I Never Saw It Coming.
Drugs weren’t commonplace at college. Unlike today, when free-floating CBD oils and legalized THC gummies boast their own stores, Mount Union students didn’t readily espouse marijuana and cocaine as acceptable forms of recreation.
A big event instead would be a party that offered something in addition to kegs of beer – meaning, shots of tequila or some fancy mixed drink, like rum-and-coke.
To be honest, I preferred drinking beer to “fancy” stuff. There was something to be said for getting drunk at a slow and consistent pace, with an expected and often acquired result. Vomiting and head spins were still optional, but I knew what I was getting with beer.
By my junior year, I was an expert at having a few beers before the party, then deftly finding my way to the keg as soon as I arrived. I considered myself “impressive” because I could put away a ton of beer. (Very few others considered this feat impressive.)
But I realize now that drinking was almost the only thing I did in college. Sure, I went to classes and somehow graduated. But every day – especially after I hit the ripe old age of 20 – my efforts focused on how and when I could – and would – drink.
There’s a line in one of the Anonymous program books that I’ve always found fascinating: “Our whole life and thinking were centered on drugs in one form or another—the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live.”
This is not to be confused with the Harley-Davidson motto “live to ride; ride to live,” which entered my life later.
Here’s a metaphor to explain what happened:
Imagine that you wake up and you have Cheerios for breakfast every day. You eat the Cheerios, then you go off to work. You have a sandwich or salad for lunch, then finish your day – you work, go home, go to the gym, have dinner, watch TV – whatever you do. Then you go to bed.
The next day, you wake up. You have Cheerios for breakfast as always, but you eat the last of the bag. Suddenly you panic because you remember you heard about a shortage of Cheerios. You go to work anyway, but you obsess all morning about cereal. You spend lunchtime hopping from store to store, looking for Cheerios, to no avail. Suddenly there are no more Cheerios anywhere.
You can’t think at work; you spend your entire afternoon looking online for Cheerios. There’s no rest. You can’t go home. There’s no time to relax or watch TV. There’s nothing but the inside of your brain screaming: I MUST HAVE CHEERIOS! And there are zero Cheerios. From this day forward, there will never, ever be enough Cheerios. Worse yet, there is no reasonable alternative.
Addiction is that simple, that stupid, and that incessant. It’s like a flip switched in my brain and I became irreparably obsessed.
During my junior year of college, my life quietly evolved from “collegiate fun” to “maniacally compulsive.” There was no prior thought, no decision made. I didn’t sit down and think, You know, I think I’d like to spend more time drinking and less time doing everything else.
I just … stopped caring about anything except Cheerios – oops, I mean alcohol.
It happened as quickly and as silently as a ball of dust rolling into a corner behind a desk.
I never saw it coming; I didn’t even know it happened. At the time, I didn’t care. My life was glorious, carefree and wonderful. I wanted nothing except … more beer.