. I promised myself that I would just get drunk that one night and then stop drinking the next day. Either I broke my promise to myself, or it was an awful long night because it was more than two months before I saw another sober day.
Things were worse than ever. When I drank, the only thing I would think about is how I wished I were sober. I cried often. I would think about the lady that helped me. I would think about the meetings. I wished I were there. I would sit in my car while driving around aimlessly, planning out what I wanted to share with the group as if I were on my way to a meeting.
I tried to cut down to one pint of vodka per day. I found that I could do this every day but when that pint of liquor ran out, the depression and anxiety hit me hard. I was miserable when my daily ration was all gone. I had just started going back to college to finish my degree and the first thing I would do in the morning was buy a pint before school. I remember being highly intoxicated in class sometimes. Surely others could smell the liquor.
It wasn't long before the pint just wasn't enough, so I would buy beer in the evening hours. Things got even worse. I was not leaving the house in the daytime much at all. I was very isolated. I lay in bed drunk during almost all of my free time. I had no sense of spirituality. My emotions were simply not there if I happened to be dry for a few hours. I was very mentally drained from the drunkenness and detoxifications. Physically, I was a zero.
At age 24, I felt like I was 94. It felt like alcohol had stopped working as a cure for my original drinking excuses that I mentioned earlier. I only drank now to feel recovered from the awful things that booze itself had caused. It seemed there was no way in the world that I could quit. How dark it was before the dawn.
Abby's Sexual Health |
Monograph - 26
Discovery of Powerlessness:
THE LAST DRINK
I met a friend who was a severe alcoholic and addict like I was. I was hanging out with him one day during the Spring Break from college. He was detoxing very badly. He had convulsions and nausea. He was in real bad shape. I truly wanted to help him. We went down to the city to get his drugs and my booze. We then went back to his apartment. I felt his pain when I saw him lying on his couch complaining that he didn't have enough drugs to stop his nausea and shakes. I wanted to help him so bad because I could not stand to see him suffer like that. The only things that came to mind were the meetings I had been to during the month I was away and how I successfully quit drinking for over 40 days. I knew there was a solution and I really had no excuse. I knew those people in recovery were living happily. I thought of some of the things they told me at the meetings. I wanted to pass the information on to my friend so he too could get healthy. But there I sat, in the middle of it all, with a drink in my hand. I was just as bad as him on many occasions. I too looked exactly like him but I could not see myself as an outside observer. I sat there with a drink and could do nothing but be on display as bad example of someone who tried to quit drinking but failed.
I had very little alcohol left to keep me going for that day. I mixed my vodka with water and tried to cure some of the shakes and anxiety from the withdrawal of the earlier drinking spree. I was thinking about how I started drinking almost exactly ten years ago. I vaguely remembered that my first experiment with alcohol was on Spring Break of my ninth grade year -- and now yet another Spring Break had come and gone in a drunken blur. I sat there in my room alone and drank my last drink. It was vodka and water. According to my journals, it was exactly nine years, 11 months, and two days after my very first drink. Both the first and the last drink were mixed vodka concoctions. On both occasions, I was alone in my room. Both were on a spring break from school. Was this a coincidence or something else? Was this going to start me thinking along the lines of 'spiritual experience'? If it was not a spiritual experience, it was definitely a moment of spiritual clarity, which put my alcoholism into a very clear perspective. I suddenly realized how much I had been held back. I realized how little I accomplished with the vast amount of effort I made. Something just came over me that let me know this chemical substance game was not what my life was supposed to be. I came to realize that whoever and wherever God was or is did not wish for me to lead a life like this.
After what I had been through with the police, the jails, the courts, the withdrawals, and the rehabs, I still did not hit my bottom. Only now, I finally hit bottom when I saw that guy on his couch just as sick as I was and I could not help him. I had the desire to help him and help myself but it was impossible. I was worthless, useless, helpless, hopeless, and powerless! But I knew there was a way out. True, I was kind of afraid it would work for it meant I would have to make big changes. But at this point, any risk was worth it. The next day, I felt very despondent and awed by my experience with the last drink and the following moment of spiritual clarity.
I went to an alcoholic recovery meeting room by myself in my home state for the first time. At that time, I had about 30 hours since my last sip of vodka. I walked through the doors and when I did, I took the first step. In full admission, I thought I was the lowest of the low and sickest of the sick. I was the person with only one day sober among a bunch of sober alcoholics who had quit drinking long ago. I couldn't believe they didn't ask me to put my name on some sort of a sign-up sheet or to pay some sort of entry fee. It's like I was totally anonymous and so was everyone else. The people in the meeting only used their first names. They very rarely spoke about what company they worked for, how much money they made, or where exactly they lived. We had nothing in common except for the fact that we all had a desire to quit drinking and we helped each other stay sober. I felt awful about only having one day sober while others in the room had months and years since their last drink or drug use. I cannot remember everything that happened in this meeting but I know someone said something that convinced me of this philosophy: One day sober is something worth holding on to as tight as you can.
<<< Previous Page
Adult Dating |
Adolescent Sexuality Resource |