I'm 31. I go to work and do my job. I pay my bills on time. I own a house. I am married. I am a likable guy--everyone tells me. I have a laid-back, easygoing, friendly disposition. I enjoy helping people. I drink myself into oblivion nearly every night. I fight with my wife a lot. I say to myself that she is the reason I keep drinking. I know this is not true. She does not grasp the extent of my problem and is in more denial about my problem than I am, I think. She does not have a drinking problem herself. She cuts it off after one glass. I finish the bottle, and sometimes the remainder of her glass. Then I still want more. I open a beer, or have a shot of brandy, or whatever liquor I've got around. Then I have another, and another. Sometimes I recall going to bed, other times not. Sometimes I fall asleep on the floor of the bathroom. Sometimes I wake up with a raw hangover, other times it is barely noticeable. I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and told my wife that I need to stop drinking or I will be dead soon. I was extremely hungover. I frightened her with that statement. I can feel that something is wrong inside. That evening 5:00PM rolled around, my hangover was gone and my pain forgotten, and was time to drink again. Repeat.
This has been going on for the last 5 years or so. I went dry for 3 weeks at the beginning of this year, after I blacked out through Christmas and woke up the next morning not even realizing which presents had been given to me and from whom. Very embarrassing to say the least. I must say those 3 weeks were not as difficult as I thought they would be--more like going on a vacation, but while I enjoyed the benefits of remembering my evenings and waking up feeling good the next morning and having a clear mind all the time, I still felt an empty pit in my stomach, a profound sadness.
If I were describe the feeling of trying to quit drinking, imagine what it might feel like to lock up your best friend in a dark closet in your basement, and leaving him there to die. You can hear him crying, pleading for you to let him out, that he is starving and thirsty and suffocating. He tries to appeal to your conscience by telling stories of the all good times you have had together ("Remember when we...Wasn't that the best time you had ever had? Now please let me out!"). You find it hard to resist sitting and listening to him and smiling in your remembrance. You know you cannot let him out, because you know that he is a bad influence on you. He makes you do things you wish you hadn't. You feel good about getting rid of him on one hand but on the other you miss him terribly and hear him pleading with you. I gave in after 3 weeks, and let my old friend back out. He is still out. I need to lock him back up again, and throw away the key, and soon. I believe that if I do not do this soon I will be dead.
I have been aware that I drink too much for about 2 years now. I first started drinking when I was 17. I would go out camping in the desert with two friends of mine, with stolen alcohol from one of our father's liquor cabinet. My one friend's father was a raging alcoholic and he would always talk to me about him. He was worried he had inherited the alcoholic gene. We talked about these things while we got drunk. I lost touch with both my friends.
The addiction crept up on me over the course of 14 years. When I was in my early 20s I drank but it was only on weekends. Then years went by and it got to be a few times a week. Then it became every night.
I am writing this while I am hungover and feel a little jittery and trembling. I am at work right now. I tried to speak to a friend and co-worker, and my speech was halting and disjointed. I was trying to help him solve a problem. He knew something was wrong with me and asked. I told him it must be daylight-savings time, I'm just tired. I don't think he believed me.
I cannot focus on my work this morning because I am sick. I am still trying to catch up with Friday's work that I never finished. By this afternoon I will be back into motion, like nothing happened, nearly or completely caught up with my work, the morning sickness forgotten. By early this evening I will begin drinking again, and feeling all is right with my world, watching the evening news. Though I know that it is not. By late tonight I will be in a stupor. Tomorrow I will be hungover again.
I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. The same day keeps repeating over and over until I get it right. Except that getting it right once doesn't help, because I have to get it right the next day, and the next day after that, and keep getting it right forever. I can't make one right move and live happily ever after. I know that this is a commitment I must make, to lock my friend up forever.
I feel like John Nash ("A Beautiful Mind"), with his imaginary college roommate constantly hounding him. The more he ignores him he more his roommate pleads with him to simply acknowledge him, but he knows that he cannot indulge the fantasy. The phrase he uses to describe his way of dealing with them "a diet of the mind" is perfect.
This is what I must go on, a diet of the mind.
I am reading "Drinking, a Love Story" by Caroline Knapp. It is an engaging story, the kind that you start reading and lose track of time and cannot put down. She died so ironically, tragically, years after completing this book. I looked at her picture in a drunken stupor the other night, and tears welled up. She chose to quit drinking, when she should have chosen first to stop smoking, and the lung cancer ended her life at a young age. I stopped smoking. I haven't stopped drinking. I want a cigarette. Which is worse?
