This is not a post about my ex. But this is still a post about alcoholism.
103 days.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve had a drink. More than a sip. That’s how long it’s been that I’ve considered myself sober.
I don’t think I’ve ever, really, written about being an alcoholic. I’ve written about drinking. About substituting drugs or men with booze. About partying when I was younger. About my ex. I haven’t written – but my archives are too long and self-indulgent a thing for me to confirm this, so I could be wrong – that I am one.
I’ve talked about being bipolar, and the drinking that came with it – because it made the high reach superhero-heights. Being depressed and the self-medicating of it – because it soothed the lack of soul. Being free for the first time from the child that had been under my watchful eyes for nearly a year and a half and overdoing it. About replacing food with alcohol – it keeps you warm, while starvation makes you cold. I might have even mentioned that I first learned how to make myself throw up with a few pounds of cheap vodka.
But never this.
I’ve been every kind of drunk there is. I’ve woken up and finished off the bottle from the night before, looked in the fridge and found more for breakfast; I’ve been the person who could (and would) drink you under the table; the girl who got the giggles after a rye and coke; the one who refused to drink beer; the one who polished off a 12-pack and then walked to the liquor store; I’ve stashed mickies in the toilet tank, in a large-sized Ziploc, and only drank from it when the shower was running (I took a lot more showers, then); I’ve sat, at some points, and drank half a bottle of bitch beer in two seconds and then savoured the rest over an hour, enjoying getting slammed by the buzz, all at once; I’ve waited until Zoë was tucked in, kissed her forehead, told her I loved her, and walked to the fridge with a dish towel so that I could silently open the single drink I would allow myself.
I remember my first drink, my last drink, and some of the drinks in between. I remember the fights and the fucking and the smeared eyeliner that was left the next morning as proof. I remember sitting in the bottom of a tub and crying because all I wanted was a drink, and I couldn’t because I was pregnant and had been lecturing the ex about his drinking. I remember puking all over myself, and multiple hangovers that lasted for days, and that time I did that thing that I’m still ashamed of, and alcohol poisoning. I remember stating clearly to my father when I was eight that I would never drink, do drugs or smoke. I didn’t keep that promise for very long after that, in the way that grown-up years seem to pass so much faster.
I was an alcoholic the first time I intentionally drank. Cocaine, heroin, cigarettes (once upon a time) could all be annexed so easily, but knowing booze so intimately, it being knitted right into my DNA, made me done-for.
Anorexics have weird eating patterns. That seems like an understatement, but what I mean to say is that if you really observe an anorexic during a meal, you’ll notice little habits and rituals they must go through. A big time fun one is the measuring or counting of food. Have you ever counted out 100 no-name brand (plain) cheerios and then made them last for an entire day, from morning to night? I have.
I’ve drank like that, too: measured out specific amounts, with specific time frames. Because if you only drink the equivalent of a third of a shot every hour, it doesn’t count. Especially if you drink it out of a medicine dropper. I’ve denied myself the urge to drink. Not because it was a problem, but because it had more calories, and because anorexia imprints you with the need to do without things that make you happy, healthy or sane.
When I’ve quit drinking before, it’s been because I was growing someone, or I was eating away at myself.
Now, it’s been 103 days. And I could go through so many differing stereotypes of what it’s been like, or what’s changed, or how hard or easy it’s seemed. I could be strong, and project myself as someone owning this beast I’ve caged for all of those squares on the calendar. I could lie, outright, and tell you that when I walk past the liquor store with Zoë, as we do nearly every day, I don’t think about walking in, running my fingertips over a bottle of vodka and telling myself that I don’t have a problem.
But I don’t lie. And that would be quite a feat of self-betrayal, to join in the same rally-cry that the ex has used.
“I’m not falling down, I get my shit taken care of, I have work, I have a place to live, and my kid is happy. I don’t have a problem, you do.”
Yeah, buddy, you’re right. I do. And I stopped feeding it 103 days ago. When will you?
