When did it get so bad? Part 1

On the 20 October 2019, a Monday, I woke up, with an aching tummy, a heavy chest and a wicked hangover. See I had spent the last 4 days or so binge drinking. This was nothing for me, you see I was a functional alcoholic. I have had a problematic relationship with alcohol for many years. I drank when I was happy or sad, I drank to celebrate and to mourn, I drank because I had a long day at work or because it was Friday, I drank at home and outside of home, I drank to go to sleep but I also drank to have fun and dance all night, I drank to get a level of confidence that I was convinced I didn’t have and to get my mind to stop going at a 100 miles an hour. I drank when I was lonely and when I wasn’t, and once I started, I had no stop button. I would drink and drink, chasing that high as far as I would go with it. It is a miracle that I never blacked out anywhere and some how always got home safe. I could drink all night long and still get up, drink a couple of Red Bulls or seriously strong coffee, and fully function in my day.

Very few of my friends knew the depth of the problem because to most, while I drank a lot, I had a good handle of myself. The few who recognized it urged me to slow down or stop completely which to me, was like speaking greek. Me without alcohol? How now?

I had however, in the last few years, started to acknowledge the fact that i did indeed have a problem; I was starting to have health issues related to drinking, I had gained a bunch of weight, I looked like I was permanently pregnant and was so out of shape I lost my breath walking up a few steps, memory lapses, unexplainable migraines and so much more. But through all this, I didn’t think I had the courage to totally quit.

And so I started by giving myself restrictions like no drinking during the week and not before 4 pm on weekends. They worked for a bit but not quite because life happens and alcohol was my crutch.

My closest friends who know me realized before I did that I had a ton of trauma that I never really dealt with and drinking was my way of coping. They urged me to see a shrink, which I ended up doing after almost 18 months of them getting on me (story for another day). I gotta thank God for having given me some seriously persistent friends who never gave up on me.

Back to October 20, the week before, we had been on a customary one week break from work and on Thursday I had thrown a pity party for myself because I was feeling low and drank basically all day long, Friday went the same way and though I had dinner with a good friend that night, I was already drunk. Come Saturday and there was a going away party for another friend and yeah you guessed it, I drunk most of the afternoon and most of the next day and that is how on Monday morning I was doing so badly. My tummy was running, my asthma was flaring and that hangover was not for weaklings.

I got out of my bed, looked at myself in the mirror and I knew I had to make a change, there had to be more to life than this, there had to be more to weekends than nursing hangovers and partying all night long. And that I owed it to myself to find out and prove to myself that alcohol didn’t control me. And so as I called in for a sick day from work (that running tummy and wheezing chest would have made me totally ineffective), I challenged myself and asked God to help me go 365 days with no alcohol of any kind passing my lips.