I can now let the world know that I was an alcoholic because I have quit for good. Doctors orders. To most this won’t come as a surprise, but very few people actually know the full story behind it. I have reluctantly posted this blog because I’ve hesitated to speak about it for a long time, and only now have I built up the courage to share more of my journey. I have slightly hinted at the truth in older posts, but I never addressed it properly or in any real depth. Recently, a doctor told me that I could die if I were to have a single beer and also delivered the news that I have kidney disease. Hearing that was the wake-up call I needed. The prospect of never having a drink ever again is daunting, and it still hasn’t fully sunk in. There is absolutely no room for a relapse this time around.
I was never an angry drunk and my demeanor never changed when I drank. Most of the time I chose to drink alone. I remained very aware when I was intoxicated and did everything I could to conceal it from others. My biggest frustration was that I would sometimes slur my words, which was maddening because I didn’t always feel actually drunk. Who knows — maybe I was more affected than I realised. Beer bottles would accumulate in my room, poorly hidden, and stay there until my parents discovered them. I would walk the streets on recycling-bin night, looking for bins with space where I could dispose of the empties. My car would also fill up with stubbies, forgotten in the back seat and floor.
There was never an inappropriate occasion for me to drink. In my younger years I had very little interest in booze and rarely sought it out. I would sometimes have a drink at parties or with mates, but it wasn’t to get drunk — more a mild concession to peer pressure than any real desire. I was always a green man, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t until I turned 18 and could legally purchase alcohol without resorting to a fake ID that things began to escalate. Even then I was cautious: if I had to drive I made sure I stayed under the limit. I lost any lenience for drink-driving more than twenty years ago, and I learned that hard lesson well.
I only ever drank beer. I just drank a lot of it, night after night until it became routine. I never drank the hard stuff, thank God, but it still got to the point where I was drinking solely to get drunk. In the last year or so I began to hate the taste, yet I would soldier on just to chase that familiar buzz. I never casually sipped a beer — I would skull it, racing to numb myself. Alcohol is poison, plain and simple. I could taste the ethanol in every drink and I knew I shouldn’t be putting that into my body. My insides ached from the constant consumption and I understood clearly what I was doing to myself. Alcohol wreaks havoc on almost every part of the body, but I obsessed mainly over my liver. A blood test about a year ago showed my liver wasn’t in good shape. I went sober for six months and had another test; the doctor told me it was back to normal. Unfortunately, the liver is the only organ in the body that can repair itself, so I counted myself lucky and keep my distance from alcohol. It never worries me being around people who are having a drink. This doesn’t even phase me. I hate being around drunks. A little hypocritical of me isn’t it. I loved their company when I was intoxicated too.
Beer became my friend. It was always there, a constant companion that seemed to offer comfort. It turned out he was deceiving me the whole time. I don’t know why it took so long for me to quit. I tried, time and time again, to give it up but I always came back to it. I would go a month or two sober and then give in to the evil liquid. Last year I even went seven months, yet it still ended the same way. All of that hard work to stay sober and I’d blow it by romanticising how good it would be to have just the one beer. It’s as if I convinced myself it would make me so much happier, that it would help with my art, give me something to look forward to, that first sip would taste amazing, cure my mental health problems, or help me socialize again. None of that was true. It only made me feel awful. During this relapse I didn’t enjoy myself at all. I was devastated with myself for falling off the wagon and watched all the effort feel wasted. I was spending too much money on it, my health suffered, it ruined relationships, the hangovers became horrendous as I got older, I would upset my parents, it interfered with my medications, I hid empties everywhere, lied about my drinking, and it made me sneaky and deceptive.
I did two stints in rehab, I attended a few AA meetings, I took anti-craving medications, and I have watched thousands of hours of video of people discussing sobriety. I also went to PENDAP, which was basically like a session with a psychologist. I didn’t keep any of this up for long. I gained virtually no lasting tools to battle alcohol. I understand how some people could benefit from these approaches, but I have always gone solo. I guess I have enough willpower to quit without much external help. Sure, I would relapse now and then, but I was always able to get back on the wagon, even if only for a short time. Cravings have never been a major issue for me. I would sometimes think about alcohol, but it never consumed my life. I have been sober since I received the doctor’s warning a few weeks ago, and I haven’t thought about drinking once.
So what was it that attracted me to drink the way I did? I could never manage to have just one or two — that simple limit was never enough for me. If someone offered me a single beer and I knew there was no chance of continuing with more drinks afterwards, I would politely decline rather than accept something that would leave me wanting. The moment I had that first drink I was off to the races; it acted as a starting pistol for a night that usually ran away from me. When I had a big night — which, truthfully, was most nights — I would wake with a heavy hangover, and there seemed to be only one way to fix that familiar dilemma: start drinking again, so the cycle continued. I drank because of the constant nonsense in my head; I suffer greatly from mental illness and can find myself slipping into some very dark places. I have to give alcohol this one thing — for a while it did work, it blurred the edge of the pain. I take handfuls of pharmaceuticals every day, so I would tell myself that another beer could hardly make things worse. The first few beers did their job perfectly, but then the addiction would step in and everything became worse mentally. Alcohol gave me something to look forward to; if I knew I’d have the opportunity to drink when I got home, my whole day became a little brighter. Peer pressure also found its place on this list — I’ve spent a lot of time around other drinkers, people who normalized the habit. Another big factor was the ritual: every time I went to the chemist or the pizza shop I’d drop by the bottle shop and pick up a few beers, and I’d often find myself returning later that night for more. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the clerks knew my name and exactly what I drank — and that, I’ve come to understand, is a clear sign you may have a drinking problem.… CONTINUE TO PART 2 ABOVE