Alcoholism @ MindSay

I'm taking it. I'm owning it. I...have a problem. I have a drinking problem.

I went to my first session of addiction counseling today. Didn't think it went well during...or after. But looking back on it a good 12 hours later, I feel...better about it. Came clean with all my friends. And Nick. I think it helped...a little. Asked him if we could talk, and he didn't say no. He said not right now. Which is better than no. (wow, I sound needy--but maybe I need to be needy right now...different tangent...different time) Anyway...she (the counselor) said that I did good coming in (Cynical Autumn says: "Yeah, they always say that...Ca-ching! *scoff*") and that she thinks I "caught it early"...like it's a disease. Which, I suppose, it is. But it doesn't seem like the kind of thing you "catch early." I dunno...I guess she would know. Seems to me that if it's bad enough that other people were noticing (and I'm really good at hiding my problems--I used to cut), then it's pretty bad. But I came totally clean. Told her all about the mini-bar I kept in my car. Told her how I could count on one hand the days I'd been sober in the past 2 months. Come to think of it, I can count on all fingers and toes the number of days I've been sober in the past 6 months. Ouch. Not sure she's being hard enough on me. She's not telling me to stay away from alcohol. She's not...not telling me to stay away from it. But...I just think she'd be jumping all over that one. "Stay away from it...Stay away from people who drink." But...just gonna follow doctor's...err, counselor's orders. She said just...see how I do without drinking. Test my addiction. And to not be so hard on myself. Proud to say, I'm avoiding temptaion. The second one...not so much. What I've done is wrong, self-destructive, and harmful to others. I've gotten out of control. And that's hurt others.

Anyway...can you guess why I slept with Fetske? Cuz...I know exactly why. Not an excuse. At all. But an explanation. A poor one.

SO! Here goes. I am an alcoholic.

So after many, many years of my dad's drinking affecting all of us, and the back and forth of constant weird threats, bizzarre behaivor and mood swings that would make most people's head spin, the time has finally come upon my family.

Mom has been keeping a log of my dad's outbursts, consumptions, accidents and reactions. The log is startling. And once it was put into the hands of their doctor, combined with other incidents and such that were logged, the doctor laid down the law.

"You have two choices: beer or your family."

With that sentence, my dad accepted help and went into a 48-72 hour detox, with appropriate testing by MRI, psych, and blood workup to see what was going on, and the results couldn't have been better. Actual physical evidence that his excessive, daily consumption was harming him, and for those of you who read this and may have been told that you drink a lot, or know someone who does, here's some proof to toss your way:

My dad's brain was shrinking. Literally shrinking. With that comes a whole host of problems - loss of memory, dizziness, loss of comprehension, attitude changes, the whole nine yards.

And yes, this is good news! Because without physical evidence to back up what we've been harping on for years, it will fall on deaf ears.

Now we knew that dad wouldn't probably attend an AA meeting, because that's the way he is. He doesn't like to be pressured into anything, and the 'hard sell' is something that he will reject quickly. So while we were visiting him in the detox ward, the nurse came to take him to his first ever meeting, and they snuck it upon him. My sis knew where he was going, he didn't. And when he came back, he had the look of 'I'm not going to go to AA, there's no point'. So when after about 20 minutes, when visiting hours were over, and he said, "I want to go back to there for a little while longer," I think the thoughts that were going through our heads were in unision: "What did he say?!"

It was a long road down, and now that we're in the valley, the climb out will be challenging. We have to constantly remind him of what happened those three days, the things that he said, the things that were done. Dad said he was going to quit cold turkey. He did it with smoking (sis tried to eat his cigarettes when she was little) and we've already removed all of the alcohol from the house. Even the hidden stashes. He even said that he wouldn't mind going back to an AA meeting every once in awhile, or even seeing the psych!

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. We're turning a new page here - better yet, we're starting a new volume.

