The Dirty "A" Word

I’m really struggling with deciding what to write about in these blog posts, because it feels like I have to unpack ALL the drawers at once.  But this isn’t a full-length memoir.  I chose to share my stories via a blog to make it more accessible and reach a different audience.  As a modern day “everyperson”, I want to talk about things that affect a huge chunk of people – especially those whose stories are being silenced by shame.

So here goes, I’m going to pick a story topic and verbal vomit my way through it.  I’ll try to find my voice by blog post 46 or so.

Today’s letter is “A”.  As in, the dirty A-word.  Alcohol.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about alcohol out there, and I can recommend a variety of amazing “quit lit” books for further reading on this.  But I’m trying to make this bite-size, so here are the ideas that are on my mind the most today.

1. There are no standardized tests or score categories to determine if someone is “alcoholic enough” to be considered an “alcoholic.”

When I first quit drinking, I was kind of paranoid that people would call me a “fakeaholic.”  I thought that because my rock bottom didn’t include a Hollywood ending, I must be overreacting. 

But as all the quit lit will talk about, if someone you loved was a casual cocaine user and they suddenly decided to quit, you would likely be totally supportive and never question whether their usage level qualified them for joining the new sobriety club. 

Not that I was a casual alcohol drinker at that point.  But I actually drank WAY more during a different period in my life than I did at the point last year when I realized I had a mental addiction.  More on those stories later.

The point is, if a person feels that they struggle with how much alcohol they consume and/or how often, and they feel like it has a negative impact on their life in any way, they deserve the chance to quit completely without judgment and with whatever resources they need. 

Our obsession with tests and scores and categorizations makes no sense for individual struggles (don’t even get me started on testing in schools right now…).  At what point does a pile of sand grains turn into a heap?  Or as one of my mentors in grad school pointed out, the difference between “safe” and “unsafe” in testing cleaning products often comes down to one dead rat…

Each person has their own alcohol story; there’s no single narrative, as much as we like to believe we know there is. If you think you are one grain of sand or one dead rat away from being an alcoholic, why wait?

2. Addiction to alcohol – regardless of how “bad” it is - is not a character flaw or a matter of "will power."

Alcohol is an addictive substance.  Period.  If you become addicted to it (whether mentally or physically or both), you are a human.  Not a bad human.  Actually, you’re functioning the way you are supposed to – your body is just following its programming. 

But surely alcoholics “let themselves get that way” at some point, right?  Why didn’t they ask for help?  Why didn’t they recognize it was a problem and stop before it was too late?

Both in my own experience and from what I’ve seen, lots of us actually did try to get help.  Many of us did see it was a problem and tried to stop it before it got worse.  I was one of the lucky ones; I’ve heard many other stories of individuals who sought help and got nowhere. 

I was lucky enough not to need a treatment center (my medical help came through balancing my hormones, which sounds suspiciously easy…and maybe it really could be that easy for some others, too…), but from what I hear, treatment centers can be difficult or impossible to get into.  They depend on insurance, openings, etc.  How can someone even go to a treatment center if they have family to care for, a job to hold down so the rent is paid, etc.?  Getting help is a HUGE matter of privilege.

And it isn’t just about having support and resources, it’s also about overcoming the shame and self-blame of feeling like it must be all your fault.  I absolutely blamed myself.  I thought I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t doing enough of the right things, had made too many bad choices in my life.  Besides, I told myself, alcohol was my “fate”; drinking was part of my family’s history, it was in my blood and my bones and my soul, there was no way to escape the mental reliance on alcohol to numb the pain of life and escape temporarily each day.

It turns out that this little chemical meat puppet (me) had processes going on inside that made “will power” a total myth.  I do not believe I would be telling this story the same way now had it not been for balancing my perimenopausal hormones.  I’m not kidding you – a week after hormones, I suddenly had the “will power” to quit. 

3. For many of us, alcoholism was a symptom rather than the root cause. 

Sure, there are plenty of Hollywood stories of alcoholics who started early and seemingly suffered physical addiction from the start.  I cannot imagine how difficult that existence must be.  But that is not the only story of alcoholism.

Other stories are more similar to mine.  We turned to alcohol when nothing else seemed to work.  It is legal, accessible, and socially encouraged.  It often felt like the industry in which I worked (Technical Theatre) invented the model of work hard, play hard, but I’ve grown to understand that pretty much everyone feels that way about their jobs.  We’ve set up this hustle culture in which self-care is totally unprioritized, and then we joke about “needing a drink” to unwind and decompress.  It’s almost a badge of honor at this point to work yourself so hard that only the bottle is strong enough to help. 

