Living With The Man In The Mirror

Some people go their whole lives drinking normally, and then somewhere along the way, they cross a line, and once they do, they can never go back to drinking normally again. It must be tough for these people because they have years of memories of drinking like a gentleman and alcohol being merely an accessory. But once they crossed that line, everything and everyone else became the accessories and alcohol became the focus -- the reason for the everything else. As they say: A cucumber that becomes a pickle can never be just a cucumber again.

As for me, there was never a time where I drank like a gentleman. Even when I learned how to be a gentleman, I drank like a gutter-drunk. The first time I drank I drank like an alcoholic, got sick, threw up, passed out, felt like crap for days, and swore I would never do that again. But while I was in the throws of the drunk, before the spins and the vomit, before the hangover, I knew that that is how I wanted to feel forever. That should have been the sign that I should never pick up a drink again. But I was young and had the misfortune of being surrounded by alcoholics, so I confused the disease with the consequences, and since I was just getting drunk with little or no consequences -- I even stopped having bed spins and vomiting -- I just assumed that I was fine. I would admit that I probably drink too much, but drinking to much is fine; consequences is the disease. 

I have since learned to separate the consequences from the disease. I have learned that two simple questions pretty much determine if I am an alcoholic or not: 1) Do I have a hard time controlling the amount I drink or stopping myself from drinking more once I start start drinking? 2) Do I find it difficult to keep from drinking when I make a sincere effort to stop drinking (or decide to quit)? If I cannot control the amount I drink once I start, and if I can't stay quit when I decide to quit, then I am probably an alcoholic. My disease has nothing to do with DUIs or losing jobs or crashing cars or getting arrested. These are merely consequences that may occur with growing frequency if my disease goes untreated. These consequences may be the things that make people like me examine their lives and reach out for help -- because when it hurts bad enough, you'll change. And if you're an alcoholic, and you don't die, you will most likely reach a point where it hurts more to keep drinking than it does to imagine a life without drinking. But if you are an alcoholic, until you reach that point, you'll keep drinking.

But I did not want to say any of that. I was thinking of relationships. That was the topic, or one of the topics, in a meeting tonight. On the ride home, when I was having the meeting in my head and singing along to The Shins, I wondered if relationships for alcoholics like me are like drinking. Just like the first time I drank, I drank like an alcoholic, the first time I was in a relationship, or tried to be, I related like an alcoholic. I did to my relationship what I did with my drinking (and I'm talking about relationships of the romantic and potentially romantic nature). 

When I got sober and did all the things that allowed me to grow spiritually, emotionally, and philosophically, after a lot of work and effort, and some therapy, I realized that I could  have relationships like a gentleman. I could be involved with a woman in a healthy way, just like normal people can drink in a healthy manner, or can take it or leave it. Yet, even in those relationships where I could relate as a gentleman or as a normal person, sooner or later a line would be crossed, and the normal relating would give way to alcoholic relating. I was like those people who drink for years, and one day find themselves drinking alcoholically, and once that happened, they could never go back to drinking normally again. I could go for months or years in a normal relationship, but once I started relating as an alcoholic, I found it impossible to go back to the normal relationship again. The the relationship became about how much abuse we would both be able to take before one of us leaves -- usually her because in my drive to prove to her that she would leave me, I would make it impossible for her to stay because it apparently is more important for me to be right than to be happy. 

I would like to say that all this has some point, or is leading to a moral or to something that could pass for wisdom. It does not. It is merely a piece of self-understanding that probably has nothing to do with anyone else, and something to which nobody but myself can relate. I'm sure some may even be offended by my openness and honesty about the nature of my own personal insanity. But it does not matter because even though I am posting it in a public forum, I am writing it for me. It is a conversation with myself. It is an unveiling of my own demons because I am still convinced that that is what an artist does -- publicly wrestles with demons and invites others to look.

But the truth is, regardless of how others may react or respond, regardless of whether this is art or the foundation of what may be an artist, the most honest truth is that now that I have dropped the dime on my own brokenness, I do not have to waste time and energy pretending that I am not broken, and can instead find the peace and freedom to be me. I have to do this to keep the man in the mirror happy because the man in the mirror is the person I have to live with twenty-four hours a day.