Probably not the right place for this, but what the hell... :)
never again--one day at a time
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Join Date: May 2009
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Probably not the right place for this, but what the hell... :)
So I had to write a paper for my health class: "How has alcohol, drugs (legal, illegal, and prescription) or smoking affected your life physically, emotionally, socially, and/or spiritually?" Below is my paper--I submitted it already and now I'm freaking out a little because it turned into an AA share instead of you know...a health class paper. 
But I didn't really know how to talk about my alcoholism any other way...so now I'm going to share with you guys. At least you'll understand what I mean and maybe it can help someone...no matter what grade I get or how much I over shared by normal world standards. yee.
oh! and this is my first post on SR but I've lurked for a while. I feel like I know so many of you but you don't know me of course. so I guess this is my "formal introduction."
***
I honestly don’t know where to start answering this question. I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. I spent my late teens and early 20s in perpetual fight with alcohol. I’ve been an everything to excess, black out drunk from the very beginning. I have never had a “social drink” in my life. I don’t think I really understand the concept, frankly. Eventually I acquired a taste for alcohol and developed favorite drinks and brands, but in the beginning I couldn’t stand the stuff. Why would anyone bother with it except to get drunk? Of course drunk was amazing. I wasn’t shy, bookish, uptight or afraid. If I said something stupid, who cares! We’re drunk! It doesn’t count! I was confident, witty smart, and beautiful…or so I thought. Most importantly however, the voices in my head, the ones telling me what a screw up I was, that I’d never amount to anything, that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, that I’d always be on the outside looking in...they finally shut up.
Like I said above, I had a blackout the very first time I drank at 16. It scared me enough not to touch the stuff again until nearly two years later. But I couldn’t forget that feeling. Eventually I decided I would “just learn to control myself.” I just needed practice, that’s all. Where better place to practice than (big university)?
I kept a pretty good balance fall term between partying and school. I made some poor decisions drinking and there were lots of holes in my nights….but that’s what college is about right? However by spring, I was on academic probation with a 1.76 GPA. My best friend wasn’t speaking to me because of my behavior. I woke up at 4pm most days and was usually drinking by 6pm. The bad decisions, the depression, the regret, the shame…they got worse with every passing day.
By the time spring break rolled around, I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. While I was home, I found an old copy of the AA big book in a stack of books headed for the thrift shop. Curious, I read the first couple of chapters. It scared me. Alcoholism runs in my family and according to this, I was well on my way. But of course I wasn’t an alcoholic. I’d never tried to stop!
I didn’t drink for the next 4 years. In the meantime, I became very involved in a religious denomination that frowns on drinking. I moved back to my hometown, got married, did some volunteer work and took a job waitressing at a local restaurant. Life was really good for a long time. However, I didn’t have any friends. I was really lonely. My husband was gone a lot due to his job. I also didn’t fit into the religious community in my hometown as well as I did in (big university town). Eventually I grew away from that denomination…and with that, lost my reason for not drinking. I rationalized it by thinking “Oh, I was a kid! I was in college. It will be different this time.”
It wasn’t different. Just like before, it started out great! I made new friends, got to spend a lot of time with my brother who had just moved back to town, and found that sense of well being and belonging that alcohol always gives. My tiny little life in my tiny little town was finally fun! Within a year, however I was right back to sleeping all day, drinking all night and spending all my money. I still managed to make it to work, but I was continually sick. I didn’t eat. I just drank. I was making bad and embarrassing decisions. I felt wretched, useless and pathetic…which just made me want to drink more. My behavior baffled my husband, who hadn’t been around me when I was drinking the first time. We fought all the time. He just didn’t understand me! He just wanted to control me! My thinking was all screwed up.
I vaguely remembered life being more manageable when I didn’t drink. It was almost a new year, so I decided I wouldn’t drink for three months starting January 1. I would try to get my life back in order. My brother killed himself February 13th of that year. I spent the six months sober and in therapy, learning about addiction and depression, making sure that I didn’t make the same decision he did. But I still had all the same issues: still lonely, still not comfortable with myself. The only way I knew how to be social and make friends was join people for drinks after work. “I’m medicated now. I know so much. It will be ok. I can control it.”
