Accepting the Reality

Today will begin my true battle with alcohol. Or should I say war? I began to recognize my issues with sobriety a year ago but, honestly, I was remaining within a pre-contemplative stage of change. I knew the problem yet made excuses for myself. The classics- “I can stop any time” or “I won’t drink too much, just enough to take the edge off”; “I know it’s not healthy but it’s too hard to quit completely”. Then I recognized and attempted to change. I quit for one month. All it took was one moment to dive back in and, shockingly, even deeper- “Oh, it’ll only be this one time and I’ll be good with keeping more sobriety days than days with alcohol”, I thought as I cracked open a cold seltzer during some girl talk with my best friend. Obviously, that’s not how it happened. I began validating myself more and more with every sip, every drink; every day. I went from a few beers/glasses of wine/mixed drinks to straight liquor. Half a pint would do, then it became a whole pint. Now I can’t seem to tell when enough is enough.

I’ve now transitioned to the worst of it where I hide my consumption. I stop at the liquor store after work and have some shots from a fifth as I drive around the block a few times before pulling in the driveway. I’ve begun to keep a liter of alcohol at home while keeping a fifth in my desk at work to enjoy while finishing work in my office at the end of the day. If I drank at the office, I could come home and have what would appear to only be one glass while sitting with my husband as an effort to look like an average person enjoying an average drink at the end of an average day. It’s now interfered with my every day life. I know that is a problem. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have always known. I simply did not want to accept it because accepting it would mean I have truly become an alcoholic just like my mother. The person I absolutely did not want to be as a parent and wife.

I come home and can’t move off the couch. I sip the alcohol and complete online coursework for my Master’s program. I toss and turn in my sleep, have nightmares which trigger panic attacks and severe anxiety for the next 24 hours. I don’t wake up with an average hangover but with intense brainfog, fatigue, irritation, and inability to complete simple tasks. My eyes are permanently blood shot. I swear I see some yellowing but maybe that’s just paranoia? I’ve gained weight, feel more and more depressed, and have become withdrawn from my family as well as friends.

I’ve begun to drink so much that I see double rather than just “feel good”. Even during moments I should be present, I am intoxicated and more worried about my husband/children noticing my slur, my inability to walk a straight line, and the smell of my breath if I sit/stand to close. I’m not present. My husband has began to notice within the last month and a half. He believes I am cheating on him and last night I caught him going through my phone at 2am. In a way… I am. Cheating, that is. I am choosing a relationship with alcohol over my relationship with him and our children.

These realizations have been on my mind each day. Every single time I wake up I reflect and say, “not today. You won’t drink. You feel awful every time you do so remember that when you think about drinking”. Yet I find myself reaching for the bottle as soon as the work day is at an end.

So now, I am writing this to myself. And to you.. whoever you are who may be reading this. I drink and I feel scared and guilty. I wake to anxiety and further guilt. I feel terrible all day, can’t think straight, am so exhausted, and can hardly walk from the body pain I carry with me. I don’t want to drink. I now am at a place I need to drink. And it is going to stop beginning NOW. This is the moment I have chosen.

I will reread every single entry I make henceforth prior to adding a new entry to reflect and recognize this has to end. And it will very much be worth it.