Sober in Los Angeles: An Introduction

Oct 13

My name is Brian Robert Oliver and this is the start of my journey to getting sober in Los Angeles. The journey to admit my alcoholism was not as arduous as it is for other people. My decision to stop drinking was, however. I am 45 years old and as of today I have 169 days of continuous sobriety, or 5 months and 16 days. It is, by far, the longest bout of sobriety I have had since adulthood, and most likely since I was 17 years old. First, let me just say that getting sober in LA or seeking recovery in Los Angeles is possible as it has so many resources available. However, it is possible for you to recover from addiction anywhere in the US.

Back to me: Alcohol has been the catalyst of countless good times throughout my life. I’ve celebrated important milestones with friends. I have soothed a broken heart with it. I have formed bonds with people over it. Alcohol has also been the cause of great destruction for me and my family which seems like a good place to start my story.

My Family and Addiction – My Dad

My father is what is known as a dry alcoholic. It means he stopped drinking when I was young but never sought help for his alcoholism. Alcoholism runs deep in my dad’s side of the family, and though I am not sure how deep, it has crippled them with tragedy. I have a cousin who was drunk at a party and ended up killing himself in front of others. He shot himself in the head while his cousin looked on. My uncle, in a drunken rage, killed his wife, my aunt. He shot her, point blank, in the forehead and now he is currently serving 40 years to life in prison. He is 68 now and will more than likely die an incarcerated man. My grandmother was an abusive and controlling alcoholic who subjected her loved ones to verbal abuse and regularly spoke ill of them to others.

My Mom

As for my mother, she’s not an alcoholic but nearly every male on her side of the family suffers from some form of addiction. They too have been decimated by alcohol. I watched with my own eyes as my uncle laid, dying and screaming in his bed from a lifetime of alcohol abuse. Mercifully, he died that same night. Years before I was born, my mother’s uncle drunkenly brought in a charcoal stove from outside into his house to warm it for his family. The gas had been shut off for non-payment. His infant child died that same night, I’m assuming from carbon monoxide poisoning. These stories are just the tip of the ice berg when it comes to my family’s relationship to alcoholism and addiction.

History of Alcoholism

For me, I steered clear of controversy, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. A lot of it was luck. I was once caught by the police with open containers in my car drinking with a friend in the middle of the night in the parking lot of an auto parts store. I talked my way out of any kind of ticket or punishment and was able to pass all the officer’s test. Of course, he didn’t use the breathalyzer. I told him I hadn’t drank that much that evening, but the truth was I had been drinking nonstop since the day before. For me, one drink was never enough. I was a binge drinker from the beginning; once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I was also a practiced liar and a double agent. In my early 20’s I was already a problem drinker. When I turned 21 I was like a toddler who realized he could eat cake whenever he wanted to. Once I could buy alcohol I immediately gave myself permission to drink whenever I wanted to as long as I could hide it from others.

This was how I became so comfortable living a double life. I was obsessed with coming off as if I had my shit together, but if you looked closely you could see the cracks in façade. So I made it a point to not let most people get too close to me, especially loved ones. This was second nature to me, this double life. I had learned to hide a lot about myself from an early age. I had the Catholic Irish guilt on one side, and the Mexican Catholic guilt on the other.

When Drinking Started to Interfere with Life

Throughout my 20’s I held down a series of jobs, mostly decent ones. At first, on the job I would be content, but over time the resentments would bubble over. I would eventually quit without the safety net of a replacement job. It was up and down through the entire decade until a low point in my late 20’s. I ended up sleeping on a blow up mattress in my parents front room. I was collecting unemployment at the time but was pretending to be working. So I’d get up every morning and go off to “work” where I mostly just drank the day away.

I had drank in public places both day and night. I’d been in fights in bars and I had said and done horrible things to people. I lied. I hung out with a severely mentally ill man just because he liked to drink as much as I did. Together we would hide behind buildings or in a dry wash to drink, smoke and piss. I spoke a lot about dreams and aspirations at the time, but rarely did anything about them. I was living to drink, and that is mostly all I did.

Back to School

Eventually, I had gotten my shit together and went back to school but still binge drank on a weekly basis. By the time life was looking up (still drinking btw) I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I learned that I do not know what will come of this disease so I had to care for myself better. Knowing this I still drank, but less than before. I decided I wanted to live so I actually did take better care of myself, and since there was no literature about drinking and my disease, I just ignored it. But I made it a point to sleep better and eat better. However, I lied to my doctor’s about how much I drank. I lied to everyone actually, including myself.

The Beginning of Sober in Los Angeles

Finally, at 44 I was unable to lie to myself any longer. Four people I loved died over the course of a few months and I found myself in a familiar place. I could not stop drinking and I was drinking a lot. I felt powerless to it. Though I found ways to escape my depression temporarily, still, I always drank. It wasn’t until one day I decided I had to do all I could to get sober and that meant to declare that I was done drinking forever. That was the start of my journey to sobriety/recovery.

I was raised to believe that alcoholics are bad people. My dad would say awful things about his family and awful things about my mom’s brothers, my uncles. He looked down upon people who couldn’t stop drinking. He would regularly say that he WAS an alcoholic as if alcoholism could be cured if only you stopped drinking, and if you couldn’t, you were weak. So that’s what I thought of myself; weak. Getting help was never spoken of in my family so I never would have believed I would reach out for help, but that is what I did. I sought therapy for my alcoholism and currently work a 12 step program. I will not preach to anyone about joining a 12 step program as I know it does not work for everyone, but if you find yourself unable to stop drinking, know that there is help out there.