The worst part about alcoholism, for me, is the crushing loneliness. I have always felt loneliest at 4am after an evening of binge drinking. You've been there, right? When you wake up with your head in flames, unable to remember the end of the night, wondering if you said or did something really stupid? The scent of liquor wraps around your teeth while you lie there in a pile of twisted bedsheets, gnarled like your heart, knowing you are better than all of this. If not, consider yourself blessed. This loneliness is accompanied by the feeling of being physically parched, monumentally depressed, and aching from the booze in our veins we swore just the night before we'd stop drinking, or use "in moderation." Almost every one of these nights begins with a promise of having only one or two.
My third and fourth year of college were defined by alcohol abuse. They were also two of the loneliest years of my life. It wasn't that I had no friends - I was surrounded by good people in the form of drinking buddies, suitemates, and people who studied what I studied. Yet, every morning I woke up hungover, having blacked out in most cases, I was so alone in my body that I just wanted desperately to go back to sleep. But alcohol wasn't that kind to me. I couldn't sleep because of the guilt and other shitty feelings that I drank to numb in the first place. Alcoholism wraps its fiendish robe around your body and hisses in your ear with a forked tongue and snake eyes that if you trust it, your problems will be solved. The sadness will disappear and you will be happy. If you just have one or two, you can loosen up. You deserve it. You work hard. I'll tell you what: it takes a great liar to convince us to destroy ourselves night after night.
I often liken alcoholism to what I imagine it would be like to be a vampire. And not the cute Twilight variety. I mean someone who prowls the world alone in darkness, forever feeding without real satisfaction. A hungry ghost. Alone in our misery, we continually hurt people and receive very little empathy from those who think of us as monsters. And so we hide our addiction by minimizing how drunk we really were, we cover up the pain with laughter and swear to our acquaintances that we "haven't been that drunk in a long time," and we become lonelier and lonelier as a result. Eventually we begin to forget who we really were as humans because we devote so much time and energy to feeling guilty, or lying. Eventually we become so cunning that we can fake our former personalities, all the while starving for a drink while our true selves call out from within us, like a person buried under ice.
The best advice I can give to someone who is struggling with alcoholism is: talk to someone about it. Right now. You don't have to be alone. The difference between being a vampire and being an addict is that recovering addicts are EVERYWHERE. And most of the ones I have met are deeply wise, compassionate (and really funny) people. We work in restaurants, we are postal workers, we are students, we are the person changing your oil, some of us go to the gym, and we are all bonded by the reality that we need support from one another. Your sobriety is just as important to me as mine is to you. For every messed up thing that has ever happened to you because of alcohol, know that someone else has been there. And someone else has conquered it. Know that you can be free from the lies and the pain and the 4am regrets. You owe it to yourself to really love yourself - and send that snake straight back to hell.
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When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
Hey Adam....good to see ya! Yup for over 25 yrs from a young child of 11/12 yrs until DEC.2nd 1984,I kept telling myself I was one of those who could have just a couple to "loosen up"Denial/jails,institutions,obvious forms of deriliction and only thru God's grace and mercy I didn't die(many of my posse didn't make it)I talked a little about it and always concluded I can just stop anytime so im okay.I just couldn't come to grips that I couldn't STAY STOPPED,it was always that first one that set off the ride on the downbound train.iT WAS ONLY THRU ADMISSION,SURRENDER AND ACCEPTANCE,that I was able to "come back to life" and find a new way to live a day at a time incorporating spiritual principles in the actions /attitudes and behaviors of my life.I have a disease and I can not pick up EVER I recover a day at a time but I am never cured,any one bad decision could lead me off on oblivion again so its important I remain aware,grateful and continue to work on all areas of my life and give back what I have been given a true acknowlegment of the many spiritual awarenesses and awakenings I have had thru the years in recovery.Stay focused and working ,day at a time,and yup be none of them 4:00am regrets of wondering what you did now?? Lucidity such a wonderful state,granted by the God of our understanding and some continued daily spiritual work.......Thanks for sharing.....Just For Today I never have to use again!
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Excellent writing and, more importantly, an excellent message to share here. Thank you. :)
-- Edited by vixen on Tuesday 25th of September 2012 10:08:18 AM
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I think there's an invisible principle of living...if we believe we're guided through every step of our lives, we are. Its a lovely sight, watching it work.
