Hi! |
I snuck a shot of vanilla extract at the age of five from
the pantry at home. Then, later in high school, alcohol helped me to invent
myself as something new, because I was an awkward, uncomfortable, unconfident,
picked on, felt uncomfortable in my skin and viewed as a somewhat “weird” kid. Now I know much of my undiagnosed ADD, ASD and OCD was a big part of that perception. Children like
myself, with the more minor traits of these weren't diagnosed or treated, so I
just found I was getting in trouble a lot.
The first chance I could, and with a fake ID, I self-treated
with alcohol, partied a lot, standing out as someone that fit in that way. It
fucking worked! I still didn’t do things in conventional ways, especially drink
and use drugs the way others did. When it became obvious and people started to
show concern about my drinking and had the courage to tell me, I was more
likely to celebrate that fact than to try to change. I liked that it stood out,
and how I felt about alcohol it became what I was made up of. My parents even
bought me a copy of A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill, and I was
disappointed that it wasn’t an alcohol manifesto. (I mean, cool, a dinking
life! I have that too!) I identified alcohol as my solution.
Then things in my life started going worse. "Normal" people were settling down and I was still out there like I was in college. Like that song, the lights go out, the music dies--but I was still dancing without lights, swaying within a dance of more. When you hit early to mid-thirties into your forties you should no longer act and get wasted like you were in your teens and twenties.
I drove drunk often as well, perhaps four times per week on
average. Besides that, I put others at risk, others even traveling in the same
car as me. I’d drive with beer in a cooler on the passenger seat with my
children in the back. I’ve driven blacked out and grayed out. I was eventually
going to kill myself doing this, or I'd just kill myself. I certainly wanted
to, but I was too chicken. What I really wanted was to live, I just don’t want
to be in pain. I wanted to quit drinking, but I still wanted to be able to
drink. I was still the same misfit, who didn't fit in, but now I was a
seriously beaten one.
Then I stopped. I quit with the help of others, and nearly everything in my
life got better.