Sixteen years ago (to the day), I woke up with a monster of a hangover. Well, it was a hangover if you can have a hangover when you’re still drunk… To save my life, I couldn’t tell you how much I had to drink the night before. Probably close to 24 bottles of ale, chased down with half a quart of Jameson. I might have cleaned up the rum that was in a nearly-full fifth… Was there some tequila? I’m afraid it is all a fog.
You get the idea. The liquor cabinet was empty. And, sadly, I wasn’t nearly as drunk as most people would have been after a binge like that, even the heavy-hitters. Even more sad, that binge was not an uncommon event most nights. Well… this particular level of binging was one for the record books, even for me.
But binging my booze had become a near-daily event.
Self-medication, folks — Doctor Michael’s prescribed cure for depression and chronic pain.
It had to stop. That’s all I knew.
I hated myself even more as an alcoholic than if I hadn’t been one.
Like most alcoholics, I had quit so many times that the joke was that I would celebrate my newfound sobriety with a beer. I was always going to dry up. Tomorrow. Next week. After the holidays.
This time I had outdone myself, however. And I knew it was time. The next time was probably going to kill me.
And I did everything wrong, they way they tell you NOT to go sober. I could have killed myself going cold turkey like I did, with the DTs. And gods almighty, I had the DTs. For a month straight. Don’t cold turkey it — it can literally kill you.
I thought I was dying most days. I might have been dying, for all I know. But I was determined and everyone who if familiar with my stubborn side will tell you that I could school stones in how to be stubborn.
I also did not twelve-step it. I had zero community to support me. My sobriety was all Zen and Tao. Meditation until my back hurt and then more meditation.
Advice? Find a community if you’re an alky. Don’t solo it. It is not easy. There are plenty of sobriety groups out there outside the 12-Step program, if 12-Step is not to your liking. In hindsight, I should have gone and hung out at the Minneapolis Zen Center instead of sitting in a darkened room with the DT shakes and bellyaches and occasional bouts of the shits. Not to mention the bouts of self-loathing.
And while I don’t crave booze the way I used to, I know I’m still just an alcoholic waiting for the time that I can crack a bottle of Jameson or sip a pint of Guinness. My mind thinks I’m buzzing when I sip a non-alcoholic brew, and I get “drunk”. It would take 20 cans of NA to equate to a single beer’s alcohol content, so it is all in my brain chemistry based on the memory of being drunk. I don’t drink NA anymore — I can’t convince my brain that it really doesn’t want the real deal.
So I just avoid it completely.
Sixteen years of sobriety.
If you would have asked me that morning long ago if I thought I could last sixteen years, I would have laughed at you. Now, I’m just as surprised at the idea as I would have been back then.
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