A Love Story

A couple of days after leaving my first AA meeting, the one where I said that I wasn’t sure if I was an alcoholic, I went to the library and typed “alcoholic” in the electronic card catalog. (Is that what the computers catalogs in libraries are called?) Now, any fool could figure out that a person who has been fretting over whether or not she is an alcoholic for 20 years is most definitely an alcoholic. But to admit that meant that I would have to stop and as any alcoholic knows, stopping is not an option.

So I key “alcoholic” into the search line on the library’s computer and up pops a title that I am drawn to like gravity to the earth. “Drinking. A Love Story,” by Caroline Knapp. I’m hooked. Walking home from the library, I am thumbing through the pages. She is writing about me. I heard that Roberta Flack song in my head. “Killing me softly with his song. Telling my whole life with his words.” Although she wasn’t killing me; she was telling my whole life. She described a young professional caught up in her work who gravitated toward colleagues who liked “Happy Hour” as much as she did. She described her heady successes during the day and her love affair with Harvey Wallbanger at night. And what really got me was when she described those little quizzes that we all take to figure out whether or not we are alcoholic. Usually, they go something like this:

Have you ever lost a job because of alcohol? No

Have you ever slept on the sidewalk because of alcohol? No

Have you ever blacked out for days at a time because of alcohol? No

Have you ever spent time in jail because of alcohol? No

Do you no longer bother pouring your alcohol into glasses with ice? No

Do you ever drink cough syrup to get a buzz? Well, maybe.

Those quizzes didn’t describe me or Caroline Knapp. They don’t describe half of the alcoholics out there. Caroline wrote that she would’ve admitted to her alcoholism much sooner if they had asked questions like the following:

When you go to a dinner party and there are six places at the table and only one bottle of wine in the middle of the table, do you worry about how you are going to get drunk? Yes

When you go to someone’s cottage in the country and discover there isn’t a liquor store for 50 miles, do you worry about how you are going to get drunk? Yes

During the day, do you always make sure that you have plans lined up for after work that will ensure your ability to get drunk? Yes

I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea. Getting drunk was very important to me. I finally realized that that was the definition of alcoholism. People who are not alcoholic don’t care about alcohol. They don’t think about it, plan for it, or buy it in large quantities. I went back to that women’s AA meeting at my little New Age church and said, “Hey, I read a book that finally helped me to see that I am an alcoholic.”

They said they knew it all along. It turns out that nonalcoholics don’t wander into AA meetings wondering if they belong.

Self Loathing

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night full of self loathing, feeling hungover, dehydrated, swollen, head throbbing, nauseous, and fretting over why you keep doing this to yourself? In the morning, you swear that you will not drink that day. You’ll take vitamin C and drink lots of water. You’ll have a salad for lunch and exercise after work. You are not a bad person. You’re successful in so many ways. You do everything that you swore you would do and by the time you get home, you’re feeling pretty good. Headache’s gone. The swelling has gone down. Appetite is back. You have proven that you have what it takes to be a normal person. You are a normal person. Normal people unwind at the end of the day with a drink. And so it begins again.

I road that roller coaster for 25 years. Some people never get off. For others, it takes a few months. For many of us, it takes years but eventually something snaps. The choices become clear and then the universe aligns to stop the ride and deposit you safely on the side of the road. My perimenopause symptoms got my attention. Night sweats, insomnia, and anxiety were new to my addiction and they scared me.

My husband, daughter, and I were fairly new to a rural town where I thought I could make a new start. We’d been here a year but not much had changed regarding my alcohol consumption. Attending a little New Age church that felt safe and comfortable, I learned that a women’s Alcholics Anonymous group met there on Thursday evenings. Twenty years prior, I had attended an AA meeting where the group told me that I was not an alcoholic. I hung tight to those words every time I hated myself for getting drunk again. So I was a little gun shy about going back. I didn’t want to offend anyone or be presumptuous by showing up with my little problems to a meeting with real alcoholics. The kind who drank their booze straight from the bottle, lost their jobs and families, and lived on the streets.

Doubting myself, I went to lunch with a new friend from the church and for some reason, I just blurted out that I thought I might be an alcoholic and I wanted to attend this AA meeting. Without missing a beat, she said, ”I’ll go with you.” We hardly knew each other but it turned out that her father was an alcoholic and killed himself when she was only 16. This is what I mean by the universe aligning itself when you know the time is right. I learned about a meeting that felt safe. And then, I tell someone I hardly know that I think I have a problem and she makes it even safer for me by understanding the problem and offering to accompany me.