And we start this messaging young, too.  I LOVE me some Disney movies, but I watch them now in disbelief as I notice just how often alcohol is included as the first step in relaxing or dealing with stress.  In the movie “Planes” (which I love – don’t judge me – haters gonna hate and whatever), the main character approaches the bar in a German alehouse, sad from his poor performance in the race around the world.  A barmaid slams two steins on the bar and says, “You sad – you drink!”

Is it any wonder so many people become addicted to alcohol?  I actually wonder how there aren’t MORE alcoholics!  To be honest, though, I suspect there are – but they’re more like me, functioning under the radar and too ashamed or embarrassed or paranoid they must be overreacting to make the leap and quit for good.

So, yeah, I think alcohol use is frequently a symptom of stress, burnout, etc.  It’s also self-medication to deal with trauma and other physical or mental illness.  In my experience, doctors refused to hand out any medications that might be habit-forming, but they were also very cautious about talking with me about alcohol, lest they come across as judgmental.  At least, not until it had become an obvious problem -- then they were quick to blame all my issues on that. 

I went into my PCP (a resident) specifically because I was self-medicating with alcohol to get to sleep.  She was wonderful – patient, understanding, supportive - but had to bring in her supervisor to discuss medication options.  I literally begged him for an alternative, breaking down crying about how it had been two years of absolute hell.  At this point, I suspected perimenopause was a big factor and was waiting for my upcoming OBGYN appointment to sort that out – it was a 3-month wait to see her, though, and I just needed something else to help my insomnia while I waited.  He told me if I just quit drinking wine, all my problems would be addressed, since alcohol increases insomnia and anxiety.  The only thing he finally – and reluctantly – agreed to give me was the smallest dose of Ambien.  I hated how that worked and stopped it after only two attempts.

I had already tried multiple SSRIs, as well as trazodone.  When nothing works and when your doctor won’t listen to you because he is sure he already knows that alcohol is the root cause of all your problems, what else do you do? 

Yes, alcohol makes anxiety and insomnia worse, thus creating a dangerous cycle.  But I had spent two years trying meds, doing therapy (including CBT-i, specifically for insomnia), practicing all the self-care I could manage, and nothing worked.  And before you ask, yes I quit drinking alcohol each time I tried a new med.  So there you have it, I truly did have enough so-called “will power” to quit drinking while waiting for a new med to kick in.  But when the side effects made things even worse, I went back to what I knew would provide me an escape.

Because that’s the point.  We aren’t drinking alcohol because we love hangovers and think the fake happiness of being drunk is the best thing ever.  We drink alcohol because it provides us with a short-term escape from whatever other problems are at the root cause.

4.  My guess is that a lot of people would like to quit, but feel like quitting would be WORSE than CONTINUING.  And not just because it means removing their most reliable coping mechanism, but because quitting would be admitting they have a problem.  It would mean they were one of “those” people – the alcoholics.

I went sugar free for over a year once.  It felt amazing.  I’d love to get back to that lifestyle, but it is so difficult when you’re too busy or struggling too much with your health to do all the planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. 

When I went sugar free, nobody assumed it was because I was diabetic or obese.  Nobody even asked why.  And I wasn’t judging others for their sugar consumption, insisting they had to quit, too.  It really wasn’t a big deal, for me or for anyone around me.

If you quit alcohol, though, everyone wants to know why.  Or maybe it just feels that way to some of us.  And some people do get all worried about whether or not they can drink or serve alcohol around you.  Others feel the need to justify their own alcohol use to you, as if you need to grant them permission to continue drinking.

There’s just a lot that goes on when you quit alcohol.  It is exhausting.

Lucky for me, I wear my heart on my sleeve and overshare to everyone I meet, so I have no problem telling everyone I quit and why.  I’m not doing this because I want recognition or something, I’m doing it because I want to normalize and destigmatize things that have previously brought me a lot of undue shame.  I was probably just a few months away from a physical addiction to alcohol, one that could have ended with a more dramatic story.  I had wanted to quit for over a year when I finally had the wherewithal to do so. 

Anyway, to summarize, I just want to say that if you feel like you want to quit drinking alcohol for good and are struggling to do so, do not blame yourself.  Find help.  Check out ALL the resources, and not just about alcohol – your root cause may be physical, chemical, mental, or a combination.  You might need to address many problems at once before your “will power” has any power at all.  Stop the shame cycle and share your story (feel free to contact me – I’m not the help you need, but I am a great listener!). 

The more we give voice to our struggles, the more we destigmatize alcohol addiction and help each other build lives from which we no longer feel the need to escape.

For further reading on all of these ideas - by experts in the field (which I am NOT):

The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober – Catherine Gray

The Sober Diaries: How one woman stopped drinking and started living – Clare Pooley

We are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life – Laura McKowen

Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol – Holly Whitaker