Only it wasn’t and I couldn’t. I ended up in the hospital more times than I can count for more reasons than I care to go into. I fought with my husband all the time over my drinking. I started hiding bottles around the house because if my husband found booze, he’d pour it out. I threw away empties in the neighbor’s can in the middle of the night or in the dumpster at work so my husband wouldn’t see I’d been drinking and how much I’d had. After I quit, I found empties in the strangest places: in a suitcase, under the bathroom sink, in the back of closets we never open and in drawers underneath clothes I don’t wear. I often lied about where I was and who I was with to avoid questions. I drank at home alone a lot to avoid the consequences of drinking around others. I thought about alcohol constantly, whether I was drinking or not. The fear, the sneaking, the lying, the constant conniving and intricate plans involved in figuring out when/where/how I could drink again (and the equally intricate plans I fabricated to avoid drinking on any given day) made me feel absolutely worthless, disgusting and out of control on a level I hadn’t felt before. There was no room for any good thought, action or connection to anything. The whole thing was a really bad TV movie…and this time I couldn’t stop. Even when I put all of my will and determination behind my decision, I could only put three or four days together before I just couldn’t take living in my head anymore. Even an hour or two of respite from feeling the way I did was worth any potential consequences…or so I thought in the moment. But I wasn’t an alcoholic. Nope. I had a job (the same job for 9 years!), a house, a car. My marriage had problems but he hadn’t left me. The rest of my family hadn’t said anything about my drinking. I was rarely out of control in public. I didn’t drive drunk or get in trouble with the police…on and on and on. No way could I be an alcoholic….
What finally made me stop? I can only describe it as Divine Intervention. It’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. I was at a party and very good friend who is involved in Al Anon was telling me about a situation where she put up boundaries with her alcoholic. While she was telling her story, I was granted a moment of clarity, just one moment, where I saw exactly what I was (an alcoholic totally out of control) and how I was effecting others. She had described this person as an alcoholic many times, but before that night she’d never really detailed how he drank. This time, in this story, he was me and I was him.
I walked into my first AA meeting the next day. If you’re an alcoholic, that’s where you should go right? It’s in the name after all. Through the 12 steps, I’ve found a connection with a something bigger than me. A huge part of that was reconnecting with God, but there’s more to it than that. I had never met anyone who had managed to live life without alcohol that I could relate to. For years I’d felt crazy and alone. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Now there were whole rooms full of people who thought really similarly to me at one time. They described the emptiness, the hopelessness, the humiliation, the guilt, the obsession and the insanity so perfectly and completely they must have experienced it…but some them of swore up and down it wasn’t like that for them anymore most of the time. They even seemed content! I was so broken and hopeless when I walked in that door, I needed to believe them. I needed to believe that there was another option than the pitiful cycle of drinking and waiting to drink that made up my life at that time.
So I did what they told me they did….and it worked. I am ok with being me today…happy even, most of the time. On the days I’m not, have learned tools to relieve whatever is troubling me without picking up a drink. I’m learning how to be nicer to myself, clean up the messes I made, and live in the present. Because I don’t spend as much time creating problems or fighting with myself or thinking about what a screw up I am or what I should have done or how unfair everything is and on and on and on, there’s a lot more room in my life to help others and be a useful member of humanity. I have the opportunity to work on my marriage, my friendships, my spirituality and my mental health. I also have a core group of people I can turn to when I’m lost and scared, who’ve been where I am and give me hope.
A lot of people and institutions have tried to teach me these concepts over and over throughout my life. Most of them are pretty basic parts of being a human being…but I’ve never quite been able to grasp it before. It’s weird, but I’m pretty grateful to be an alcoholic today—I don’t know that I would have learned this stuff if I wasn’t. Then again, I’m pretty grateful for just about everything today so I guess it’s not that weird after all.
But I didn't really know how to talk about my alcoholism any other way...so now I'm going to share with you guys. At least you'll understand what I mean and maybe it can help someone...no matter what grade I get or how much I over shared by normal world standards. yee.oh! and this is my first post on SR but I've lurked for a while. I feel like I know so many of you but you don't know me of course. so I guess this is my "formal introduction."