My wife doesn't understand how to help me. She loves me dearly and I her but she doesn't believe that I really have such a terrible problem. She says I should just try cut back, not quit entirely. I can't cut back, it's impossible. I've tried, believe me I've tried. It doesn't work. She doesn't understand that once the threshold is crossed, it's all or nothing. I absolutely must remain high until my brain shuts off for the night. It is far easier to not drink at all than to stop at one drink. She thinks I'm just weak.
No one can help me but me. I am afraid.
This has been going on for the last 5 years or so. I went dry for 3 weeks at the beginning of this year, after I blacked out through Christmas and woke up the next morning not even realizing which presents had been given to me and from whom. Very embarrassing to say the least. I must say those 3 weeks were not as difficult as I thought they would be--more like going on a vacation, but while I enjoyed the benefits of remembering my evenings and waking up feeling good the next morning and having a clear mind all the time, I still felt an empty pit in my stomach, a profound sadness.
If I were describe the feeling of trying to quit drinking, imagine what it might feel like to lock up your best friend in a dark closet in your basement, and leaving him there to die. You can hear him crying, pleading for you to let him out, that he is starving and thirsty and suffocating. He tries to appeal to your conscience by telling stories of the all good times you have had together ("Remember when we...Wasn't that the best time you had ever had? Now please let me out!"). You find it hard to resist sitting and listening to him and smiling in your remembrance. You know you cannot let him out, because you know that he is a bad influence on you. He makes you do things you wish you hadn't. You feel good about getting rid of him on one hand but on the other you miss him terribly and hear him pleading with you. I gave in after 3 weeks, and let my old friend back out. He is still out. I need to lock him back up again, and throw away the key, and soon. I believe that if I do not do this soon I will be dead.
I have been aware that I drink too much for about 2 years now. I first started drinking when I was 17. I would go out camping in the desert with two friends of mine, with stolen alcohol from one of our father's liquor cabinet. My one friend's father was a raging alcoholic and he would always talk to me about him. He was worried he had inherited the alcoholic gene. We talked about these things while we got drunk. I lost touch with both my friends.
The addiction crept up on me over the course of 14 years. When I was in my early 20s I drank but it was only on weekends. Then years went by and it got to be a few times a week. Then it became every night.
I am writing this while I am hungover and feel a little jittery and trembling. I am at work right now. I tried to speak to a friend and co-worker, and my speech was halting and disjointed. I was trying to help him solve a problem. He knew something was wrong with me and asked. I told him it must be daylight-savings time, I'm just tired. I don't think he believed me.
I cannot focus on my work this morning because I am sick. I am still trying to catch up with Friday's work that I never finished. By this afternoon I will be back into motion, like nothing happened, nearly or completely caught up with my work, the morning sickness forgotten. By early this evening I will begin drinking again, and feeling all is right with my world, watching the evening news. Though I know that it is not. By late tonight I will be in a stupor. Tomorrow I will be hungover again.
I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. The same day keeps repeating over and over until I get it right. Except that getting it right once doesn't help, because I have to get it right the next day, and the next day after that, and keep getting it right forever. I can't make one right move and live happily ever after. I know that this is a commitment I must make, to lock my friend up forever.
I feel like John Nash ("A Beautiful Mind"), with his imaginary college roommate constantly hounding him. The more he ignores him he more his roommate pleads with him to simply acknowledge him, but he knows that he cannot indulge the fantasy. The phrase he uses to describe his way of dealing with them "a diet of the mind" is perfect.
This is what I must go on, a diet of the mind.
I am reading "Drinking, a Love Story" by Caroline Knapp. It is an engaging story, the kind that you start reading and lose track of time and cannot put down. She died so ironically, tragically, years after completing this book. I looked at her picture in a drunken stupor the other night, and tears welled up. She chose to quit drinking, when she should have chosen first to stop smoking, and the lung cancer ended her life at a young age. I stopped smoking. I haven't stopped drinking. I want a cigarette. Which is worse?
My wife doesn't understand how to help me. She loves me dearly and I her but she doesn't believe that I really have such a terrible problem. She says I should just try cut back, not quit entirely. I can't cut back, it's impossible. I've tried, believe me I've tried. It doesn't work. She doesn't understand that once the threshold is crossed, it's all or nothing. I absolutely must remain high until my brain shuts off for the night. It is far easier to not drink at all than to stop at one drink. She thinks I'm just weak.
No one can help me but me. I am afraid.
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