This July will be seven years since I’ve drank a single drop of alcohol. I know that maybe this gets redundant to hear me discuss alcohol but I feel so strongly that one day this story will be important. Every year I have the guts to share more. The further away from the thick of it I get, the easier it is for me to detach and spill the truth.Its no secret that I can’t drink because if I do, it will ultimately lead to self destruction. The time frame is variable. Maybe I could keep it together for years. Maybe I could keep it together for weeks. Maybe days. The destruction is inevitable nonetheless. I know that because when I think of drinking, I still don’t see the point in only having one. I know that extreme. I know the feeling of floating free. I know it so well that I don’t even want to drink if I can’t feel that feeling, and that is why I don’t.
My relationship with alcohol began when I was 14. I was alone a lot. A lot. I discovered alcohol and it became a filler of the silence. Something to fill the emptiness around me, and inside me. I didn’t feel loved but I did feel something. That is where the infatuation began.It progressed as I was older and began drinking with my friends. I had no idea how to drink responsibly because for me, it didn’t begin as something I did for fun. It began as something I did to fill a void. Unfortunately there was no end to that void. So I drank and drank. I enjoyed the feeling I was floating above the world. Like nothing could touch me. I know we all enjoyed it then, but for me it went deeper. It numbed all the things I was too afriad to feel.Alcohol for me was freedom from my own mind.
Ever since I can remember my mind has been one constant stream of worst case scenarios and preparations to avoid them. Alcohol gave me freedom from that. Its the only thing that ever has. Once I got a taste of that, I wanted it all the time. I sought out people who had it and could get it for me. I made friends with people who drank often and let go of wonderful friendships with people who didn’t. I drove. I drove often. I was rebellious. Alcohol and I were on the path of destruction and I didn’t even care.I woke up places without remembering how I got there. I drove home and didn’t remember. I said hurtful things to people and didn’t remember. I lost jobs because I didn’t show up. I went to work still drunk. I drank before school. I dropped out of college. I engaged in extremely risky behavior. I cried often and I dont remember really looking at myself in the mirror much because my eyes were hollow.
Then there was the floating. I remember driving home from tecumseh with a friend and laughing and smacking road cones down out the window. Running from the cops in the woods. Singing karaoke (like actually singing). Meeting friends that I’d never talk to again. Forming deep connections with others that would help get me through. Sticking up for myself. Pushing myself to do more and be more.
There were the things I threw away. Friendships. School. Jobs. College scholarships. My dignity. My youth. The ability to sit in silence.
There was the time I wanted the high to continue so badly I almost tried heroin. (Thank God I didn’t).
I was arrested for a DUI just after I turned 21 and the judge told me that he was going to give me a hard sentence because he was afraid I would either end up dead or kill someone else. I easily could have if I would have made it off my dirt road. Unfortunately that didn’t stop me from drinking. I had a machine I had to blow into every 12 hours to make sure I was sober and I blew numbers on it twice and almost went to jail.
When I was a kid I followed the rules. I loved school. I was an excellent reader. I had friends and I loved talking to people. How does someone like that end up this way?
It progressed to the point where I was buying pints of whisky after work and mixing them with coke and drinking it on my way home so my grandma (whom I lived with at the time) didn’t know. One day she confronted me with them and it was one of the most embarrassing days of my life.I decided to quit. Finally because my stomach was in constant pain and I was legitimately concerned for my health. A few months later I was pregnant with Malachi and that sealed the deal that I would never drink again.
Today I still think about alcohol and have many times over the years. Every time I think about it, its because I want to use it to cope. I always imagine myself sitting alone at a bar somewhere. Thats how I know I can’t ever drink again. I met a mom once at AA that had just had her kids taken away for getting her 3rd DUI with them in the car this time. I think of her and her face when she told her story every time I think about taking a drink.
One thing that it left me with that I am realizing is the inability to be still. I just now have been sober the same amount of time I was not. I grew up and came into adulthood under the influence. I drank to avoid being still because it was too painful. Now I realize all the little things that I do to sort of pass the stillness habitually. Get up and clean, scroll on my phone, make a list, pick something up, turn on the TV, walk around, eat, drink something (coffee usually).
I’ve been considering how hard this is for me since we have been home. Then I realized how hard it is for so many people. So many people struggle to face what they have to face if they are forced to be still. Not just meditation still but even just sitting still and being a part of something and fully being present. I dont think you have to be addicted to something in such an intense way to struggle with that. What are we avoiding when we engage in compulsive behavior and why is it becoming more the norm?
Alcohol took so many things from me, and gave me many in return. I learned so much about what it means to be content and how to find it. I learned who I wanted to be and that I could still be that person sober. I learned about people from all walks of life and it gave me empathy I may not have otherwise. It taught me to fight for whats important to me and not stifle myself. It brought me to the love of my life.
Here’s to 7 years. Here’s to learning not to just cope but instead to feel. To be honest with myself and everyone around me about who I am. Most importantly, to just be still. 💜
Confessions of an Elephant Momma 