***
I honestly don’t know where to start answering this question. I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. I spent my late teens and early 20s in perpetual fight with alcohol. I’ve been an everything to excess, black out drunk from the very beginning. I have never had a “social drink” in my life. I don’t think I really understand the concept, frankly. Eventually I acquired a taste for alcohol and developed favorite drinks and brands, but in the beginning I couldn’t stand the stuff. Why would anyone bother with it except to get drunk? Of course drunk was amazing. I wasn’t shy, bookish, uptight or afraid. If I said something stupid, who cares! We’re drunk! It doesn’t count! I was confident, witty smart, and beautiful…or so I thought. Most importantly however, the voices in my head, the ones telling me what a screw up I was, that I’d never amount to anything, that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, that I’d always be on the outside looking in...they finally shut up.
Like I said above, I had a blackout the very first time I drank at 16. It scared me enough not to touch the stuff again until nearly two years later. But I couldn’t forget that feeling. Eventually I decided I would “just learn to control myself.” I just needed practice, that’s all. Where better place to practice than (big university)?
I kept a pretty good balance fall term between partying and school. I made some poor decisions drinking and there were lots of holes in my nights….but that’s what college is about right? However by spring, I was on academic probation with a 1.76 GPA. My best friend wasn’t speaking to me because of my behavior. I woke up at 4pm most days and was usually drinking by 6pm. The bad decisions, the depression, the regret, the shame…they got worse with every passing day.
By the time spring break rolled around, I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. While I was home, I found an old copy of the AA big book in a stack of books headed for the thrift shop. Curious, I read the first couple of chapters. It scared me. Alcoholism runs in my family and according to this, I was well on my way. But of course I wasn’t an alcoholic. I’d never tried to stop!
I didn’t drink for the next 4 years. In the meantime, I became very involved in a religious denomination that frowns on drinking. I moved back to my hometown, got married, did some volunteer work and took a job waitressing at a local restaurant. Life was really good for a long time. However, I didn’t have any friends. I was really lonely. My husband was gone a lot due to his job. I also didn’t fit into the religious community in my hometown as well as I did in (big university town). Eventually I grew away from that denomination…and with that, lost my reason for not drinking. I rationalized it by thinking “Oh, I was a kid! I was in college. It will be different this time.”
It wasn’t different. Just like before, it started out great! I made new friends, got to spend a lot of time with my brother who had just moved back to town, and found that sense of well being and belonging that alcohol always gives. My tiny little life in my tiny little town was finally fun! Within a year, however I was right back to sleeping all day, drinking all night and spending all my money. I still managed to make it to work, but I was continually sick. I didn’t eat. I just drank. I was making bad and embarrassing decisions. I felt wretched, useless and pathetic…which just made me want to drink more. My behavior baffled my husband, who hadn’t been around me when I was drinking the first time. We fought all the time. He just didn’t understand me! He just wanted to control me! My thinking was all screwed up.
I vaguely remembered life being more manageable when I didn’t drink. It was almost a new year, so I decided I wouldn’t drink for three months starting January 1. I would try to get my life back in order. My brother killed himself February 13th of that year. I spent the six months sober and in therapy, learning about addiction and depression, making sure that I didn’t make the same decision he did. But I still had all the same issues: still lonely, still not comfortable with myself. The only way I knew how to be social and make friends was join people for drinks after work. “I’m medicated now. I know so much. It will be ok. I can control it.”
Only it wasn’t and I couldn’t. I ended up in the hospital more times than I can count for more reasons than I care to go into. I fought with my husband all the time over my drinking. I started hiding bottles around the house because if my husband found booze, he’d pour it out. I threw away empties in the neighbor’s can in the middle of the night or in the dumpster at work so my husband wouldn’t see I’d been drinking and how much I’d had. After I quit, I found empties in the strangest places: in a suitcase, under the bathroom sink, in the back of closets we never open and in drawers underneath clothes I don’t wear. I often lied about where I was and who I was with to avoid questions. I drank at home alone a lot to avoid the consequences of drinking around others. I thought about alcohol constantly, whether I was drinking or not. The fear, the sneaking, the lying, the constant conniving and intricate plans involved in figuring out when/where/how I could drink again (and the equally intricate plans I fabricated to avoid drinking on any given day) made me feel absolutely worthless, disgusting and out of control on a level I hadn’t felt before. There was no room for any good thought, action or connection to anything. The whole thing was a really bad TV movie…and this time I couldn’t stop. Even when I put all of my will and determination behind my decision, I could only put three or four days together before I just couldn’t take living in my head anymore. Even an hour or two of respite from feeling the way I did was worth any potential consequences…or so I thought in the moment. But I wasn’t an alcoholic. Nope. I had a job (the same job for 9 years!), a house, a car. My marriage had problems but he hadn’t left me. The rest of my family hadn’t said anything about my drinking. I was rarely out of control in public. I didn’t drive drunk or get in trouble with the police…on and on and on. No way could I be an alcoholic….
