I started off as a problem drinker. The first time I got drunk was one of the greatest days of my young life. I was 16 and I felt like I had found the secret to finally living my best life after a lifetime of shame, anger, fear, and insecurities. Of course a lifetime meant something different to me at the time. It was nearly 30 years ago, so perspective is everything. But, every drink was better than the last one until I was puking my guts out on my best friend’s lawn. Before that moment, as I looked at myself in the mirror that fateful day, I smiled a devilish smile and thought “as long as I have alcohol I will never be insecure or afraid. I will never be lonely.” Holy shit was I wrong!
I am the type of person where alcohol works as a motor stimulant. For most people, it has a sedative effect on them. After a few drinks, maybe less, they start to feel tired and their body tells them to stop drinking. For me, the more alcohol I put into my body, the better I feel. There is no off switch. So, the first time I realized this fact I thought it was a miracle cure. I had always been lonely. I hid a lot about myself from everyone I knew and thought there was something terribly wrong with me. Alcohol was my salve. To drink it was to drink a liquid blanket that comforted me from the inside.
A Problem Drinker in His Early Twenties
In my early twenties I thought alcohol was living up to its promise. I had a social life and enjoyed going out drinking. However, it didn’t last. By my late twenties I was severely depressed and mostly drank alone. When I had a roommate or lived with a significant other and didn’t want them seeing me drink, I would go sit in my car somewhere to drink, smoke and listen to music. I figured it was cheaper to do this than to drink at a bar. Besides, I knew that if I went to a bar I would sit alone while life was going on around me. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be reminded of my shame so instead I parked my car somewhere and drank alone. The party didn’t stop till I was drunk. Then I’d drive home.
This habit of drinking in my car started very early. At first I did it to “pre-game” or to get the party started early. If I had plans to meet with friends at a bar then I would get there early with a six pack and down it in my car near the meet up spot. I saw nothing wrong with it. Bars are expensive and it’s no one’s business but mine how much I drank is what I told myself. Maybe that narrative would have been okay had that not become the norm. Then all my buddies lives’ had gotten busier. They had kids and their careers were taking off. I was basically living to drink, and the longer I did this, the lonelier I became. By my late twenties I was drinking alone almost exclusively.
Drinking in my Car
While in my early days of drinking I drank in my car to start the party. Eventually, the drinking in my car became the party. This is how it usually went: I’d drive to one of the three or four locations I preferred to drink in. I would park and see how busy it was. If it was busy then I’d go to another preferred location. If it is was calm then the party would start. I crack open a beer as I mostly drank beer at the time. I liked beer because the perfect buzz portion of getting drunk lasted longer than with whisky.
I’d open the beer and feel out the location. If it seemed like the night had few pedestrians or few people looking out of their windows I would settle in. Once the buzz started then the smoking started. Then then I’d put on my headphones and listen to music.
A side note: I started doing this long before there was music on our phones. There were MP3 players but I didn’t like the quality so this meant I would lug my portable stereo around with my CD’s. This also meant that I had to buy a lot of D batteries to juice my stereo. That’s how much work it took just to carry on with this way of drinking.
Problems With Drinking in Public
Back to the party: since I was in a public space as I drank, there would be very public types of problems. Namely, other people out for a nightly stroll or the occasional cop. If a person walked by my car I always took my headphones off and tried to look like I was waiting for someone or was on a call. I’m not sure I was giving off the desired performance. Chances are it looked like what it was; a pathetic alcoholic drinking and smoking in his car.
If it was a cop and I spotted him early, I would lower my seat and hide. I was usually pretty vigilant, but the drunker I got the more sloppy I was. So if a cop car rolled by and it caught me off guard I would usually freeze and then look over to them and wave. Most times they wouldn’t even see me but there were a few times were they saw me but kept rolling on. So maybe my performance was better than I thought.
Most of the time I would end up needing more beer. So I would drive to the nearest store for a 24 ounce. Then I would drive to another location and drink that beer until I was almost too drunk to drive. Almost, but I always drove. Then I would go home and collapse into bed reeking of booze and cigarettes. Doesn’t that sound fun?
A Problem Drinker No More
I stopped smoking over two years ago so eventually I kept the party at home. While I wasn’t out on the streets drinking in public, it was basically the same. For the last two years of my drinking it was at home almost exclusively. Since my late twenties it has been the same, but more and more lonely. I worked from home for a long time and live alone. Since I also drank alone you can imagine the type of life I was leading. If I could go back to that first day I got drunk and looked at myself in the mirror and saw what my future held, would I still end up being a problem drinker? I don’t know.
Tomorrow is six months of continuous sobriety. The longest stretch of sobriety since I was a teenager. I am and always will be an alcoholic. That’s how I was built. If I pick up a drink the I am off to the races again, as they say. So if I could go back and see the damage that alcohol has done to my life then maybe it would have helped me not lie to myself so much. Either way, I was wrong.
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