My own experiences into the unknown will be taking place on December 1, when I make my first trip off the North American continent to the Far East, and visit China for 3 weeks on business. Now, my 'business' is not what you would consider 'fun business'. I'm planning on working 8+ hour days, 7 days a week. It won't be all peaches and cream. I'm going to try my hardest to visit Beijing while I'm there. I don't know when I will ever go back to China. But it's exciting and scary all in one breath. I've heard so many things about the little nuances of Chinese culture - bring crisp, pristine currency, otherwise they will reject it. Tipping is not commonplace. Taxis use these little cards to get around to hotels and tourist sites. Don't drink the water. LOL

The long days will be murder - that's what I think I'm really worried about. Getting things done, getting them done correctly, before Christmas. It sounds like I have my December work cut out for me.

Egads... I've come to discover that my stomach can't handle a day without rum anymore. I go a whole day (especially a rough, hard working sort of day) without rum and it begins to rumble accompanied by a few waves of nausea until I finally give in and pour myself a nice, tall glass.
Is this a sign of alcoholism? Mayhap, and as bad as it sounds... I'm to lazy to go digging around the information superhighway at the moment for the answers.
Maybe after a drink... HA!  Heheh, ehhh, maybe not that funny.

Today is my brother Hector's birthday, he's 48 years old and, at least for today, he is sober.  My brother is an alcoholic.  Generally, he is usually drunk rather than sober, but he has been trying harder to attend his AA meetings and there are briefs periods of time where he is the lovable, goofy brother that I remember from my childhood and not the lonely, depressed alcoholic man that I often see.  I like to imagine an alternate reality where my brother got the help he needed early on to deal with his depression (which I believe is the underlying cause for his alcoholism) and that instead of being a 48 year old man still living with our mother and unable to find a job, instead he is happily married to a wonderful woman who appreciates his sensitive artistic side and they have 2 kids and live in a cute little cottage where my brother makes a living as an artist. 

My brother had the cards stacked against him from the beginning.  I believe he had an undiagnosed reading disorder, and at the time he attended school, children just weren't given the help they needed.  They were called slow learners by the teachers, and stupid by the other kids.  The one thing that seemed to save my brother then was his out-going personality (he could make anyone laugh) and his artistic ability, so he had a lot of friends and he was generally well liked.  His teachers continued to promote him to the next grade up, so by the time he made it to high school he was functionally illiterate. 

I'm 9 years younger than my brother, I recall one day when he was around 16 and I was 7, and he just started grabbing books from a bookshelf and he handed them to me and just asked me to start reading.  I read through all of them, and I looked up at him when I was done, and though he never actually cried his eyes looked watery.  He smiled at me, and said he was very proud of me, and that he was so happy to know I was so smart and that I would never have to hear anyone tell me I was stupid.  I was too young to fully comprehend what was going on, but I just knew that I felt sad for him and that I loved him. 

One thing that made me proud of him though was his artwork.  Everyone that saw his work was in awe of his talent.  He could draw anything.  He loved drawing cars and I remember the designs he came up with seemed so futuristic and out of this world, but he was a visionary, because I see a lot of what he drew on the cars that are out today.  He also loved creating bizarre monsters and creatures.  The kind of stuff that you see on heavy metal albums and fantasy books, but his stuff was so much better.  But because of his reading problem he had little to no confidence in any of his abilities and he would always say, "I can't draw for a living, I can't even read, who would want my artwork."  He just didn't have enough faith in himself, regardless of what anyone told him. 

The real turning point in my brother's life happened on his 21st birthday.  He was going out for the night with his best friend Ray.  Ray was a great guy; handsome, sweet, a little shy and he was a good friend to my brother.  I think how the story goes, is that they were suppose to meet up with their other friends later that night, and in the meantime they decided they wanted to score some weed for the evening.  They walked around the corner to the local gang hangout (we lived in a real crappy neighborhood, but my brother and none of his friends were in any gangs) to buy some stuff.  They knew the guys in the gang well enough to stick around for a bit to bullshit and stuff, which is what they were doing when it happened.  A rival gang pulled up and did a driveby shooting.  Hector was fine.  Ray died in my brothers arms.  My brother has never recovered from that night, and I think in so many ways a big part of my brother's spirit died that day too. 