We went to the meeting that week and, of course, most of the women were just like me. They had jobs and families and pasts they’d rather not talk about (except in meetings). After telling them my “story,” I said that I just wasn’t sure if I was an alcoholic and I’d come there to find out. They said the right thing. They couldn’t tell me whether or not I was an alcoholic. Only I knew the answer to that question. Now I know that it was really a matter of whether or not I was willing to admit it.

Sweaty Nights

An episode of night sweats scared me into going to an AA meeting. At 40 years old, I was ignorant of the symptoms of perimenopause. In my earlier drinking days, sweaty nights meant one-night-stands and partying in fields during those hot Midwestern summers.

The first time it happened, I’d had about a fifth of vodka to ignite the flame and I thought my liver had finally given up. Can’t filter out the toxins anymore, sweetie. You’re on your own. Although it frigtened me enough to seriously consider saying goodbye to alcohol, I drank for two months after that episode. It didn’t take much to turn on the faucet. A couple of glasses of wine would do it. I started talking about this to my extended family. My sister-in-law ensured me that I was not an alcoholic, that my liver was not shutting down, and that I was simply going through perimenopause. She’d just seen a doctor on Oprah who wrote a whole book on this mystery topic. As if PMS and menopause aren’t enough, we need a bridge from one hormonal nightmare to the next. Perimenopause or premenopause can begin up to 10 years before you actually stop menstrating. With high hopes that I would not have to give up my beloved alcohol afterall, I went to my local library and found this book from Oprah. “The Wisdom of Menopause,” by Dr. Christaine Northrup.

Great book for anyone experiencing perimenopause. I discovered that our bodies will tolerate an awful lot until we reach this stage, but once we do, it takes the wheel. If you are doing something that is not in the best interest of your body, mind, and/or spirit, you will have “symptoms” as a warning. Symptoms include night sweats, insomnia, anxiety, headaches, weight gain, scattered thinking, memory loss, and hot flashes (others too, but these are mine).  And if you don’t heed the warning signs, eventually you will get terrible diseases and probably die. Great. So let me get this straight. Drinking alcohol is giving me night sweats and waking me up, which is my body’s way of saying that I need to stop drinking alcohol, or my body will put me out of my misery.

I hated those health books that told you to stop drinking because I didn’t think it was possible. They may as well have told me to stop breathing or peeing. Alcohol was part of who I was. I needed it and it needed me. Fortunately, my love for my daughter was slightly stronger than my love for vodka. I’d wanted a child for years and when I finally had her at age 36, I couldn’t be happier. To leave her without a mother and to miss out on what is the greatest joy of my life because of alcohol just was not an option. I didn’t know where to start. So I went to an AA meeting.

Ice Clinking in a Glass

Eight years ago, I stopped drinking alcohol. I didn’t want to stop but I was afraid of dying. After spending the day and evening drinking vodka before, during, and after a friend’s wedding, I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. This was a new experience for me and I just knew that my liver had finally shut down. My daughter was five years old at the time and it felt unfair to orphan her for a seabreeze buzz. Besides, I didn’t want her to think of me every time she heard ice clinking in a glass. I said that to a fellow recovering alcoholic once and she said, “Wow, you were still putting it in a glass?”

That was my problem. I was “still putting it in a glass.” I was a civilized drunk, mixing vitamin C enriched juices with chilled vodka only after completing my eight-hour workday or household chores. I was a ”functional” alcoholic, whose bills were paid and child was well cared for, so I didn’t think I needed to stop. My resume proved that I didn’t need to stop. An advanced degree. A solid work history with increasing responsibilities and longevity. A pristine credit report. A mortgage. No arrests. No DUIIs. Although I did crash a car once after drinking all day and night but the cop who showed up at the scene must’ve been in a hurry because he never questioned my sobriety. It was OK, though. My insurance premiums were current.

During those years, I also thought I was a great mother. I stayed sober throughout my pregnancy and long enough to breastfeed for six months but found an excuse to ween her in time for the holidays. I couldn’t imagine celebrating one more holiday without doing shots of exotic liqueurs. My daughter’s third Christmas found me sipping White Russians all day long. By the end of the day, I had drunk an entire fifth of Kahlua and half a fifth of vodka (not to mention all that cream). Lying in bed that night, I felt my heart race, working as hard as it could to pump the poison I drank throughout my body. I was afraid, but not scared enough to stop.

But still, I knew I was a great mother. I read all the books about parenting and got down on the floor with her to build puzzles, make towers out of blocks, and show her how not to force square Playskool pegs into round holes. We went for walks, played in the park, visited friends and family, kept our “well baby” appointments, and ate healthy meals together. All to the sound of ice clinking in a glass.