SexiMomma's blog: "words of wisdom"

So I'm an alcoholic. I've known this for a couple years now. I'm self-aware like that. No one had to tell me I was. Or intervene. Or confront. It just became terriblly apparent. I'm not a raging alcoholic. I don't drink all day and all night. During the day I drink a few 24 oz bttle of soda and do my job. Don't even want the stuff then. But 8 or 9 pm rolls around and I want some beer. Sometimes I think it'd be better to be the stereotypical drunk who goes nuts and drinks constantly. Because maybe that would somehow motive me to stop. Eh, Probably not. I drink four to nine beers a night before I get sleepy enough and saunter into bed. When I started drinking back in 1993 two beers got me completely wasted. And I didn't even much like the taste. It started out as a few beers only on weekends. Isn't that how it always starts out. I remember back in school, in health class, learning about alcohol and cigarettes and other such bad things. Tolerance. I understood the concept. Your body becomes accustomed to the dosage you're giving it and steadily needs more and more of the same toxin to produce the desired result. I guess it's darwinian. The body strengthens itself against the poisons you're feeding it in an unsolicited, effort to preserve itself. Tolerance has to be the cruelest, most evil of all the natural survival mechanisms built into the human body. It takes something good and makes it bad for you. If not for tolerance I would still be happy with just two beers a night. That I could live with. Unfortunately, tolerance is a very real thing. And two beers has gradually become three, then four, now usually eight or nine. And it's not something all that easy to tolerate mentally.

In my sober, during the day mind, it doesn't make sense to me at all. Why I keep on doing what I'm doing. But night falls, a few tv shows pass and it all makes perfect sense. This is what I've been waiting for since the alarm clock woke me up this morning. In any life a reason to go on is required. You simply can't live for nothing. There are all kinds of hopes and reasons the mind will fabricate. Because life is self-perpetuating. Somewhere hidden deep in the DNA of every living thing is a gene that triggers the brain to seek out and or configure such reasons. Because life was created to be life. To die eventually, but ultimately, first and foremost to live. Nature designed us that way and we grapple with that responsibility every second our heart ticks away. Some use god, heaven, religion. Others mates, children, grandchildren. There are those who seek meaning in their careers. And others who find it in art or literature. But reason is not for all. Reason is essentially the last bastion of the hopeless. Life's refugees digging into the mud that coats the grounds of their prisons. Because this is what they know. And what lies outside those walls is uncertain. Nevertheless, everyday, in most every life, people find or construct their reason to sustain the life inside them that begs them to. The majority obey. Those of us who don't poison it in slow doses. All the while hating how well it carries those wounds. Seeking no reason to convince ourselves we should live. But instead gathering the reasons there are to keep killing ourselves. As slowly as I will. In every life there is a reason. Even for alcoholics.

The term used is functional alcoholic. One who drinks excessively, but not so much that it impedes their work or other required daily functions. The functional drunk waits patiently or impatiently, as the case may be, for responsibility to tuck itself in for the night and only then does the abuse begin. Back when I used to talk with stereo boy, he said that to me for the first time. We're functional drunks. And even though I'd never heard the term before I immediately knew what it meant. I'd just finished recanting my tale of the previous night. I'd drunk about a six pack and it was still early in my training. So I'd puked it all back up. Spent a hefty portion of the late evening with my face in the bowl. Eventually I went to bed. As soon as my stomach stopped trying secede from my abdomen. The alarm went off and its usually time and I woke up, drank my coffee and did my job. And as soon as I'd finished speaking the last sentence of my story he chuckled a wine derivative giggle and said yea, we're functional drunks. As contented as he was amused. He'd been living that way much longer than I had. And even though I was there at the starting line of the race he was almost finished running, it never occurred to me then how much wisdom there was in his statement. Or worse yet, how right he was.

How much can I write about my alcohol habits before I start repeating myself or just get bored? Guess I'll find out. For the uninducted into this union, like any such organization, there are high dues to pay and scary, imposing leaders that intimidate you. They're all kinda in your head, but very real nonetheless. There's the loud voices telling you you'll never last the night without us. You'll cave at 2 in the morning and be worse off than if you'd just. Or you'll never write anything worthwhile again. It'll all be lame drivel. Has it always been? Isn't always? I can no longer tell. There's the soft voice saying what's the harm, You don't miss work. You're not mean. You're different, but better. Remember how it used to be. All that anger. All that thinking you'd never feel better. Well, here I am and now you do. And it's just a night. When it's dark and you're alone and there's no one else who'll be with you. And then there's my own voice. And the others are so dominate now that I can't even make out what it's saying anymore. Or if it even cares. The one thing that comes to mind at this moment is that I remember seeing someone grow much older very quickly. He drank a lot and I can't prove, but would guess the alcohol played a part. And I'm not what you'd call a shallow person. Didn't care how he looked, just how he behaved. And I'm not in the market for attracting any potential mates, but even still, I don't want to grow old fast. Simply because I don't want to advertise to the world that I'm doing something to cause that. I always figured before the alcohol that pain and sadness and loss were what made you older quicker. And that's probably true. Just all of those things go hand in hand with abuse of drugs and alcohol. If you're happy what need is there to escape yourself. Only trouble is, if you're not, and you choose this, it's not so much an escape as it is a different prison. I'm only a victim of myself, I know. But even still, I don't feel any less helpless or any less violated than I would if someone else were to blame for what I've become.