Somewhere during college, my life started spiraling into something unrecognizable. And it got much, much worse before it got better.
But I’m not writing my story because it needs to be read. I’m writing it because it needs to be written.
I need to shine a bright light on why I did what I did, so that I can understand better. Telling the story is like talking about a nightmare; it’s not quite so scary once it’s shared.
Promiscuity often goes hand-in-hand with alcoholism. But I believe there’s a stronger reason than just “alcoholics get drunk and do stupid stuff.” For me, both alcoholism and promiscuity stem from one deep-seated belief: I needed something outside of myself to validate me.
Alcoholism also often goes hand-in-hand with trauma, particularly childhood sexual abuse. I went to a lot of therapy and every single therapist asked me: “Do you think you were you abused as a child?”
I wanted to get better; I was willing to do anything to figure out the underlying causes behind my behavior. So I really thought about this, imagining every possible scenario. I thought back to my childhood, considered every friend, relative and friend of the family. I even considered strangers.
I really, really delved deep, trying to remember my dark, underlying trauma.
But there was nothing to recall. I was never abused as a child. I’m not blocking it out; it simply didn’t happen.
There was a time when I actually wanted to say I was abused, because it would have been easy to use abuse as an excuse. I hated my own behavior; for so long I wished that something caused the problem that was “me.”
But the problem was the way I felt about myself; I didn’t feel worthy of respect or care. I hated myself so much, I never looked inward to soothe my pain. I didn’t believe I had any good inside of myself. The middle school bullies taught me that my deep-down “goodness” was actually “weakness.” So I crushed that.
Instead I reached out – and reached out – and reached out – and begged and pleaded and cried, please love me! … even though the person who most needed to love me was me.
So instead of love, I got sex. I fixed it in my brain, so that sex seemed a fine replacement for the love I craved. No one was offering actual love to someone so needy and desperate, so I believed that what I got was somehow worthwhile.
I started to believe it was my choice, which gave me a (delusional) feeling of control.
And in spite of not being abused, I blamed my picture-perfect parents and the cruel girls in middle school for my self-loathing. I blamed them – well, I blamed everyone – for what was wrong inside of me.
I’m certain that I am not alone in this insanity; it’s commonplace in addiction. I blamed them because I wasn’t mature enough to blame – and therefore take responsibility for – myself.
Blame is just another way of reaching outward instead of inward. Everything I did was a way of searching outside myself to fill the void where self-love should have been. And the more I reached, the less love and validation I found.
It took me many, many years before I realized that the only way out … was in.
It didn’t take me long to realize that “going home” with a guy – even if our eyes locked across a crowded room – didn’t necessarily mean I was going to marry that person. I may have started college with severe naivety, but I learned very quickly that what I was doing with guys wasn’t doing anything for me.
Unfortunately, I had no idea what else to do. It seemed like all of my friends were drinking to oblivion and going home with guys, too. So I just kept doing it.
After many, many frat parties, and many, many drunken trysts with college boys who were basically strangers, a boy named Mike called my dorm … and asked me out.
That phone call was exhilarating. Somebody actually liked me! As an added bonus Mike was the best looking guy in my class – a soccer player from New York. With his exotic back story, I’d always admired him from afar.
When I told my friends he’d asked me out, we all squealed with delight. What would I wear? Where would we go? I spent three days giggling about the possibilities until finally, it was time to go on my first college date.
Mike showed up to walk me to the bar, where we’d decided to go for drinks. Let’s face it – there wasn’t much else to do in that tiny town. We talked shyly all the way there, then drank some beers and loosened up a bit. Mike was a perfect gentleman, holding the door for me, buying my beers, leaning in close as we tried to talk above the din. We had an absolutely fine time.
Heading back to my dorm, we were laughing like old friends. It was chilly, so Mike wrapped his jacket around my shoulders. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie; I could practically hear the soundtrack playing.
He walked me to my room and I invited him inside; I wanted him to see my posters and record collection.
As soon as we stepped inside, Mike started kissing me. Okay, I thought. The best looking boy on campus is kissing me! I decided music could wait.
