Life as a Functional Alcoholic: Finding Help Part 2

After my horrifying experience with my daughter I thought that quitting alcohol would be easy.  After all, I could no longer sit and drink every night with the comfort that my drinking was not affecting my life which was the rationalization that always made it ok to take another drink.  However, the strong urge to drink was too hard for me to combat on my own because I did not have any coping mechanisms after 14 long years of drinking.

At first I tried going to mass in the morning praying to God that he would help me stop drinking after three glasses.  While sometimes I was able to keep it to three glasses, I made sure that those three glasses were mixed hard and larger than the ones I usually drank from and quickly realized I was no further ahead.

It is hard to explain the motivation I had to drink, because no one but an alcoholic can imagine it.  Even though I could easily say I was not going to drink when the hangover started in the morning as the alcohol started to leave my bloodstream, there was always this point during my normal binge period when I could not stop it.  It was like I hit a blind spot in my head and I was allowed to just head to the sink and grab a quick drink.  The problem was, even a quick drink was never enough as all my worries would fade away and once again I was in the wonderful world that my mixed drink provided.

Although I have been twenty years sober now, it was an uphill climb.  My first attempt came when I checked into a rehabilitation hospital.  Within ten days after visiting the hospital I was drinking again for another year.  Finally, I started attending self-help groups and learned how to boost my self-confidence and coping mechanisms.  The worst part was publicly stating that she was an alcoholic because she had worked for so many years to hide the fact.  However, now it is a fact I can take priced in since I won my battle.

One Response to “Life as a Functional Alcoholic: Finding Help Part 2”

1. steven calderon says:

   June 14, 2011 at 7:24 pm

   let me be honest with you. I am an alcoholic who can not stop drinking.