I Could Only See the Differences.
After almost three years sober, drinking felt like being gutted, my intestines splayed on the sidewalk, my soul void of any life. I felt lost, empty, dead – and immediately, undeniably comfortable. I didn’t need to drink twice to know that I’d turned onto a path that would lead directly to my death.
So I went to a meeting, and I admitted what I had done. Everyone congratulated me on being honest. They welcomed me back, told me to keep attending meetings, asked me if I had a sponsor. I did all the things they said to do: get a sponsor, call her every day, read the literature.
But the stories I heard felt like they were completely irrelevant to my life. I couldn’t see the similarities between the people in the rooms of AA and myself; I could only see our differences. I was young; they were old. I was deep; they were shallow. I was smart; they were just sheep in a herd.
I was wrong.
But I felt unique, utterly alone, as though I were the only suffering alcoholic in the world.
In spite of spending years listening to people talk about how to stay sober, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I just kept going to AA – noon meetings, evening meetings, speaker meetings, discussion meetings, sober club meetings. I’d go in, sit down, share, listen. And then I’d get drunk again.
And then I’d go to another meeting. Then I’d get drunk again. I didn’t go to the meetings drunk, but I also didn’t stay after the meetings to talk to anyone.
I kept saying, “I don’t want to drink but I don’t know how to stop.” But I didn’t want help, either. I wanted the answer. I wanted to figure it all out in my head and then do that one thing that I needed to do to stay sober forever. And I wanted desperately to be happy every, single day.
But I couldn’t stay sober for more than two days. And happiness eluded me completely. I wasn’t happy drinking. I wasn’t happy not drinking.
All I wanted in the whole world was to crawl back into Paul’s arms. He had been my sober guide, my guru, my sponsor, my higher power, my everything. Paul was my life and when we broke up, my life was over.
I believed I had absolutely no reason to live.
At the same time, I didn’t want to die drunk.
I’d had a taste of sobriety, a couple of years where I’d felt hope for myself, for my future, for an adulthood that didn’t suck. I didn’t want to go back to being strapped to the back of a motorcycle so I didn’t fall off, or vomiting every hour so I could consume more alcohol. I didn’t want to go back to the emptiness that I felt every time I put alcohol into my body.
But I didn’t know how to stop. Every day I would wake up and say, “I’m not going to drink today.” And almost without fail, I would pass out on my face drunk every night.
Sometimes I would play Atari instead, watching the clock until 2 a.m. when the bars closed, then breathing a sigh of relief that I’d made it through a whole day.
Then I’d get up, go to a noon meeting, and end up at the bar before dinner time, staring into those dead eyes that greeted me every time I looked into a mirror.
I was convinced my life was over. I was 27 years old.