We kissed for a minute and then, abruptly, Mike pushed me back, grabbed the top of my head with one hand, and shoved my face toward his crotch.
Suddenly this didn’t feel romantic. In fact, it bordered on abusive.
I ducked away from his hand and broke free. The magical night we’d had vanished; the spell was irrevocably broken.
“What are you doing?” I whimpered.
“Come on,” he said.
“What do you mean? Why are you doing this?” My voice cracked.
Mike looked perplexed. He didn’t seem to have an answer. Finally he stammered, “What about all those other guys?”
Other guys?
My stomach clenched and tears stung my eyes. From Hallmark to hell, in the blink of an eye. I may have been drunk, and I may have been naive, but I wasn’t stupid.
“Go home,” I said. I turned my back on him and sat down on the bed. A part of me hoped he would stay, sit down and reassure me that this was all a mistake. But Mike – who was still standing stupidly by the door – just walked out without a word. There was no apology. In fact, we never spoke again.
I lost something that night – some part of me that had been tucked away and hopeful. It crumbled inside me, swirled like dust, then disappeared forever.
I always loved sled riding – but only on the way down. Pulling my sled back up the hill was far too much like work, and it was agonizing on the big hills around the places where I lived.
After dinner one night in college, the girls decided we should all go sled riding. This sounded like a marvelous idea. We all snuck trays out of the cafeteria – hard plastic rectangles that slid across the table nicely – to use as sleds. Under our thick coats in the middle of winter, this wasn’t too hard.
We raced back to the dorm, waving around our personal “sleds” and digging out our gloves and hats. We were going sled riding! There was snow as far as the eye could see, and all we needed to do was sit down and slide!
In Ohio.
None of us considered this. We were in one of the flattest terrains this side of the Mississippi. There were no hills. Anywhere.
We trudged through the snow all over campus, looking for a hill, laughing all the way. No one was willing to give up and, eventually, we found a 20-foot dip in the terrain to use for our purposes.
One by one, we sat down on our trays … and sunk into the snow. We pushed ourselves with our feet. We pushed ourselves with our hands. Friends pushed other friends. We fell off of our trays into the snow, laughing hysterically, sliding nowhere.
We were college students, though, so we figured out what we needed to do: carve out our path! We took our trays and ran them down the “hill” until there was a path wide enough for a tray or two to descend. And then we took turns “sliding” on the path – literally the most pitiful sledding experience in the history of the world.
To this day, it is one of my fondest college memories.
I was stumbling home alone from the bar one night when this adorable boy named Terry saw me and pulled over in his car.
“Do you want a ride?” he asked. It was really, really cold and sliding on the ice wasn’t fun, so I considered this.
Terry was really cute, with sandy hair and a sweet smile. I knew him, but only barely. Maybe we had a class together. I considered refusing – I was proud to be going home alone for once – but it was very cold.
“Um, okay, thanks,” I said and slid onto the passenger side of the long bench seat. I hung close to the door just to be safe. By this time in my college career, I knew that I might need to dive out of a stranger’s car at any given moment.
“Were you at The Hood?” Terry asked politely.
“Yeah,” I said; everyone knew the campus bar.
“Lots of people there?” he asked.
“Not a lot,” I said. I think it was a Wednesday. I watched as Terry turned into our campus. It wasn’t a long drive, maybe two minutes.
“Which dorm is yours?” he asked. Oh boy, I thought. Here we go.
“This one,” I said – and pointed. He gently pulled over into the nearest parking space and stopped the car.
“All right,” he said. He turned to look at me for the first time.
I knew I had no choice; I’d accepted a ride home from this man. This would surely require payment. I asked, “Do you want to come in?” I was shaking a little – maybe from the cold, maybe from the fear.
“No thanks,” Terry said.
“No?” I asked, incredulous. He wasn’t coming in?
“No, I’ve got some studying to do.”
My heart leapt. For the first time in as long as I could remember, a guy did something nice for me without asking for a single thing in return.
