Word: alcoholism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Even in those early days, signs might have pointed an expert on alcoholism toward my growing problem. One hint was my immediate tendency to drink to unconsciousness. At parties, I would often fall asleep in mid-hullabaloo on the couch. That drew plenty of jokes at the time. Only much later did I recognize that I had been passing out. Another signal was an initial, abnormally high tolerance for alcohol, at least until the passing-out stage. I thought I could hold my liquor pretty well. Now I think it means that my body was being less dutiful than most...
Exactly when did I become addicted to alcohol? I don't know that either. The addiction was preceded by a delusion: I thought I drank to socialize. Maybe I did. My alcoholism took years to develop into a chronic affliction, and during much of that time I went to bars after work, one of the guys. The delusion was gradually reinforced by gravitation. I mingled more and more with other persistent drinkers who took longer and longer to call for their bar tabs. Most of us were actually alcoholics in varying stages of development. The nonalcoholics had long ago selected...
Inexorably, the need for alcohol grew, while the lies wore thin. As my alcoholism accelerated, I abandoned most drinking partners and joined the ranks of solitary topers bellied up to countless bars. I lost any sense at all of what would happen after I started drinking; I became completely unpredictable. Sometimes I would go home after a couple of drinks (there was usually more booze there). More often, I would join the lineup of other alcoholics at the bar telephone stalls, fumbling with worn-out excuses about unexpected visitors and urgent business meetings. Sometimes I would simply hole...
Bizarre incidents like that left me petrified but unable to stop drinking. None of the growing physical pangs of alcoholism -- the retching, nervous spasms, sweaty and sleepless nights, dehydration -- matched the moments of hammering panic I felt every morning for months on end, as I tried to remember exactly what I had done the night before. At one point, terrified that I might kill someone with my car, I gave up driving, but never alcohol. Along with the fear came sudden rages -- at my wife, at my friends, at anyone who tried to stop me from drinking. My homelife became...
Years later, after hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and many hours of intensive counseling, I am happy to acknowledge that I have a serious, progressive ailment, with no cure. Alcohol is no longer a terrifying, destructive force in my life. It is just another chemical, fine for you, perhaps, but deadly for me. I avoid it, but without a sense of panic or fear. Friends say I am a completely different person now. Only, sometimes, I remember the feelings of hopelessness and shame from those terrible years, and I still have to struggle to hold back the tears...