Early Recovery from Addiction : What I Would Tell Myself if I Could Go Back

CHAPTER 1:

I’ll Take it Shaking … and Stirred

Before the sea of chaos reached my lips, I added the final ingredient. A tear from my insanity.

– Yours Truly

Time Period: Pre-Recovery, Still Drunk

Most of the people who know me would say I drink a lot, but they have no fucking clue. I don’t drink a lot; I drink it all. For instance, this liter of vodka that sits in front of me right now. I bought it this morning when the liquor store opened its doors. It’s already half empty. It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon. I’ll need to get more soon.

It wasn’t always this way—unbearable would be the proper term. There was a time when it appeared as if I was just doing the same thing as everyone else my age. Did I see the escalation, the increased side effects, the increased harm? Yeah, I did. But it always seemed like a good idea anyway . . . it somehow always seems like a good idea.

I can still recall my first mild case of the “shaky jakes”. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I didn’t understand why I was so nervous, why my heart was racing when I couldn’t get the words out while telling my friends a fun story about the wild weekend I had, and why my hands would quiver when I used them a certain way. That was some time ago.

These days, if I put down the bottle and go cold turkey, I encounter something that I’ve come to call The Fear. If someone were to ask me how it feels, what would happen if I didn’t have this bottle next to me, I would tell them to imagine themselves in the shallow end of a swimming pool holding their breath under water until they can’t stand it anymore and break surface for air—that’s how it feels when they need a drink. To know how I feel when I need one (hundred), they would need to take a splash in the deep end with their wrists bound by chains attached to a cinder block and the only way up is to chew off a hand. Morbid, I know, but nobody ever asks anyway.

The people who believe I only drink a lot don’t get to see it. I usually hide somewhere when it comes, like a werewolf afraid to transform on a full moon. Only an unfortunate few have seen me go through it, the people who are closest, the few left who still care, the ones who won’t give up even though I already have.

If I need to stop, I have to look forward to that mind-bending anxiety, jittery withdrawal and nerve-racking irritation that must be faced once the chemical comfort of the alcohol slowly leaves my system; the inability to stomach food, unless I tickle my liver with some liquor first; the gagging and shameful toilet scrubbings after vomiting out of both ends; the hiding beneath my blankets while movies repeat in the background of my room while I twitch and tremble and wait for the detox process to end. Then there’s the blood pressure, the pure threat of seizing up with each pound of my heart, and the panic attacks where I’m usually convinced that I’m going to stroke-out when my hands and feet curl and cramp, my tongue swells, and I hyperventilate into a frenzy. Don’t forget the displeasure of suffocating in my sleep—waking up from an apnea episode, almost grateful for the startled rescue from my demon-dancing nightmares.

Oh yeah, it’s happened more than once in my drinking career. Sometimes, I run out of my supply and have no money or energy to hustle a fix. Occasionally, it happens after an arrest, when I need to shake it off in a jail cell. Sometimes I find myself at work with no maintenance shots to get me through the day—struggling to keep my nervous hands busy until the clock reaches quitting time, when I can jet to the liquor store, usually throwing up the first shot to untie the knot in my stomach.

Sometimes the booze just doesn’t work anymore. Too sick from all the poison, my body will either reject it altogether, or the desired effect is no longer achievable. When this happens, most of the bottle is gone early (gotta save a little), and I pass out just before my nerves can reach that calm paradise, only to wake up to the same terror hours later and start over again. When it gets this bad, I usually suffer through the agonizing detox for a day or two to let my body repair itself and reboot, impatiently waiting in hiding until I can stomach the elixir again.

Did I mention the gremlin voice constantly clamoring inside my mind? He’s almost always there, telling me a few drinks would make all the suffering go away, that a shot or two would make me all better. He repeats his nasty solution over and over again, like some sort of smooth-talking C.I.A. brainwashing technician.

Maybe sprinkle some anxiety from a legal issue on top of all that, like a DWI or an assault charge or an eviction notice. With the worries that come with such scenarios, and the negative prophecies running their laps in my mind . . . well let’s just say I’m already planning my next drink before you can drag me through the hospital doors.

It’s all downright traumatic to go through. Even if I stop using with the intention of quitting for good, even if I have someone hide my car keys and wallet, I quickly find myself digging up holes in the backyard for a potential score of a previously stashed bottle.

The fear of this experience is my first obstacle to getting sober. This is my endless, unquenchable thirst. This is my hell.