I mean he went on with life, as best he could.  He held a good job for many years, went out with his friends, enjoyed his art hobby, but he didn't date much and he often came home from work and planted himself in front of the tv and drank beer until it was time to go to sleep.  If anyone questioned him about his drinking he's always say the same thing, "As long as I can hold a job down, and can still draw, then what does it matter how much I drink."  Then one day he lost his job, it was the 80's and factory layoffs were commonplace.  His drinking increased, his depression became evident and his life just never turned around after that. 

I wish I could end this by saying things are great for him now, that he's in recovery and making progress, but I really can't give you that happy ending.  I'd love for my brother to make it to full recovery and stay sober for an extended period of time, but the odds are very much against him.  The day of his birthday is usually the hardest day for him to make it through without a drink, I can't recall a birthday were he wasn't drunk.  I'm not a praying type of person, but today I am praying, hoping, thinking, wanting that my brother will make it through the day without that drink.  Happy Birthday Hector, I love you.

After our dessert tonight, my Granny and I talked on the topic of addiction over coffee. Smoking was what started us off. I heard the story of her ubrupt and unforseen quitting of smoking. The history of alcoholism in our family was dug deeper into and as I listened I though of the alcoholism on my father's side of the family, too. ...This is all more than I thought.

She told me of one time when my Aunt drank. My Aunt told my Granny that she knew she should never drink again and she told her simply why this was. Both my Aunt and I share the exact same words: "I liked it too much." When I said this myself I though that maybe I was being silly. I thought it wouldn't be understood. In fact, though, it is a feeling, a knowing, shared by at least one other.

I starred down into my half empty cup of coffee, eyes burning with tears, as my Granny spoke of how she felt when she drank and what she thought, in retrospect, it all meant. I remembered myself setting in the back of that old car with empty bottles at my feet, and larger, unoppened bottles beside them. I remembered my serious contemplations of asking if we might open them, too. I remembered the change in my personality when I was intoxicated. I remembered my confidence. I remembered my laugh and my running mouth. I remembered my lust and my comfort. I remembered intensely wanting more, because I loved it. I remembered this all being all there was. I remembered much of this which is so contrary to my true person because my Granny unknowingly reminded me as she spoke of herself, and of my great grandmother. I remembered, mostly, all the times I sat alone in my room thinking, and thinking to myself that I am addicted to this alcohol. An alcoholic? I could feel it. How could that be possible, though? What a disgustingly weak thing to think... unless it was only that I knew. At least, if I am not, I would be.

I have said before that just because something makes sense does not mean it is right or true. I say now too that what is right and true may not make sense. We may not understand how or why... it only is, as we may have to settle to understand it.

Still I question myself in this, but then... so often we say, "do not resign yourself to such dark conclusions! Weak, pitiful, false... ignorant! It is no good. Know better! Know this!: You are mistaken." I only know what is true for me. I have contemplated the possibilites of which I am aware and I fanally do know something. No one can argue me on it: I liked it too much. I do not know if it is in my genes. I do not know if it is purely in my mind. Anyway, it is no matter to me where it is in those respects. What would it benefit me if it was only in my head and I could overcome it? The drink? And then, what that? I am resigning myself to no conclusions as to why I am "addicted" to this this way. I am settling definately only on the one fact I have for myself: alcohol is not for me. I recently began using mouthwash since I have been here visiting my grandparents and even in that I find delight...

Although this may all sound silly and ignorant to some, I know that I am only the fool if I indulge despite knowing this of myself. Other's experiences are what they are, and I have mine, too.

I will leave off with my defense here because I suddenly feel it uncessary and stupid, maybe even contradictory. Let it rest here.

... Why indulge in what you know to be a bad thing?

P.S.

I read this card from the PostSecret blog today and was startled by how easily I could imagine someone I know writing this of me some day...