Breaking The Bottle (Part: The First)

To recap: Pam existed on a small amount of orange juice, maybe some toast, a few bites of whatever was on her plate at dinner, and a bottle or more of vodka a day.  By her own admission, she drank a bit more than she probably should, but, she wasn’t an alcoholic.  And, to me, though I was always fascinated by the amount of liquor she could consume, the fact that she was successful at her job, that she always had jobs lined up months in advance, that people recommended her to their friends, that she drove better than many people on the road.  Well, I had to admit, that my first thoughts of her being an alcoholic were being challenged — surely an alcoholic couldn’t be that functional, right?  I know now that I was wrong. Pam was alcoholic.

Over the years, I’ve known many Pam’s — some who were close family or friends, some were coworkers, some just people met in passing.  But, they were all good at hiding it. They all claimed to not be alcoholic, so, how could I be one, since I don’t drink nearly that much.

That’s the lie I’ve told myself for awhile now.

I’m now willing to let go of the lie, and to share the truth.  I am more than a moderate drinker.  A moderate drinker would make a bottle of Scotch last longer.  (Again, the voice says “Qualify!”  The voice says “Tell them that you don’t go through a bottle of Scotch in a day, that it takes three or four days, usually.  Ok, so there were a couple of times, when I was really stressed, that the bottle only lasted two days.”)  I am more than a moderate drinker.

I’ve reached the place where Alcohol is no longer a lower-case word.

I’ve reached the place where Alcohol is a physical need.

My New Year’s resolution was to quit drinking.  I’ve tried quitting before, but, as soon as I’d made the decision to quit, that mischief-making voice in my head would start giving me all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t: “Wait until the weekend”, or “Wait until after such-and-such happened”, or, “Why quit? You don’t drink that much.” You’d think that having quit smoking, and gambling, that I could find the same resolve to help me quit drinking.  You’d think that since I found that resolve before, that it would be easy to find again.  You’d be wrong.  Maybe some people could tap in and find the resolve right away.  Me, I need to discover it, piece by piece.  I had found the determination and the steel to strengthen the wall in my mind, the wall to block out the mischievous voice.

In the days leading up to New Year’s, the voice was silent.  I became stronger and stronger each day.  New Year’s Day came and went with no sign of the voice, and I made it through the first day of my sobriety.  The second day came and went successfully.

On the third day, I discovered the treacherousness of the mischievous voice.  Oh, cunning demon!  It remained silent in my head, but, it managed to burrow around the wall, and spread its poisonous words to the rest of my body.  The demon voice couldn’t convince me to drink with words, so, instead it convinced my body to react in such ways as to make me drink.

The headache that was there constantly for the second and third day without Alcohol wasn’t bad, and, didn’t cause much concern.  I suffer from migraines, so this steady, constant, mild headache was nothing.

By the end of the second day, I started aching, my joints hurt, my muscles hurt, I felt, and thought, that maybe I was getting the flu.

By the end of the third day, not only did my body ache, not only did my head ache, but, my eyes wouldn’t focus, my heart was racing, I was sweating, and suddenly I had A.D.D., I couldn’t concentrate on anything: I couldn’t read more than a paragraph or two without my mind drifting off, and when I’d realize my mind was elsewhere, I’d have no recollection of what I had been reading, I couldn’t sit still, I was jittery and nervous.  The third night, I tossed and turned, my mind raced, and when I woke on the fourth day, I knew that I couldn’t do this cold turkey, that I couldn’t quit in the same way I quit smoking.

I spent some time Googling, researching Alcoholism, spending time talking with my doctor, and doing a great deal of soul searching.  Seems that alcohol withdrawal can be very serious, and that the DTs, once started, can be quite rough, since there’s not much too do once they’ve started.  The choices, then, were this: stick it out, and hope that the DTs wouldn’t be debilitating, take lots of prescription drugs that could help reduce the symptoms, though each drug has it’s own risk, or, I could enter rehab, or, I just just tough it out.

Here’s the dilemma: when you care for an 88-year old parent who isn’t able to remember things like taking their insulin, or taking their pills, or eating, entering a rehab program is not an option.  Leaving my mother alone for a week isn’t really an option.  And, who wants to take more drugs?

So, this is my attempt to do this on my own.

Stay tuned for more….

 

Pages: 1 2