Life is Different

I grew up in a typical middle-class neighborhood in suburban Detroit. I was the older of two children living with both parents. My father was an engineer and manager for one of the "big three" car manufacturers, while mom stayed at home with my sister and me. My early childhood was fairly normal, although I remember feeling that I was different from my peers, in some vague, undefined way. Other kids seemed carefree, while I was often withdrawn, sensitive, and introspective. I'm sure alcoholics aren't the only people to have experienced these feelings in their youth, but it is definitely common among us drunks. One acquaintance at AA meetings used to remark that he "felt like I had been dropped off on this planet without the instruction manual."

It was in my early adolescence that things really started to go downhill. My mother is also an alcoholic (now in recovery for many years), and it was when I was around age eleven or twelve that I began noticing that her use of alcohol was abnormal. Like most families plagued by addiction, ours entered the standard pattern of denial and enabling. My personal coping mechanism was to withdraw from normal patterns of social interaction with peers and family. I had only a vague notion of what was happening. I just knew that I preferred sequestering myself in my bedroom, with my stereo and headphones, to interacting with the emotionally complicated world outside.

In the depths of this painful, awkward phase of my life I discovered the intoxicating effects of alcohol firsthand. As I recall, I was twelve or thirteen the first time I got drunk. I immediately to a liking to the warm glow and fuzzy comfort that booze produced in me. While I believe I was genetically predisposed to alcoholism, I feel also that my environment was an ideal breeding ground for trouble. From the beginning, I exhibited many of the characteristics of problem drinkers. My binges were solitary. I would drink for the sole purpose of getting drunk. I made vows each time I drank that it would be the last time. I usually drank more than I had intended. I would even steal (from my parents' supply) to get my "fix". And for the brief hours that I was drunk, I had no anxieties about my perceived inadequacies or my non-existant social life.

By tenth grade, I was socializing more than the previous few years, but my new friendships were mostly based upon a common interest in alcohol and drugs. By the time I turned sixteen, I was drinking heavily every weekend with friends, supplemented by periodic nips from the bottle at home. Blackouts and unconsciousness were becoming commonplace. I was starting to develop a reputation among my peers as a heavy-duty "partier". Some even called me an "alkie", only half-jokingly. I realized there was a certain amount of judgment in their observations, but I felt that a rebellious image was far better than the "square" or "goody-goody" that I was known as before, to the limited extent that I was noticed at all.

By the middle of high school, I was experimenting with other illicit substances in addition to my drinking. Back in elementary school, I had taken at face value the Just Say No, anti-drug propaganda that was coming into vogue at the time. But by high school, I was preoccupied with pop culture of the late 1960s and the 1970s, especially the hedonistic "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" attitude of the times. I spent a great deal of time reading about The Doors and Led Zeppelin, watching movies like Easy Rider and Woodstock, and daydreaming about the different drugs I planned on sampling under various conditions. By my senior year of high school, I was smoking marijuana and using hallucinogens fairly regularly, in addition to the weekly drinking sprees.

My grades went from far above average in elementary and junior high school, to mediocre in high school. I was only able to stay above a C average by sticking with instrumental music, which was always a guaranteed A. I really loved playing the saxophone, but it was a low priority compared to getting high. I quit playing completely when I started college.

I went away to college the autumn following high school graduation, attending a medium-sized university known more for its "party" reputation than its academics. It is amazing to me that I felt I would be able to straighten out in such an environment, but that's exactly what I thought would happen. I didn't plan on going on the wagon. I just figured that by moving away I would snap out of self-destruct mode. This line of reasoning is what is often referred to in recovery circles as the "geographic cure". We attribute our problems to external factors, and think that by moving somewhere else, our troubles will vanish.

Needless to say, things didn't work that way.

I should have known better, having already had some exposure to various concepts of addiction and recovery. By the time I started college, my mother had sobered up, through a process that began with in-patient treatment. It was during her stint in rehab that it first began to dawn on me that I might have a problem myself. I learned quite a bit about alcoholism and addiction through the family programs offered by the treatment center. But I wasn't really able to apply what I heard to myself in an honest way. The truth was too much to bear, I guess. How could it be possible that the one thing that seemed to make life worth living - getting high - was actually destroying me? How could it possibly be in my best interest to give up the thing that I relied on so much? At my age, I figured, I could still straighten out before things got too out of hand.

So I went off to college thinking that the new atmosphere would inspire me. I would continue drinking and maybe smoking a little weed, I figured, but in a much more socially acceptable way. As it turned out, my drinking and drugging continued to increase, both in quantity and frequency. By the end of my freshman year, I had nearly been kicked out of the dorms for alcohol policy infractions, received a ticket for having open intoxicants in a motor vehicle, and was on academic probation.

My binges continued to worsen. I would look longingly toward the weekend, and when it arrived, I would drink myself into oblivion for several days. By Sunday I would feel relieved that it was over, but by Monday or Tuesay I'd be setting my sights on the following weekend again. A vicious cycle, to be sure. Being enrolled in school was more or less just an excuse to get high. I routinely slept in late, skipped classes, and avoided all forms of responsibility. This seemed to be a fairly common lifestyle among my peers, but I was taking it to the extreme.

By the age of twenty, in my third year of school, I was quite depressed. I began seeing a counselor at the student health center on campus, and was finally able to admit that my alcohol and drug use might be playing a primary role in my troubles. I decided that I wouldn't be able to have any reasonable amount of happiness or success in life if I didn't quit drinking, and in order to do that, I would need to give up the other drugs as well.

Coming Soon: Part Two