Very few things in the modern world are more misunderstood than addiction. In an age where reports say that 1 in 8 people struggle or will struggle with some type of addiction during the course of their life, how is it possible that so little is known about this disease (and yes I’ll use that term although I’m still not 100% sold on it) by the general populace? If you’re thinking I have an opinion on why, I don’t. It makes no more sense to me than it does to you. However, I do know something about addiction because of personal experience. It’s knowledge I never wanted but now that I have it, it doesn’t make sense to keep it to myself. I hope you will read this with an open mind.
The first time I got drunk I was sixteen. I was at a friend’s house and got so drunk that I somehow managed to spill laundry detergent in my eye. I awoke the next day not with a hangover, but with an eye that wouldn’t open. After a visit to the hospital I was told I was lucky that I didn’t lose vision in that eye and that it would take at least seven days before I could open it again. You’d think that experience would turn me into a teetotaler, and it did. For awhile...
For the next year or so I was borderline straight edge (the allure of blowjobs was the one thing that held me back from labeling myself that). I hung out with kids who didn’t drink and I scoffed at the people in my high school class who would frequently get drunk or high. I was better than them.
Then on my prom weekend I was introduced to a good friend that many of you also know, Jack Daniels. I knew very few people I was staying with and good old Jack turned me from the shy kid in the corner to the life of the party jumping on the couch and dancing to some shitty Fall Out Boy song. I was sold. By the following year I was drinking at least once a week and looking for any special occasion on which a 40 ounce could be enjoyed. Still, as much as I drank I was not an alcoholic at that point. I still considered it a rare treat to be enjoyed only some of the time. What’s more, I would often romanticize alcoholism. NOFX was my favorite band and I thought there was nothing cooler than Fat Mike singing about being drunk 24 hours a day. Drunks in movies were always the coolest characters. In a way I aspired to be an alcoholic. I’m here to tell you kids, DREAMS CAN COME TRUE!
When you couple a belief that alcohol is relatively harmless with social anxiety disorder, you’re basically destined to end up addicted, and that’s what happened to me. I had always been shy but in college my shyness became a paralyzing fear of relating to people. It became physical and alcohol cured it. It made me the person I wanted to be. I played every show with my band drunk, I went to class drunk, and I drove drunk. Yes I drove drunk and I never got a DUI. More importantly I never injured anyone. Don’t think I don’t know what a lucky bastard I am. Yet still I wasn’t drinking all the time. Then my band broke up in late 2008. To lose something so vital and important in your life sucks ass, but most people find a healthier way to deal with it than trying to drink themselves to death. Not me. Alcohol became my number one priority and getting it became an obsession. I started to drink every day, but only at night. Then I decided drinking in the afternoon was alright every once in awhile. Before I knew it, Seagram’s 7 was my breakfast of champions.
It soon became obvious to myself, if not others, that it was now more than an emotional addiction. It was now physical. I would wake up with the shakes and need a drink just to be able to hold a pen and not throw up. I started having panic attacks and ended up in the hospital several times. My room became a graveyard of old whiskey bottles. I was told that my liver was enlarged and that I had to stop drinking. The most frightening part of addiction is when you realize that you actually want to stop but you can’t. I no longer drank to feel a buzz, I drank to feel normal. My tolerance was so high that I could drink a bottle of whiskey and show up to a party seemingly sober. I carried a concealed container with me wherever I went just to know that it was there if I started to feel anxious. It would have been nice if I had known that alcohol was one of the few drugs whose withdrawal symptoms can be fatal because I started to try to stop on my own. Long story shirt, I ended up in the hospital again. This time I was told very bluntly by a doctor that my liver was in such bad shape that I’d be lucky to live another year if I kept drinking. I don’t know why, but this time it actually sunk in that I was killing myself. I’ve struggled with depression my entire life but I’ve never wanted to be a corpse. It’s not because I love life so much, I just hate missing out on stuff. I didn’t want to leave the party.
I detoxed in the hospital for a week and was discharged. I white-knuckled my sobriety for a few weeks, but at least I was no longer physically dependent. I was clear headed enough to know that this was probably my last chance to turn my life around. I was pressured into going into an I.O.P. (Intensive Outpatient Program) at Summit Oaks Hospital in Summit. I had heard good things about the place but I was highly skeptical. This just wasn’t something I would ever consider doing in the past.
I started I.O.P. about a week before Thanksgiving. It changed my life. You can be aware that there are other people going through what you are going through, but when you can actually put a face to it, it’s a whole different story. The group was usually about 15-20 people ranging in age from 18-65. Most of them were people you would never suspect had any sort of problem. I found myself talking in front of the group quite frequently after a few weeks which amazed me. I could never even give an oral presentation in front of a class and here I was sharing deeply personal information with total strangers. It was dangerous and it was fun. I started to enjoy the routine of waking up at 6:30 in the morning, climbing out of my girlfriend’s window (her mom doesn’t know I sleep there), driving home, making coffee, and then departing for Summit. After so much time without any sort of structure it felt amazing.
Addiction is a frightening, upsetting, and most importantly treatable disease. Don’t wait to seek help if you have it, and don’t dismiss it as “nothing” if someone comes to you seeking help. With alcohol in particular there is a common feeling that people who drink too much should just cut it out. Dennis Miller once said “Avoid it and it will avoid you.” Well Dennis Miller is an idiot who did beer commercials. People really do need to understand that it’s so much more complicated than that. I’m not a person who ever envisioned being an alcoholic, but the fact is no one does. It can happen to anyone and it can fuck things up beyond belief. Don’t let it. I’m anything but an expert on recovery but I guess there’s really no such thing as an expert. I’d love to talk to anyone who’s having problems and offer any advice I can. Talking to people really does help, and this is coming from someone who always thought that was bullshit.
