Tuesday, December 18, 2012
I'm Telling Mom
My parents both had parents with varying degrees of alcohol problems. They varied from awful to terrible. My dad's father was an embarrassing alcoholic. He committed suicide when my dad was in his late teens/early 20's. My mom got the best of both worlds- two alcoholic parents. Her father was a drunk and a cheater, her mother was a drunk, she popped pills, had some issues with agoraphobia, and died of an on purpose overdose of pills and booze. Her father died from brain cancer in his 50's-ish. I try to imagine my parents as children- handling home life and still going to school, playing with friends, being children with all this craziness swirling around them. I want to punch my grandparents in the face for hurting them (and all their siblings) the way they did. The way they still do.
My parents rarely drank when I was little. My mom tells a story about my dad coming home and mixing up drinks for a few nights (weeks? I don't remember) and she put her foot down and said, "No way are you drinking every night. You'd better stop that right now." So he did. I remember both of them being relatively open about their parents and the way their alcoholism affected their lives. They instilled in me a fear and a curiosity about alcohol.
I told my mom yesterday that I quit drinking. I told her why. I told her I was afraid, I was honest about what was going on with me. That was hard. It was hard to watch her cry, knowing that the thing she'd feared most for me had come true. It was such a balm to my soul to hear her say through her tears, "I AM SO PROUD OF YOU."
So much of our suffering goes on alone. Alone in the dark, filling one more glass, just one more. Alone in the stark light of day making promises to try to quit again, to do better. To drink less, only one or two. To only drink on the weekends, or just on Friday. So much of my suffering was from hiding. From glossing over the truth to look like things were fine when they weren't. And they weren't and they weren't until finally I needed them to be fine. To stay alive, present in this life I needed my voice to be heard. I needed to feel real. Authentic. I needed to say out loud, "I am an alcoholic. I need help" and "I can never drink again."
That's why I told my mom. And that's why I'm telling you, every day. Because every day I have to remember my truth, my story. And I have to be proud of that. And I am.
Sunday December 17, 2023
Cycle
I was telling a friend this week about how I think my addiction wasn’t actually to alcohol, it was to hope. The thing that brought me the most pleasure was the hours the day after I drank that I soaked in hope. “I am quitting today,” I would tell my hungover self. “I can do it. It’s time. I don’t have to do this anymore, I will quit, I will get my shit together. I can do it.”
That honey flavored hope was so enticing, so believable. It coated me, golden and slow. It helped me get through my day so I could make it to the part where I got to decide whether or not to get drunk again.
It was a cycle, and the hope was the pinnacle of that cycle. It would start with drinking, then waking up hungover, then feeling like a worthless failure piece of shit about it all. Then I would feel it- the magical feeling of all not being lost.
I had fucked it up until now, but now? I could change. I could change my life. I was going to do it! I would do it!
Most of my day would be spent in that hopeful cocoon, I would feel giddy, relieved. It was finally over! I would daydream about how wonderful life would be now that I’d quit, how I would finally begin my lifelong dream come true. My wish was granted. Thank god that’s over.
Until it was time to decide whether or not I was going to drink that day.
Then the back and forth would begin.
One more day won’t matter, you can always quit tomorrow! Yes, I could, I know I could. I could quit tomorrow. Oh, what a relief, I can drink today and quit tomorrow.
Off to the store.
Just one more time.
It’s still amazing to me that one thing that hugely helped me stay sober was simply telling other people I was quitting. Saying it out loud, not wanting the humiliation of taking it back. Not wanting the shame of breaking my word. It worked. I told, and it helped. By saying it out loud to other people I made real the thing that had only existed in my imagination for almost my whole life.
It’s fascinating the cycles we put ourselves in! It’s curious to me the way you spoke to your self about allowing yourself to drink “just one more day, I’ll quit tomorrow” is often how people in recovery speak of staying sober each day “I won’t drink today, just make it through today”. It’s interesting that the same guideline of a period of time, one more day, a sprint of sorts, can be used on either side. Yet you took it further and set in stone that you would quit forever - a kind of breaking of the cycle! Even if you did have to just make it through some days there was a backdrop, a belief that you just wouldn’t drink again.
It’s so interesting to see the Then & Now series of excavating an older post and pairing it with where you are now. Thank you for sharing your beautiful writing and experiences! 💜