A Year in the Life of a (Sober) Drunk
August 11th, will mark my one year stay in the sober world. On August 10th, the year prior, I took a cooler and a 30 pack into my room and it was gone by noon. I knew that it would be the last time I would drink and I wanted the experience to be as pathetic as possible.
My first experience with alcohol was amazing. It was the first night at college, I was scared, excited and nervous all at once. When I got that first buzz, it was all new and my inhibitions went away and all of the sudden I was a social butterfly. For the rest of my drinking career I was merely trying to recreate that first buzz.
In AA, they say you have to hit rock bottom before you are truly ready to quit drinking. After two dui's and awaiting conviction on a third, completely isolated from my friends and family and being 100 lbs overweight, if you begged me to stop drinking, there is no way I would. My thought process was, why would I want to stop and face these problems sober? Like any addiction, alcohol and food were my novocaine. I just wanted to sit in a bar and watch sportscenter and get hammered. In a bar, everybody is your best friend until they pay their tab, everyone is just a big happy drunk family. In the back of my mind, I knew my rock bottom would be my death. Of course that thought was easily washed away with a big beer.
I don't know what clicked on Aug 10th, call it divine intervention, who knows. But I woke up and I was just sick of drinking. I was tired of the process. I was tired of having an anxiety attack because I only had half a 30 pack in the fridge. I was tired of eating a whole pizza drunk at 2am and throwing it up at work later that morning. I was tired of checking my sent texts and facebook to see if I needed to apologize to anyone. I was tired. I remember opening that last beer and just laying in my bed staring at the ceiling. Alcohol was no longer my escape. it had become a lifestyle and I had two choices, find something stronger or quit (which I didn't know how to do).
So I did what any desperate drunk would do, I found an AA meeting and went. I hated it and didn't go back after one meeting. So I just quit cold turkey, like a manly man and was doing fine for awhile, I was exercising, eating right and doing just about anything to stay busy. I wanted a social life, but all I knew was the bar life, which by the way when you stop drinking all your drinking friends disappear. I joined a church. The first time I went I walked in with a SCRAM bracelet on my leg (part of my punishment for my dui), thank god for pants. I am not a religious person, my relationship with God to this point was me in a drunken stupor praying for everything about me. I liked the church, seemed like normal people, so I went back, waiting for a reason to hate it.
By March of this year, I got baptized, how the water did not boil when I was dunked I still do not know. Two weeks later, I was convicted on my 3rd DUI and I was sent to jail for 10 days with 80 days house arrest. Jail was what I needed. I needed the solitude to work on myself. My first morning in jail I made a list of the people I had hurt and the things I had done, by page three I was a mess. Nothing like showing a bunch of convicts how tough you are by uncontrollable crying. But it was such a weight off my chest to see all of my problems in ink now. It was all out of my head and in front of me, neatly organized on a yellow legal pad. When my 10 days were up I was ready to take life on. I found an AA group I liked, started working the steps and still waiting for a reason to hate church. Then on April 18 I found out my Mom had cancer. "Are you fucking kidding me" is all I remember saying when the news came over the phone.
With all of the emotions that came and believe me I covered them all, I don't remember wanting a drink or any kind of escape. Something had changed, I was in crisis mode, "What do I need to do now". By the next day my Mom was in surgery to relieve built up fluid from around her heart. Mind you I am on house arrest by this time and I had to call my house arrest officer in a sobbing mess to get permission to be with my Mom. For me to have to leave the hospital because I was on house arrest was complete (and probably deserved in some eyes) torture. As I sat at home now alone staring at her coffee cup that I could not bring myself to wash, I still didn't want to drink. I kept thinking this was a test to see if I really wanted to stay sober.
So I kept going to AA and kept going to church. I began to realize that in these two settings there were people who cared about me. My relationship with God had changed, I had stopped praying for good things to happen to me and began asking how I could help him. Don't roll your eyes here, I'm no saint and I have a long way to go. I battle self contriteness everyday, but the difference between today and a year ago is that I want to be a better person. I want to take care of my Mom, I want to be a better friend and brother.
A year of sobriety has left a lot of questions unanswered but also has brought me emense clarity on what is important in my life. I have a lot of work to do, I don't love myself but I don't hate myself either.
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