What finally made me stop? I can only describe it as Divine Intervention. It’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. I was at a party and very good friend who is involved in Al Anon was telling me about a situation where she put up boundaries with her alcoholic. While she was telling her story, I was granted a moment of clarity, just one moment, where I saw exactly what I was (an alcoholic totally out of control) and how I was effecting others. She had described this person as an alcoholic many times, but before that night she’d never really detailed how he drank. This time, in this story, he was me and I was him.
I walked into my first AA meeting the next day. If you’re an alcoholic, that’s where you should go right? It’s in the name after all. Through the 12 steps, I’ve found a connection with a something bigger than me. A huge part of that was reconnecting with God, but there’s more to it than that. I had never met anyone who had managed to live life without alcohol that I could relate to. For years I’d felt crazy and alone. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Now there were whole rooms full of people who thought really similarly to me at one time. They described the emptiness, the hopelessness, the humiliation, the guilt, the obsession and the insanity so perfectly and completely they must have experienced it…but some them of swore up and down it wasn’t like that for them anymore most of the time. They even seemed content! I was so broken and hopeless when I walked in that door, I needed to believe them. I needed to believe that there was another option than the pitiful cycle of drinking and waiting to drink that made up my life at that time.
So I did what they told me they did….and it worked. I am ok with being me today…happy even, most of the time. On the days I’m not, have learned tools to relieve whatever is troubling me without picking up a drink. I’m learning how to be nicer to myself, clean up the messes I made, and live in the present. Because I don’t spend as much time creating problems or fighting with myself or thinking about what a screw up I am or what I should have done or how unfair everything is and on and on and on, there’s a lot more room in my life to help others and be a useful member of humanity. I have the opportunity to work on my marriage, my friendships, my spirituality and my mental health. I also have a core group of people I can turn to when I’m lost and scared, who’ve been where I am and give me hope.
A lot of people and institutions have tried to teach me these concepts over and over throughout my life. Most of them are pretty basic parts of being a human being…but I’ve never quite been able to grasp it before. It’s weird, but I’m pretty grateful to be an alcoholic today—I don’t know that I would have learned this stuff if I wasn’t. Then again, I’m pretty grateful for just about everything today so I guess it’s not that weird after all.
Last edited by zizanie; 11-06-2009 at 11:56 PM.
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Hey, obviously I haven't seen the actual wording of your Health teacher's assignment, but, just based on you said about it, this paper seems excellent to me! Thanks for sharing it here!
freya
freya
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Posts: 180
>>11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.<<
Hi Pagekeeper,
Can't think why you think that tradition applies here? I wrote papers on my AA program in just about every class I took after retiring from the Navy and using my GI Bill benefits. I majored at the junior college level in Psychology and at San Diego State in the double major of Philosophy and Relgious Studies. I was on either the Presidents list or the Deans list every semester. When you have learned wisdom, want desperately to pass it on, nothing pleases a professor more than learning from a student's paper so that she/he can pass it on as well. That's why they're in that profession. I'm betting she gets an A+ . . . and she deserves it. Blessings - Chuck
Hi Pagekeeper,
Can't think why you think that tradition applies here? I wrote papers on my AA program in just about every class I took after retiring from the Navy and using my GI Bill benefits. I majored at the junior college level in Psychology and at San Diego State in the double major of Philosophy and Relgious Studies. I was on either the Presidents list or the Deans list every semester. When you have learned wisdom, want desperately to pass it on, nothing pleases a professor more than learning from a student's paper so that she/he can pass it on as well. That's why they're in that profession. I'm betting she gets an A+ . . . and she deserves it. Blessings - Chuck
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