I needed a stiff drink at six years old when my mother had to pry my fingers off the mailbox post to get me to go to school. I can remember holding on to that post like it was yesterday.
I blamed my problem with other kids and teachers on so many things for so long. Bad parenting, being raised in the country in isolation, caretaking for a sick baby sister, being a sissy, being unattractive, ad infinitum. Turns out, I just need a shot of tequila.
My real problems began when my parents threw me out of the house and made me go to first grade every day. Spending the day with a bunch of barbaric hooligans and a psychotic nun was terrifying to me, and it did not get any better until the summer after my sophomore year in high school. The nine years in-between consisted of dreading going to school, getting there at the last possible second to avoid encountering any of the natives, trying to be invisible all day, being teased, truing to hide humiliation, getting out of Dodge the second the bell rang at the end of the day and again back to the stomach-churning dread of having to go again the next day.
I was a bully's dream come true. I had a target on me the size of Dallas. I lived in such shame for not being able to fight back. I talked to no one about it, I was very, very angry. I just kept telling myself that one day we would be adults and it would be better. I used to pray that when I woke up I would be an adult. I had such hate in me for those happy, shiny people at school.
When the Columbine shootings occurred, right or wrong, I immediately felt compassion for the shooters. Why? Because, I remember vividly sitting in class making my mental list. Visualizing myself bringing a gun and shooting them. Who was first, who was second, etc. Of course, I could not be more grateful today, that I could not do it. Primarily because they did not in any way deserve it and secondly many of them became wonderful friends later - after that magical summer when I was 15. The summer when my friend's older sister agreed to buy us a bottle of liquor and drive us around the country roads and let us get drunk for the first time. That girl saved my life.
Finding liquor was the turning point for me. Before, I had been plagued by a condition that caused all the witty and intelligent thoughts in my brain to vanish the moment attention was turned on me, rendering me a bumbling idiot around the people that I so wanted approval from. Then this magical substance appears that allows my real thoughts and words to come out of my mouth. It allowed me to be funny, more comfortable and finally to fit-in and make friends.
So began great years with great folks. Alcohol-and-drugs was my medicine, not my problem. When alcohol turned on me and spun my life out of control, I had to put it away lest I be locked up or die. I am convinced without the drinks and drugs I would have committed suicide long ago. I truly believe it kept me alive for a very long time.
Now I am back to where I started - living life with this condition of mine, this disease, this dysfunction - whatever you wish to call it - without my medicine. Bottom line is for whatever reason, I am not equipped to negotiate life and people with help. An attempt at a spiritual life through a 12-step program is now doing for me what alcohol did for me for so long without the crazy side effects. I owe my wonderful life, my friendships, my sanity all to a very wonderful group of people.
So, if you are still enjoying your alcohol, my hat is off to you, and please have a stiff belt of very expensive tequila for me. nom, nom, nom
Hold that thought…
James
Great story, I saw some of my life in it, especially the alcohol, I drank myself into blackouts more than a few times. Years ago I tamed it down alot. Now I can have the odd social drink. Thanks for sharing, not many would admit to these feelings about themselves or share them. When I said some of those words, people stop me and say it isn't true. I can look in a mirror and plainly see, I am not a Brad Pitt look-a-like, so don't patronize me, they didn't get me.
ReplyDeleteJamesy,
ReplyDeleteI love this... Thank you for your wonderful, thoughtful writing. I miss you often, our coffee talks, leaning against you in meetings because i know we would've been famous friends in that other life.
Heart you,
Risa
True dat!
ReplyDeleteAlcohol was a *wonder drug* for me! It allowed me to "come out of my shell" and do things I could never bring myself to do sober. Things other people take for granted - hit on girls, stand up to guys bigger than me, and speak my mind without fear of repercussions. I was finally able to be the man I wanted to be!
Had it not been for alcohol, I probably would have stayed in my quiet little corner forever. Maybe I would've been a stamp collector or something. I don't know if I would have ever discovered myself, or even "became" myself. Before I found booze, I always felt like I was on the inside looking out, wanting desperately to be "a part of" but unsure of how to ever do it. Nobody "got me".
But when I was drunk, *everybody* "got me", and fuck 'em if they didn't! The world was mine for the taking!
But then it turned on me. As I became more and more physically addicted to alcohol, I became a recluse. The very thing that had set me free now shut me in. The last 5 years of my drinking was misreable. I was angry at the world, lonely (even though I couldn't stand anybody anyway), bitter, and hopeless. The booze didn't even really make me feel good anymore. It went pretty much from "drink enough to stop shaking" to "blind-drunk".
Eventually, I found my way to the program, and in my short time doing what the people there have told me to do, I've never been happier - and I don't even have to drink to enjoy life or "be who I am" anymore!
And, ironically, I owe it all to alcohol.
I recognise the parts that let you say and do things you'd never do sober, but they were stupid things, I said and did the most stupid things when drunk.
ReplyDeleteYes it was a crutch, but it got me to the worst places. Places I wouldn't have been seen dead in sober.
I had very few good times with drink if I look back realistically and honestly. I drank to get drunk from the start.
I've not an AA person, I did it without, as I'm sure many do.
Not discounting AA and the help it gives to many but we are all different and don't all need the same help to stop.