“Okay well ….” I trailed off. I sat there for what seemed like a full minute, although it was probably eight seconds.
I had no idea how to say what I wanted to say. You’re like an angel, I wanted to say. Thank you for not forcing me to have sex with you.
Finally I stammered “thank you so much” and got out of the car. I turned and waved quickly, and ran into my dorm with all the giddiness of a teenager.
Which I was.
And then – because I was so incredibly confused and naive – I considered that maybe I was in love.
Fortunately for Terry, we only saw each other in passing after that. We waved slightly and moved on – him in his world, where nice people did nice things … and me to mine.
Most people drink to alleviate stress or to be social. They drink to feel good when they are feeling bad. They drink to celebrate when they are feeling good. But I didn’t drink just to feel good. I drank to feel good about who I am.
I wasn’t trying to change my mood. I was trying to change my inner being.
I drank to feel better about the internal part of myself that was always, always, always out of whack. I was never properly aligned with society. I never fit in. I never felt “part of” anything. But when I drank, I could be a part of everything – or so I thought.
Eventually I fit into absolutely nothing, all over again. That took awhile – but somehow happened suddenly.
At first I fit, then – wham! – I didn’t fit because I was a drunk.
An exquisite example of this is my experience with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. For the uninitiated, Rocky Horror is the pinnacle of audience participation movies.
In high school, I went weekly to see Rocky Horror twice weekly at midnight. It was an awesome experience: going to a dark theater, shooting squirt guns and throwing bread at each other, and dancing the Time Warp. Best of all, I knew every line of the movie – which included the hysterical lines that are yelled aloud at the characters. I adored going to Rocky Horror.
I knew every single line to yell at the screen, and even if I drank beforehand, I could spew verbatim the lines needed to make the movie into a phenomenal experience.
Fast forward to college, freshman year: Rocky Horror was playing for one night only on campus! Totally ecstatic, I headed into the theater with – I learned later – about 300 “virgins” who had never seen the movie before.
When it came time to throw something or yell at the screen, I was the only one who did it. And the audience loved me.
I would yell “kick the tire!” and the character in the movie would kick the tire. The other students roared with laughter. They thought I was hysterical!
Of course I’d had several beers before attending, so I got louder as the movie wore on. I yelled out lines for two hours, never missing a beat. It was my starring moment.
Fast forward again: two years later: Rocky Horror was coming back! I could hardly wait to do it all again!
Before the movie, I drank a few beers – and then a few more beers – and by the time the movie started, I was sloshed. My alcoholism had progressed quite a bit in those few years; I’d been drinking daily for awhile.
When I sat down in that movie theater again, my enthusiasm was off the charts. I sang along with the opening song, loudly and poorly. But when it came time to yell lines, I could barely remember what I was supposed to say.
This time, when the guy kicked the tire, I watched him kick it … then yelled: “Kick the tire!” … which was not funny at all. Nor was it appreciated by my peers.
I kept trying, and failing, my humiliation palpable. Eventually I just gave up and shut up. My drinking actually made me stand out – in a bad way – instead of fitting in.
But it didn’t stop me from drinking to crush my inner being. The pain I felt before I drank was still too raw. I didn’t want that person to ever see the light of day again.
I’d considered, once or twice, that I might have a problem with drinking. The dean had called me a “problem drinker” and my mom had called me an “alcoholic” and I was just having a good time, but it occurred to me that I should prove, once and for all, that I was not an alcoholic.
I’d heard that alcoholics couldn’t drink just one drink. Like those potato chips, only with alcohol.
So one evening, when Donna and I both needed to study, we went out to prove that we were not “real” alcoholics. We put down our books and went to the bar for a study break, with every intention of having only one drink.
We took two quarters each – enough money for exactly one draft beer at the Naborhood Inn. We didn’t want to tempt fate by taking a full dollar.
We walked in and sat down at the bar, usually jammed with people but rather empty, and we ordered our beers. I made sure there wasn’t too much foam on top. I was only having one beer; I wanted to make sure that the glass was full.
