Yes, we are much the same in the symptoms of our addiction:
Our inability to stop drinking after one or two even with the best of
intentions. The chronic and progressive nature of our condition which gets
worse even as we are battling hard against it. The negative consequences of our
drinking from physical distress to relationship problems, to financial and
legal problems. The tendency to relapse after varying periods of sobriety.
But we are each also very different, each a unique traveler
along the path of addiction and recovery. In spite of the effort of
psychologists, behaviorists, treatment experts, and members of certain recovery
groups to simply stamp us as “alkies,” as if grading a piece of meat or
labeling a bacterium growing in a Petri dish, those differences are crucial to
how we got here and how we can get out.
Perhaps that is why alcoholism blogs and memoirs are so
popular. We each want to tell our story, have it heard and affirmed. We also
want to help others who chafe at being labeled and cast aside and let them know
that “one size does not fit all,” and accepting our differences as well as our
similarities is what true community and support is about.
And like so many others, that is why I started this blog: to
tell MY STORY in a way no addiction counselor or researcher in a lab coat can
do.
Right from the start, my experience with addiction varies
from the standard. I was never neglected, nor physically or sexually abused by
my parents. They showered me with love and affection. I still hold onto the
belief that had my mother lived longer, she would have prevented the worst of
my alcoholism from taking hold by sheer force of her will.
There were a couple of traumatic experiences however. For a
couple years, my paternal grandmother lived with my parents and me and even
though she spoke only Polish, we became fast friends. At age 3, I had been out
grocery shopping with my mom and when we came home, we found my grandmother had
died in her bed of an apparent stroke. There is much family lore that states I
did not find the body, that by some
quirk of fate or Divine Providence I had gone straight to my own room instead
of to hers as was my habit. Yet, there is a nagging question in my mind: What
did I know and when did I know it? Had I found her and in terror simply run to
my room to hide? And if I truly had not found her, what explanation was I given
for her disappearance from my life? I will never know the full truth, but I do
know that experiencing death first-hand at age 3 left an impression that could
never be erased.
Then, when I was 8, an aunt who doted on me became ill. She
had blinding headaches and visual disturbances. I remember the family gathered
at her home one Sunday afternoon when she expressed her fear of having a brain
tumor. Someone of the relatives remarked (pointlessly), “If you had a brain
tumor, you would know it.” Well, she did know it. Within two weeks she was dead
after unsuccessful surgery to remove the mass. I asked my mother, the font of
all knowledge to me, what caused this to happen. She answered truthfully, “No
one knows.” My fear of illness and death was now firmly imprinted on me and I
became a 8-year-old hypochondriac, sure that death was lurking around every
door.
Even aside from these traumas, my childhood was not perfect.
I was too smart, too shy, and too fat. This led to bullying from classmates and
teachers alike. I find that kind of bullying and rejection to be a kind of
recurrent trigger to my drinking, but it was not the cause of my alcoholism. It was just another reason to drink once I
had become an addict.
I was never a party girl. So many books have been written
lately about the relationship between having fun and drinking to excess. None
of these resonate with me. If I went to a party, I might drink one beer, but
nothing about the experience spelled “FUN” to me.
I was also a late bloomer. I didn’t drink in high school.
The legal drinking age wavered back and forth between 18 and 21 when I was in
college, but regardless, I bypassed the spiked punch bowl or keg in favor of a
soda and was happy to call it a night.
The one red flag was that my parents were daily drinkers.
This was the age of the Drapers or Mad Men fame where a martini or two before
dinner was a status symbol on the level of a nice car or a house in the
suburbs. For the vast majority, it was a completely benign experience and once
I was in my 20’s and working full time, I partook of the after work cocktail as
my just reward for a hard day’s work.
In fact, there first two times in my life I got drunk were
purely by accident. I had a job where I worked with a group of salesmen and we
were all attending an out of town conference when the guys decided to strip me
of my alcoholic virginity by getting me as drunk as possible. They succeeded,
although with my low tolerance, it wasn’t that difficult. I was plied with
drinks (maybe 5 in total), getting refills before I had finished the one I was
nursing. Finally, I staggered to my hotel room and found to my horror that when
I lay down on my bed, the room would not stop spinning. I passed out and woke
the next morning with a massive hangover (actually a sign that I was not alcoholic at that time). I had a
pounding headache could not keep any liquid down including Alka-Seltzer or
ginger ale. I spent the morning vomiting continuously and came to the
conclusion that death was both inevitable and desirable. By mid-afternoon, I
sipped a full sugar Coke and my stomach settled along with my head. Maybe that
is why to this day, I am a Coke person rather than a Pepsi drinker. After, Coca-Cola
had saved my life!
By the end of the conference day, groups were forming for
more partying. A female co-worker tried her best to get me to come along. “We won’t drink, just sit with the guys.” I
was having none of it. I picked at a meat loaf dinner in the hotel coffee shop
and went directly to bed, in spite of her frequent calls to my room begging me
to join her in the fun.
I vowed never to drink again.
Of course, the mind plays great tricks with physical pain
and I soon returned to my daily drinking habit, when I found that one drink
would NOT trigger the horrors of that first drunken experience. What I didn’t
realize during this time period of perhaps 5 years, was that I was slowly
building a tolerance to alcohol which I hadn’t had when I first got drunk.
Then the second event. By this time I was well-established
in my job as a computer programmer and had friends at work with whom I shared
outside interests. One of these groups played golf once a week at a short
9-hole course after work. On this particular occasion, we planned to follow our
round of golf with dinner at Los Banditos, a Mexican restaurant popular with
young professionals. What we hadn’t counted on was the heat. I live in Milwaukee Artic
Circle
Now, I shake my head at my own and our collective ignorance.
How hard would it have been to ask the waitress for a pitcher of ice water to
go with the Margaritas? Instead we drank the sweet tequila-laced drinks like
soft drinks and got sillier and rowdier and drunker as it became clear we would
be in no condition to eat dinner if a table ever did open up. Eventually, we
decided to call it a nigh and each proceeded to drive home. Even though I was not stopped that night, it was the
worst episode of drunk driving I have ever committed even compared with the
nights I drove drunk during my full-on alcoholic days. I remember laughing
uproariously as I sped down the freeway, taking my hands off the wheel for the
sheer joy(?) of it. Somehow I got home, passed out in bed and woke the next day
with Hangover Number 2. The irony of the Day After was classic. Since I was
late getting to work, I was speeding on the freeway and pulled over by a
sheriff’s deputy. I had this bizarre conversation with the cop where he asked
if I had any idea why there were more traffic accidents in the Milwaukee Milwaukee
