The Hopeless Alcoholic - Part One

"Keep coming..." At any given AA meeting, you may hear this 20 times. No matter what, just keep coming.

And I did. And still I drank. Over the last few years or so, I had many different flirtations with the program, but nothing that took away the obession with alcohol that I couldn't tame, and I leave again.

I was a rampant, powerless, self-destructive drinker from the ages of 20 until this year, my 27th. I never experienced much of the typical alcoholic's denial. I was well aware what I was. And should I have forgotten anytime during that period, there would have been any number of people there to remind me.

In my sober hours, I am a man who people seem drawn to and really enjoy getting to know. Hell, finally now, even I enjoy the sober me. He's fun people. As a result, I can say I've been very lucky to have been with some truly amazing women during that period. Women who had wanted to spend a future with me-- while I was still able to keep the demons from showing themselves. Ultimately, I was never able to keep the drinking from consuming everything in my life.

Once I started drinking, I absolutely could not stop. And, yet, no amount of knowledge of the disasters drinking had been increasingly piling up in my life, I could never seem to stay away from that first.

Before drinking had come into my life, there was already depression. Chronic depression. I was not prepared to handle that agony, and was treated by a pill-pusher who never offered me much in the way of therapy, and I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be looking for.... Anyway, I was not dealing with my pretty crippling depression in the correct way, and by the time I was off to film school in NY (out of the parent's house for the first time) and was renting out a huge two family house with a couple other guys. And, clearly, this is where I began drinking. And, before very long, I was using alcohol as self-medication.

For seven years of my life, I drank and drank, and I lost and lost. Lost lovers, lost friends, lost jobs...

I fucking lost seven years of my life.

And I just couldn't- wouldn't stop. I knew I had a terrible problem and I knew it was getting worse and worse and worse...

But I could not stop.

I was not only a different person when I was drinking, but even I was no longer the same guy I once had been. The light, the spirit.... That 'something' that seemed to always have drawn people towards me and lead to great connections, had long ago been replaced by an isolation and a weight that seemed to fall down over me from above. I could still muster the old Eric from time to time, but not usually for long and not really the same. I had to drink whenever I was going to be with someone who knew me from before, because if I didn't, I'd be too anxiety-ridden and introverted to be able to even carry on a decent conversation with anyone. So, I'd drink... which may have helped for that initial 1/2 an hour or so.... But I would be unable to drink slowly or moderately or anything like a normal person...

And so, there I'd be... Drunk again. The guy who had too much AGAIN. The guy that friends used to know as a completely different person.

I was a fucking animal who just consumed to fill the whole inside that never seemed to ever have enough.... I needed to drink until their wasn't a drop left.... the animal who needed to take a woman to bed that night, no matter who the fuck she was, and no matter who the fuck I had at home. The degenerate who waist known at one point for his demeanor and sense of humor, but who was now smashed fucking drunk and looking to trade some fists.

The suicidal thoughts, which had been there and frightening me for a while, were now no longer something I could keep at a certain distance... Suicide became, for the lowest stretch of time there, a constant part of my waking mental process... I had to drink to tune that out.... Every night I would go to bed and think about it.
And there was some time there that I knew it was here.... Within the next few days... if that long.

I often here at AA meetings of people who "wanted to die" but were to scared to really even get within shouting distance of it.

I was sincerely not afraid of killing myself and of having this be over. The truth of the matter was, I was just fucking afraid of BEING ALIVE much longer. The only thing I was frightened by was experiencing those final moments... I was FUCKING TERRIFIED of what it would feel like as you begin and go pass away from life. What would that FEEL like....

So I would buy two or three bottles of wine... I would take them to bed with me... Drink myself good and close to the obliterated stage... stay present enough to then take a razor, and slice my wrists, then lie back, the wine just enough to obscure the true ability to process the dying clearly enough, and I'd let the process happen.

I bought the wine, the razor, cried over a few specific things that day, and over the general knowledge that this day was going to be the last.... And I really knew it was.

As night came, I decided that I had to do this someplace else. I was back living with my parent's, and while in my more sick and resentful moments I enjoyed the idea, as that night came,, I just could not kill myself in my parent's house, and have my mother be the one to come in and see why I was still in bed, and find that. She had enough problems and a delicate enough grip on sanity anyway. No, I would do it elsewhere.

A long street... one I knew well... at it's end, the road dips off to the left, and a steel traffic light pole stood where to road once led. Simple. No air bag, so I felt it pretty much certain enough to fucking just fuck me up beyond any chance of somehow living mangled... which would be the absolute worst nightmare of a suicidal.

(Continued in next post)