We sipped our beers slowly, trying to relax in a room choking us with smoke and scratchy jukebox records. We chatted a little.
Some guy offered to buy us another round, but Donna politely declined. “We have to study!” she said, earnestly smiling. I hoped he’d ask again when my beer was gone.
We tried to drink slowly – although for me, “slow” was relative. It took me 10 minutes instead of two.
Then Donna hopped off the bar stool.
I was genuinely surprised. “Really? We’re really leaving?”
“Of course!” Donna said. She was smart and had a good head on her shoulders. She was getting straight A’s and she never got into trouble. Of course she was going back to the dorm.
But did I really have to go? It took every ounce of willpower I had to follow her out that door.
For me, it was a bit like sitting on a roller coaster – just sitting there – without anyone pushing the “go” button. I was ready! But I was stuck.
Why would anyone drink one drink? I thought. What’s the point?
Donna was excited to get back to our room, but I was distressed. My brain was sloshy. I felt tired but not drunk. I felt an emptiness – an ache that screamed from deep inside me, a scream that started with the first sip of that one beer.
I didn’t want to study! I wanted to go back to that bar!
“We did it, though,” Donna said. “We proved we could just have one drink!”
Oh riiiiiight, I thought. We proved that we’re not alcoholics!
That was an important thing. I needed to prove that I wasn’t an alcoholic, and this had been my test. And look! I had done it! I’d had one beer, and then I’d gone home!
I ignored all of my distress and decided that I had no trouble at all drinking only one beer.
Even though I had a tremendous amount of trouble drinking only one beer.
And I clung to the results of this experiment like it was the Holy Grail of Alcoholism. I didn’t think about how that one beer made me insane on the walk home – about how physically, mentally and emotionally agonizing it was for me to stop. I pretended there was no screaming emptiness.
The next night, I went back to that bar and drank 42,000 beers to make up for the ones I didn’t drink the night before.
As a parent with two sons in college, I spend a great deal of time focusing on academics. I say things like, “How was your class?” and “Who’s your favorite professor?” And my sons generally answer me, telling me about their classes and their professors.
But when I look back on four years of college, my memories of classes are limited to a very, very few.
I remember one day in Creative Writing – with the wonderful Dr. Crist – where students were led, 100% blindfolded, outside and around campus. The activity heightened our awareness of our other senses, to teach us how write with details that were beyond visual.
When I walked out that door wearing a blindfold, it was the middle of winter. It had been winter forever. But until I walked out the door without my vision, I hadn’t realized that winter has a smell. It’s something I think about every winter now, even though Dr. Crist died 20 years ago.
I remember another day in American Literature when Dr. Gloria Malone said, “That’s it for Ray Bradbury; next week we’ll be starting a new work.” And then she dismissed the class.
But I had read that Ray Bradbury story in high school; it was one of my favorites. I’d learned about the massive amounts of symbolism in the opening scene; every sentence sagged with hugely symbolic descriptions. And she hadn’t even mentioned symbolism! Maybe she forgot?
I walked up to Dr. Malone, meekly as was my way, and asked. “But what about the rest of it? What about all the symbolism in the first part, about the hose and the … well, everything? What about all of the meaning behind what he wrote?”
Dr. Malone smiled. “Ah yes,” she said. “Well, this is an introductory course. I’m afraid not everyone would be able to delve into the deeper meanings in an introductory course. It’s just a bit too much depth at this level.”
But we discussed this when I was in high school, I wanted to say, and it wasn’t too much even then. But I said nothing. I nodded, and I left. I minored in English but I didn’t learn a single thing about literature.
I remember showing up to countless morning – and afternoon – classes with my head pounding, dry-mouthed and crusty, wishing I could be back in my bed recovering.
And while I had some classes I truly detested, the worst for me was taking a night class. By the time I took Public Relations – the career to which my dad devoted his entire life – I wasn’t able to stay sober all the way to 7:00 p.m. I went to class drunk more often than not, and when I wasn’t there drunk, it’s because I wasn’t there at all.
