Day 5 - My Drunk-A-Log

I had my first drink at the age of 17. I also became pregnant on that same night with my first child who is 40 years old today. Like many of us, I found the immediate rush that poured over me like a warm blanket to be the most exquisite feeling I had ever experienced. It took all of 2 beers to put me into a blackout as I don’t remember much of anything from that night other than walking through the snow with my boyfriend to his car to bring me home. I had vomit in my hair and on my clothes and the only thing that saved me from disapproving parents was the Christmas party they were throwing at my house. When I got home, they were both three sheets to the wind and didn’t even notice how I looked, insisting that I meet all of their friends. It wouldn’t be until a couple of months later that I would learn I was pregnant. I will skip as much non-essential dribble as possible as my career was long and hardy. My boyfriend, who became my husband when we were both 17, was a hard drinker already. A good man, but a crazy drunk. And shortly after I became a mother I got down to business in my own addiction. Because my parents, both educated and holding down good jobs were alcoholics, alcohol had a prominent presence in my house. Martinis every night. As you can imagine, the marriage was over in less than 6 years due mostly to our non-readiness to be tied down to a marriage and kids, all fueled with daily intake of alcohol – lots of it. Shortly before we divorced, I drove out to the liquor store to get a bottle with my 2 year old daughter standing in the front seat beside me. Those were the days before car seats. I left her in the car to make the buy and to my horror, while I was paying the man who owned the store for the bottle, the car rolled out of the store driveway and onto a local highway. My daughter was terrified and I froze in terror. Fortunately, the store owner dashed outside and into the car and drove it back into the driveway. I had left not only my daughter in the car…..but also my keys! Nothing was going to get between me and my bottle on that day and that experience haunts me to this day to a degree I can’t find the words to describe. It’s a shining example of where alcohol can take us and also take those we love. That is proof positive to me of God as the car could have been hit by other cars and trucks on that highway, but miraculously wasn’t. As the years went by I continued to drink, never having any jackpots or legal trouble and I remarried in my mid twenties. I had another child and was still a stay at home Mom. I drank during the day only to get cocktails ready for my husband and me when he got home from work. I was in a black out nearly every night and don’t remember what I said or did or when and how I got to bed. As the kids grew I know they were aware of my drinking problem but they were all too respectful to ever have said anything to me about it. When she was about 15 my daughter caught me swigging vodka out of a bottle while I was making drinks for my husband and me. You see, I always made the drinks. That was my territory and I defended it fiercely. I would make my husband’s vodka and tonic with one shot of vodka and fill the glass with tonic water. I would make mine with one shot of tonic water and fill the glass with vodka. Since my husband, who by now also knew I was in trouble with booze, set a limit on evening cocktails at 2 a night, I made sure I got enough vodka in those 2 drinks to put an elephant to sleep. And of course I continued to swig from the bottle while making the drinks. In 1992 the company I worked for went out of business and I now had a lot of time to drink with no kids or husband around. After about 8 months of hiatus from work I got very sick one morning with unbearable stomach pain. Turned out I had acute pancreatitis and was put on morphine for a week in the hospital. Within a month of this event I started drinking again. I found work again and made good money. I left my husband and took an apartment. I let a jerk of a man I thought cared for me live with me and he used me for 2 years. Took everything I had to offer, the apartment, food, sex, even babysitting for his 3 kids, until I finally kicked him out 2 years later. My husband and I got back together and I continued to drink. I lost my job because I just didn’t feel like working and knew my husband would support me. Staying at home drinking seemed ever so much more fun that going to work. That was in November of 1997. In August of 1998 I got sick again but this time my belly blew up and I looked 9 months pregnant. My legs swelled so full of water I was unable to lift them. I was diagnosed with Alcohol Hepatitis and the resulting Ascites which is excess fluid in the space between the tissues lining the abdomen and abdominal organs. Amazingly, I came back to normal with the expert help of a gastroenterologist who put me on the powerful diuretics Lasix, and Aldactone. I peed constantly for 2 weeks and lost an amazing 60 pounds in no less time! And….as I’m sure you can guess, I started drinking again soon after getting back to normal. I tried all the tricks of the trade, drinking only beer, not drinking alone, limiting my drinks all of which I failed at miserably. I am an isolator and few people have ever seen me drunk other than my family. I could very easily go out socially, have 1-2 drinks and leave only to come home and finish off a pint of vodka. I drank in the bathroom if my husband was home, else anywhere in the house I felt like it when he was not. In 2000, I actually had a year’s sobriety. We moved to California to be near our daughter and I got a wonderful job working for a missile defense think tank. In 2001 I started drinking again. Everyone who worked for that company needed to gain a Top Secret Security Clearance and so my investigation got going. After 1.5 years with still no answer on my clearance from the Dept of State, I knew they had seen my hospital and medical records and that my drinking career had made that job impossibility for me. Having any hint of alcohol or drug abuse in one’s history excludes one from clearance of any kind. I left my husband yet again and took an apartment where my drinking spiraled upward to the point that I could not go to work. In early 2002 I entered my first rehab and learned about AA. But again, I started drinking not 2 weeks after being released. I lost my job and moved back to my husband and both of us moved back to Massachusetts which is really home to us. I found work right away and we bought a condo in 2003. In the fall of 2005 I began drinking in the morning – two 16 oz beers – before going to work. I worked alone in the job I had as secretary for a VP in the employment industry. My boss was almost never in the office so it was easy for me to keep my booze secret from him. When money got tight and I feared I might not have enough for a bottle (a terrifying fear at the time) I would steal quarters out of my boss’s desk. He always dumped his change there and there was always $15-$20 in his desk. He was the nicest man to work for and is still a good friend today. Need I say how that ugly fact made me hate myself even more than already did for my so-called secret boozing. In early December I knew I needed help and one morning I called in sick then called the number on my health insurance card for a place I could go and be detoxed. They sent me to a hospital with a locked mental health unit and I stayed there for 2 weeks. Between then and the present I have gone into rehab numerous times and relapsed endless times. In January of 2008 I hit what I certainly hope was my bottom. A friend in the program once told me “Every bottom has a trap door” and I try to keep that in mind today when the thought of a drink enters my mind. My bottom was drinking myself into oblivion and falling down the stairs in the condo last January. I also fell in the hallway upstairs on the same day. From those falls I received a broken clavicle (collar bone), a torn rotator cuff, a fractured lumbar vertebrae and lots of bruises. I looked like I’d been run over by a train. I truly was a TRAIN WRECK. That incident scared me as the physical pain sidelined me on the couch for almost a month sucking down extra-strength aspirin every couple of hours for the excruciating pain in my shoulder and back. I finally went to the doctor who confirmed the injuries and set me on a course of physical recovery which is far easier than the ongoing recovery in need in mind, soul and spirit and which I am given free of charge in the wonderful fellowship of AA. I would be dead without it for sure. Today I am in relatively good health. I am a diabetic, due in no small part to the 40 years of abuse I dished out to my pancreas, and I have serious dental issues that I hope to be resolved this year. I am grateful to be alive and in one piece today and thank my Higher Power whom I know as God for keeping me alive and leading me to write this blog in an effort to stay sober. I go to a meeting every day except Sunday which I devote to being at home with my husband who has stood by me through the worst days. We’ve had our issues and neither of us is without blame for the discord in our relationship but today we get along well and appreciate each other in a way I don’t think we ever did before. I have returned to my church and have found that extremely helpful for my sobriety too. Going to meetings, asking for help and working the steps in my daily life are encouraging me to stay on my quest for lasting sobriety and I hope that 2010 is my year for a medallion!