I was going to start a new blog. No commitment, no accountability. When I started this blog, it was because I was about to go on a journey, thousands of miles away, full of spirit and hope and faith. So much potential. So little worries.
I left that day in September of 2011 without an ounce of anxiety or panic. It was what I was supposed to be doing. I had this unworldly calm about leaving everything I knew and held dear to embark on a journey. From New York, to Virginia, to Tennessee, to Texas, and back to Virginia until the winter was winding down. Then, from Virginia to Pittsburgh to join up with a dear friend of mine. From there we traveled to strange lands. We saw the worlds largest totem pole. From Pittsburgh to Oklahoma in one day’s travel where we stayed at the creepiest hotel in almost all of America.
We had tons of fun, despite our lunacy. The Texas Panhandle was my favorite, because there was crazy wind there. Roswell, NM was a sad disappointment. Terrible, really, with car lots and fast food restaurants galore. It was fun, though, and I’ll cherish those memories forever.
Today, however, I am nothing to be proud of. I made a terrible friend in Oregon, and because I had no idea how to handle so much duplicity and misguided guilt and strong emotions, I found out that alcohol was a sort of…friend…to get me through the difficult times.
The first time I ever got drunk was on my 30th birthday, and you know what? It was kind of fantastic. I laughed more, enjoyed more, and I lived more. For the first few years alcohol wasn’t necessarily a coping mechanism, but a way to relax. It was a way to relax and just have fun with friends. It was a way to just be a less inhibited me.
Then it became a coping mechanism. After that said “friend” had manipulated me and done her best to make me the bad guy, I realized that drinking helped me regulate the emotions I felt during this two year period where the “friend” basically had me cornered between a rock and a hard place. She had me guilted into paying her bills, and for feeding her cats and buying her litter. When she said she hated living with me (subconsciously I was trying to get her to leave, I think) I said, “Fine! No one is keeping you here! Leave!” I remember it like it was yesterday, even though I had had a few shots before she got home, because just the idea of running into her made my anxiety shoot through the roof. It was the only way I wasn’t curling into a ball and crying myself into death. And then…
and then she ran into the living room where her two kids sat watching a movie or something of the like, and wildly told them that I was kicking them out, that they’d be homeless, and it was all my fault. With no idea how to combat this, I walked out there, sat on the chair, awkwardly because I had only dealt with this kind of manic behavior with one other person (and I ran as far away from that as I could) and told them, calmly, that that’s not what I said. I said, “Your mom doesn’t want to live here,” I shrugged, probably even more awkwardly than I can admit to. “I’m sorry, guys, that’s not what I said.”
The kids just sat there, looking at me, while their mom stomped back to her room where she slammed the door. As calmly as I could, I walked back there and tried to reason with her. “Have you been drinking?” she shrieked. I said no, vehemently, but I knew she didn’t believe me. There was no way I was admitting that I was using alcohol to deal with her borderline personality. That would mean I was using alcohol to deal with life, and I was not that person. I used to say anyone who didn’t remember the night before because they were drinking was lying. I was not an alcoholic. I was lying.
And here we are, October of 2017. The end of October, 2017.
And I am an alcoholic.
First it started with maybe once a week. Then three times a week. Then one week on, one week off. Then every other day. Then every day.
I’m not proud of it. I’ve beaten myself up almost daily after the fact because of it. I left Oregon because of it. The more I hated myself for it, the more I drank, and the more I drank, the more depressed I’d become. The more depressed, the more I drank… It’s a vicious cycle.
It was June. People at work complained about me. I had a “scent”. It wasn’t B.O., it wasn’t exactly disgusting but it bothered people – they knew, I’m sure of it, but wouldn’t say anything directly. My boss, who should have given up on me long ago talked to me for the fifth, or sixth time. She said I could go home early, recover. Heartbroken, rejected, depressed, dejected, I went home and drank. All night and into the morning.
I called her, sobbing, because I couldn’t go into work. Not like this. I had been sobbing all night, sleeping, waking up to drink, then sleeping again. She asked me if I wanted help. Buzzed, I sobbed harder and said yes.
I was in the ER for maybe three hours. It felt like ten days. I was keeping my boss from her husband who recently had a stroke. She asked if there was anyone I could call. There was only one person. Two weeks before this, I told my sis in law that I was struggling with drinking. My boss called her, told her that I was in the hospital because of this, and that same day sis in law flew out to Oregon. My boss stood by my side in the meantime, took my dejected, sorry ass out for lunch. We stopped at an estate sale. Then she took me home and told me to rest, sleep. Sis would be here by evening.
Instead of resting, I cleaned. In my couple year depression I let a lot slide. So I worked hard to make my house inhabitable. To not be as gross as I had allowed my existence to become.
I was gross.
Cue my worst nightmare. Growing up, I tried to be invisible so that I wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar. I exhausted normalcy, trying to be nothing in a world of everything. But then I became my worst nightmare, and the hatred of myself exploded with joyous noise.
Long story a tad short, alcohol became my loyal friend. It would sooth me, protect me, calm me at times of unease; but in the end it would and will destroy me.
I’m writing this because I want to drink right now. I want to be alone, but I really don’t want to be alone with myself. Why? Because I’ve come to hate who I am without alcohol. It’s harder to be honest with people. It’s harder to be myself. It’s harder to exist. It’s harder to be honest with myself. But, surprise, all the alcohol in the world can’t solve my problems, or make me a better person.
I started out with good, solid intentions, then came crawling back an absolute failure.
I don’t know if I’m better now.
I still wish I could drink my problems away.
If only I could be myself without the inhibition of alcohol as a buffer.
Heartfelt Ramblings 