My dad made a national name for himself in both public relations and higher education – so my Public Relations professor, Harry Paidis, knew the Keith Moore. A friend told him I was Keith’s daughter and he nearly croaked. By that time, I’d become nothing more than a walking wet noodle.
By the last semester of my senior year, I slept through my final exam in Shakespeare and I escaped with a D- in the class. That was memorable. I certainly did not deserve a passing grade.
The other hundred credits I took? I barely remember them at all.
During my sophomore year, I’d settled into a rhythm: drink on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes on Sunday afternoons. Drink other nights if anything at all was happening. And drink if nothing was happening, but only if someone else was willing to drink, too.
It was this schedule that motivated my psychic change from someone who cared a little about the people around me to a full-blown jerk who wanted to have “fun” no matter who got hurt in the process.
Part of my issue was that I had gained no social skills growing up, so I had no ability to express myself properly. When I was raging drunk, if I wasn’t busy dancing and feeling accepted, I spewed venom on everyone in my vicinity – especially my roommate.
Donna was my best friend and we could hardly wait to room together sophomore year. We spent a ton of time together freshman year and knew that our living styles were similar. Neither of us expected to end up in the Office of the Dean, seeking mediation for our relationship issues.
Dean Dorothy Davis was a campus legend. Being called into her office terrified me.
The dean listened to us talk about our problems. Donna and I tried to be nice to one another, because we really liked each other. But we were obviously both furiously frustrated.
Donna thought my problem was a lack of food. She told Dean Davis that I was constantly starving myself and … “I hate to say it, but when she’s on a diet she’s just a bitch.”
And I was on a diet all the time. I was constantly worried about my weight (128 pounds). I drank beer instead of eating most of the time, but when I ate it was usually candy bars and pizza. Honestly, though, dieting wasn’t my problem.
I thought Donna’s problem was stress or boredom, maybe both. Donna seemed to do only boring things, like watching TV and studying, even when I wanted to drink. I told Dean Davis that if Donna would spend more time having fun and less time worrying about stupid stuff, we’d both be fine.
Dean Davis asked us if we drank alcohol. She asked about the parties we attended, what else we did together, what we did when we were apart. We told her as little as possible to avoid getting into trouble, but we were honest enough to let her know that we were pretty typical college kids.
That’s when the dean leaned forward in her chair over her giant administrative desk and looked directly at me.
“You might be a problem drinker,” she said.
“A problem drinker?” I asked. “What is that? Is that like an alcoholic?”
“Not necessarily,” she said. “But it might be a step toward becoming an alcoholic unless you do something differently. You might want to be careful.”
“I am always careful,” I said, not understanding a word she said. “And I will continue to be careful.”
I am sure I believed this with my whole heart, but I had no idea with what I was supposed to be careful.
Eventually Dean Davis sent Donna and me on our way with a plan to cooperate, communicate and cohabitate more effectively. Somehow by junior year, Donna was still ready to get as far away from me as possible.
Growing up, I believed that staying celibate until marriage was a good idea. I was taught that intimacy was private and personal and meant to be shared between two loving adults. And as a child, I believed deeply in love, romance, fantasy and magic.
In fact, I still believe in love, romance, fantasy and magic. It’s terribly disappointing for me most days.
My behavior with men in college can’t be explained without many years of in-depth, personal therapy. Fortunately, I have explored two rehabs and countless therapists to provide me with some insights. I know a little about why I behaved the way I did.
First and foremost: if I hadn’t been a drunk, it’s quite likely that I would have led a different life entirely.
But I didn’t know anything about men. What little I knew, I learned from books and Disney movies. So I went to college thinking, I will meet Prince Charming at Mount Union! Our eyes would lock across a crowded room and that would be it. We would instantly fall in love and when we graduated, we’d get married and have 2.2 children, a dog and a white picket fence.
All the stuff that was supposed to happen in between our first eye-lock and the picket fence…?
Well, I had no idea what that might be, but I assumed my One True Love and I would figure it out.
