On the 2nd anniversary of my last drink, a small window into my past... A typical week c.2006-2011 ish.
Monday morning hangovers brought the best of intentions born
from the worst of regrets. Waking up, I
swore I would change and that THIS time would be different….but it never was. Monday evenings brought the craving-- that selfish,
angry, relentlessly starving asshole who came up from the depths of my core to
snarl around inside, making me dizzy and sick.
I was a really good alcoholic. I knew exactly how many minutes I needed to make it to the
liquor store before closing time and would fight with myself until that last
possible second, but that maddening game of addict-chicken always produced the
same result. (SPOILER ALERT: Wine won over willpower every damn time!) So I’d take off, running hard or pedaling my single
speed cruiser as if I was competing in a triathlon for maniacs (definitely the
most exercise I would get that week and the only sweat that was not withdrawal
related).
Bursting into the LCBO at 8:59 pm, breathing hard from
smoker’s lung and 25 extra pounds of beer-bloat, I’d head straight for the
cheap stuff. Chilean Fuzion Shiraz,
$7.45. “It’s really great for the
price,” I’d say. “Goes well with
salmon.”
But I knew myself well and, given the anxiety I had just
endured for hours, a single bottle of wine would barely last me one episode of
How I Met Your Mother.
Internal addict-brain dialogue goes something like
this: “So….I’ll grab a couple of tall
boys for insurance….just in case I finish the wine and am still thirsty. On second thought, a 6-pack of regulars isn’t
that much more than 2 tall boys and it’s more economical. Hmmmm….now that I think about it, I’d better
just get all of them so I won’t have to come back again tomorrow.”
The way home was always a blur. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some
neuropsychological reason for this. Like
a soldier after a battle, my mind was exhausted from the fight. Maybe it just went offline for a while to
recoup…?
Back home, cognitive functions resumed and were re-focused
on consumption. Maybe I imagined it but
even the shakes would go away for enough time to open that bottle like a boss. My favourite wine glass was a large tumbler, (I
still have it). By this point, the wine
was no longer wine, it was medicine. I
could feel it being administered throughout my torso and limbs, eventually
reaching my brain and making everything feel warm and smooth. Given the size of my cup and the depth of my
emptiness, I’d finish the bottle quickly and crack a tall boy (because if I was
only going to have one….might as well make it a biggun, right?). At that point, the beers flowed down like
water and the night would just sort of boomerang off into the distance, not
coming back to hit me until the next morning, when the hangover and the 8 empty
Pabst cans forced me back into that far too familiar corner, that place where I
lived my days, trapped by numbness and apathy tinted with shame and failure.
Tuesday through Thursday evenings were very similar to
Mondays but lacked much of the guilt and internal debate. Addict-brain reasoning goes something like
this: “Well, since I already fucked up
this week by drinking on a Monday, I might as well just take it easy on myself and
try to enjoy this week…because I know that I will quit next Monday for sure.”
Friday and Saturday were easy. Qualifying as completely socially acceptable
nights for drinking, I took full advantage of the guilt-reprive and got to be
just another weekend warrior along with everyone else.
But then came Sunday.
Sundays were in a class all their own. Thanks to softball (what up, Bickford? Woot!), I could drink all afternoon in the
dugout (after priming the pump with a few before the game, of course) and then
go to the bar for “dinner” with the team.
Sundays also had the added
bonus of being the day before Monday which was, of course, my “quit” day. I’d drink and drink, feverishly aware that it
was my LAST night of drinking….until I wasn’t really aware of anything anymore….
By the end of summer 2011, it wasn’t unusual for me to have
consumed 6-8 tall boys and 6-8 pints
by 9pm on a Sunday evening and have little to no memory of making it home. Thinking back to those nights makes my throat
swell up and my stomach drop to my feet because I am so lucky: Not only did I manage to make it home alive and
mostly intact, but so did my daughter…who was with me almost every damn time. This is by far the most painful part of my history,
the hardest to publicly admit, and the least easy to forgive….but if I’m going
to tell my story, it might as well be the real one.
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| Don't we look happy? Couldn't tell you...I don't remember. |
