Becoming an alcoholic

This is the one I’ve been dreading writing for so long. I keep starting it and then don’t get far enough but I’m committed this time. I’ve put a marker in the sand and if I mean what I say about no shame then I need to share my story.

There is no sexual abuse, no gory details to reveal about the journey I had into the despair of drinking. I’m almost ashamed of that but I think it’s important to show how a completely normal life can end up in just as many pieces as one that’s had all the cards stacked against it from the get go.

I had a very normal, almost charmed up bringing. I lived in a chocolate box cottage with two loving and wonderful parents, and two older brothers. I wanted for nothing. Great holidays, good school and parents who probably spoiled me too much and didn’t teach me anything about self-regulation. There is no …”and then”….in my story. No single event that led to my drinking, no pattern of behavior, no trauma. There are all of those things and none of them. And importantly there was no single point at which I woke up and thought – you know what, I think I’ll get a drinking problem now. It did not happen like that and does not happen like that for many many many people.

I live a pretty fast and intense life and have since learned that I would be what is known as a High Functioning Alcoholic. I did well in school, I got a good job, I had boyfriends (a normal amount at that point) and I was living a completely slightly above average life. I moved in with a boyfriend around aged 19, I partied a lot but then so did everyone else around me, I wasn’t aware of having sub-consciously chosen a group of friends who enabled my behavior although I see now that’s what happened. The girls in school who were into sailing or studying and didn’t want to go out and get smashed at every possible chance and therefore became less friendly, those who were notorious around town for being pregnant by 15 or having wild house parties became more friendly. I’d say that carried on well into my 20s, I was surrounded by people who liked drinking and for the most part whose lives in one way or another revolved around it.

I got a great job in London, I bought myself a flat, I was as many would call it living the dream. And yet no experience was quite enough, no party ever quite hit the spot, no act of rebellion or defiance or playing it too close for comfort ever scratched that itch. I had everything pierced, I began to use sex as an act of rebellion – choosing the worst partners or putting myself in riskier and riskier situations. I went right to the line in life, but never quite tipped the edge, in fact it was all rather calculated. Having learnt a lot about being a high functioning alcoholic means I was actually getting something from being that close to the edge, you can carry on with that balance with almost military like precision without actually feeling like it’s that much effort. And you can do all of this with very little noticeable issues to the external world.

At some point in my early to mid-20s things did start to change. Friends met their long-term partners, brothers got married and moved away, and my badge of pride about how much I drank the night before became something to be embarrassed by. Shame entered the room and if I am honest I’m not sure it has ever really left. Had everyone else grown up? Or moved on? It was probably a combination.

I couldn’t hold down a boyfriend and looking back it’s clear that a combination of not wanting too plus being such a state half the time meant I was unlikely to attract anything other than absolute idiots. Maybe they would seem amazing whilst I was on the wine and then I would sober up and realise how awful they really were. The word I often use to describe how I ended up is stale. I began to feel stale and like I didn’t fit into any one pot – I wasn’t doing as well at work as I could have been, I wasn’t doing as well at life as others were, and try as I might to join endless clubs and interest groups I couldn’t find my people anymore. They’d gone. I was alone, and being alone and feeling like you do not belong is a powerful driver of behaviour and to this day is a trigger emotion I have to manage very carefully.

There were brief dalliances with new drinking pals for a spell, wild times and holidays I can barely remember but for the photos and stamps in my passport. My drinking had become an issue in some circles but still only in the way that I was always the one with the story to tell, standard stuff you know rows or upsets, nothing serious but enough small events to see that my drinking was causing issues for others but I did not quite read it as that – because I felt outside of everything, so no-one understood what I was going through and that was the problem as I perceived it. Actually I see now that I wasn’t really going through anything – I was not growing, or changing, I was exactly the same and the world around me had moved on. Instead of developing into a decent adult I somehow stalled at early 20s. I stopped drinking out. This was a relief because I cannot tell you how many times you can wake up somewhere and not know where, who, or when and still feel safe.

At this point in lots of people’s stories they might fall in love, or realise they have a problem or have some friends stage an intervention. I did not have that fortune or if I did I could not hear it and so my journey continued and my drinking became a problem and not a social activity. As I said above I didn’t design this, in fact most of the decisions I made were not decisions but reactions to situations to either give me some comfort or avoid some continued level of shame – life became a sort of exercise in damage limitation.