It’s like I was a packet of cake mix, just waiting for the eggs to get mixed in so I could start baking. My life wasn’t going to be complete without a man – feminism be damned – and I was going to find the perfect complement to my completely warped perceptions no matter what I had to do along the way.
But since I had no idea that men were actually human beings, I truly had no idea what to do with a man when I found one. I was raised with loving, caring parents, but no brothers. My role-model father was, in my mind, perfect. His job was to come home from work and play games with me and go sled riding.
So I just had to find a guy who would go to work and then come home and play games with me. How hard could that be?
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to make that marital fantasy into a reality – and I sure didn’t know what to do with a real-life man when I found one who would talk to me.
So I took my cues from men; I got drunk then tried to figure out what they wanted. I met lots and lots of men at college – at bars, house parties, and fraternities. And what I discovered: they all seemed to want the same thing. And what they wanted from me … wasn’t what I wanted at all.
Alcohol provided me with both a buffer and a tranquilizer. It shoved me into a corner – face up against the wall – daring me to find my way out when I could see nothing but the corner. Ya gotta get another beer! it screamed. Go with him! He has beer!
Alcohol drowned my naivety and buried my innocence. You can do this! You’re cool! I was not cool.
It kept me engaged with the targets of my affection while allowing me to deadpan my deepest desires. If I give him what he wants, maybe he will like me.
Alcohol let me continue dreaming, even as it killed every dream I ever had.
I once heard that the difference between a college student and an alcoholic is that the alcoholic keeps drinking to excess after graduation. For me, this is truth. With very few exceptions, my friends stopped excessive drinking after college and went on to lead “normal” lives.
But on weekends during college, nearly everyone who drank alcohol consumed it with much the same gusto I did. During my sophomore year, I found a home with some like-minded people on the first floor of McMaster Hall.
We often had a few beers before going to parties. With a boombox in the communal bathroom, we’d take beers into the shower stalls and drink and sing along while prepping for the evening. We called these “shower parties.” I enjoyed them so much that, even after quitting drinking, I keep a boombox in my bathroom so I can have a “shower party” whenever I want.
Sometimes we’d go out to the local bars – most often “The Hood” – and we would drink until we dropped or found somewhere else to go, six-pack in tow. More often than not, my friends would randomly disappear. Staying until closing at 2 a.m. was commonplace for me. I’m the same way now with Disney World.
At parties, which took place mostly in off-campus housing, we drank vehemently. Students danced and sang to whatever song blasted through the air. Since I stayed near the keg or the garbage bin brimming with grain alcohol and Kool Aid, I never knew from where the music emanated. Sometimes the music would also be outside, as in the case of the awesome annual ATO pig roast, and those were fine parties, indeed. More than the alcohol, really, the music made the party great.
My recollections of college parties center around the song, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, with its gaggle of girls rushing into whatever makeshift dance floor suddenly appeared. Waving our drinks above our heads, we’d scream-sing every single syllable of the song, dividing the group during the duet piece so that some of us sang the “boy” lines and some sang the “girl” lines. Scream-singing “Let me sleep on it!” is possibly my fondest memory of my entire college experience.
Of course there were people on campus who didn’t drink. Given the atmosphere at any house party, frat party or bar scene, the people who didn’t drink simply didn’t frequent the places I did. My friend Debbie, who never indulged, would stay in her dorm room and study or watch TV while the campus teemed with drunk people outside.
Sometimes I would stumble past a group of students – day and night – sitting in a circle on the lawn in the center of campus. Mentally I referred to them as “the Christians” but I don’t know if they were religious. They’d hang out, sometimes playing guitar, all of them smiling and chatting and having fun. Feigning disdain, I would put my head down and walk by, searching for somewhere safe to pass out.
I think about “the Christians” now with the wish that – even once – I’d had the good sense to do what they did, sitting out there with a guitar in the sunshine. I always imagined myself a hippie born too late for her generation, but truthfully I was just a drunk. I didn’t spend one minute with peace or love.
When college ended, my partying days continued. The difference is that my friends and my feeling of belonging ended at graduation.
