I finally got it yesterday.

My "AA" story.

I knew there was something different about me when my boyfriend and I would go out drinking. He could have only one cocktail and be done. I needed a drink just to leave the house. I called them “pre-club” drinks; I thought it was just my way of saving money. I get to the club and drink; and when I got back from the club I kept drinking. I used to think I just liked to get fucked up. I considered myself a "part-boi." I was at every event. I just thought i was social.

I know I was afraid to admit there was something different about me; I thought it was admitting failure. I didn’t want people looking at me crazy if we were out at a club, bar, restaurant, and I would say I can’t drink, and they would ask why and I’d say because I’m an alcoholic. I figured they would judge me, think that I was weak or crazy or something. I figured they might laugh, try to pressure me, not understand. Yet, I know it’s worse if I did have that first drink. I know it’s worse than them judging me, because what they wouldn’t be able to understand, after that first drink, I’m no longer the same person. What they wouldn’t understand after that first drink, I’m not stopping for a week. What they didn’t know that first drink lead to a bottle and then I get confrontational. And I will keep drinking until the money runs out. And then I’d find more money, or another party or someway to keep drinking, then add drugs to it, then add fights at the bar to it, then add maybe jail time or trying to commit suicide again.

Now I’m afraid to not admit I’m an alcoholic. It’s not failure. Admitting it is actually finally success. I finally have some control. Like every alcoholic that’s existed since Monks invented beer, I know I can’t win. I’m powerless. It’s not will power. It’s not morality. It’s chemical. It’s a fucking disease. I was an alcoholic even before I took my first drink. That first sip is the devil for me. I’m not coming back until I’ve done something stupid. Yes, it’s not every time I take a drink. Some days, I was a good drunk. Some days I did stop at five or six drinks. That’s my minimum, five or six drinks.

Yet, I know admitting that I’m an alcoholic is setting myself up for future confrontations. It’s like admitting that I’m the “fat” girl and when people see a drink in my hand, they’re going to comment. It’s like watching a fat person eat, watching everything they put in their mouth and they claim they are on a diet. I’m still weak. I’m still in the beginning stages and I’m going to make some mistakes. I’m not making excuses but I know diets don’t take each and every time. It’s a lifestyle change. I think that’s what I have to get in my head, that it’s a lifestyle change.

I think that’s the hardest for me because being an alcoholic everything used to be about TIME. I got used to watching the clock. It was the time the liquor store opened (10 am) and closed (10.pm). It was the time the happy hours started during the week, free drinks on Wednesday and Thursday from 10-11; on Friday and Saturday 12-1 am, and Sundays was two dollar vodkas. It was what time I had to be at work the next day which determined how long I could drink. It was how many times I am going to get away with drunk driving. How many times do I have a DWI? How much time will I get for a second or third DWI? How many more times do I have cursing out a friend? How many times do I have before my boyfriend decides he’s tired of picking me off the floor, or cleaning me up or dealing with my drama? How many times have I been arrested? How many times I can make it work late before I’m fired or how many times have I called in sick? It was always about time. I watched the clock.

I used to wonder what people meant when they said “you need to get some help.” Or what I meant when I said to myself after a binge “I need to get my life together.’

It’s the responsibility. Being an alcoholic is a very disruptive life. It steals everything. I go out to the bar never knowing if I’m making it home. You become a burden to soceity, family and friends. You become an embarassment. You become a liability. Everyone stops taking you serious. It's like you're a "grown-child."

I get it now. Yesterday after my seventh AA meeting off and on, I finally got it. I remember my first AA meeting, it was a nightmare. I got to the building and I immediately noticed the homeless looking drunks standing outside. I didn’t stay for long. I thought the people were old and ugly and just freaky looking. I told myself I was nothing like that. I felt safe that I wasn’t an Alcoholic. But I forgot completely why I sought the A.A. meeting. I had my first blackout. I was coming from a sex party and completely blacked out. I found myself standing in front of a grocery store trying to figure out what the building was. IT was so fucking creepy. I felt out of control.


My second AA meeting was in the hospital after I tried to commit suicide. I was in the mental ward and two guys came to the hospital to speak about A.A. They were very well dressed guys and good looking. We were the same ages, our late twenties. I liked what they had to say. They gave me their number but I never called. The day I got out the hospital I was drunk that night. And didn’t stop drinking for a week.

I would go to AA and I usually sat in the back and didn’t “share (that’s when you say hi I’m Michael Whitley and I’m alcoholic).” I hoped no one noticed me.
I never said it. I didn’t say the serenity prayer. In the end when they went over the 12 steps I tuned them out. I was just going through the motions of it. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. I was doing it partly to prove to my boyfriend I was trying. I was doing it partly as public relations. I was doing it like logging hours. In the beginning in AA I was like what they called “a head full of AA and a belly full of booze.”

It really is like trying to lose weight. I was trying to lose the weight of my disruptive life. “Fat girls don’t get skinny over night, but fat girls must first want to be skinny.” It also like saying, “drunks don’t get sober over night, there’s the hangover, and then drunks must first want to get sober.” Some of us think we can cheat the system. There isn’t a pill. There’s just hard work and discipline.

I hate to think that I can never take another drink in my entire life. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to throw the furniture across the room. It makes me walk down the street and punch the first person I see in their face. It makes me want to burn down the AA buildings and say fuck it. It makes me so damn angry, and then I want to cry and bawl myself up in the fetal position and just die. I have dreams about drinking. I have dreams about going out of town, getting a couple of bottles, maybe some smack, and for a week, just drink and drug, and I tell myself nobody will know. It’s the worse lie. When you’re an alcoholic, you can never hide it. I start wanting to get talkative. I start calling people. It’s a very lonely disease.

And I think of Time again. Am I just buying time to my next drink? Will it take a month or a year? Will it take ten years? Am I just buying time to my relapse? I smile when I think of my relapse. I want to relapse.

But I know the truth. I’m a fat girl who wants to be skinny. Yes, right now I want it for all the wrong reasons. I want it for the vanity. I want people to like me again and not judge me again. I will eventually want it for my health. I’m a drunk who wants to be sober. I want to have friends again. I want to be able to keep a job again. I want a life again.

Funny, I had been going to the AA meetings off and on for the last two years, and Saturday was the first time I actually got the 12 steps. I honestly never really paid attention. Like I said, I would go to the AA meetings, usually after a binge and feeling guilty, and I sit in the back pondering my next drink. But Saturday was the first time I understand the first step. “I’m powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable.” I felt like finally somebody fucking got me. And then I looked around the room and suddenly those people weren’t freaks, they were my people. They were just like me, old and young, straight and gay, black and white. The room was packed that night, like 45 people.

I decided to share “Hi, I’m Michael Whitley and I’m an alcoholic.” It felt good. The demon finally had a name. The disease finally had a name. It wasn’t some crazy shit that kept happening to me. It had a name. And if it had a name, maybe it had a cure. Maybe I could get my life back. But there’s also sadness. It had a name so I don’t have anymore excuses. I get it. I get it. I get it.

Yet, I know I’m an addict and we are very clever people and I’m hard head and stubborn but I’m also very resilient. I’m four days sober now. I hate counting the days because it makes me watch the clock. It’s like I’m counting down to my next relapse. And I hear somebody saying, be positive, think positive, but I know the truth. I will think the truth. I will be proactive with the truth. 90 percent of people born in poverty return to poverty. 90 percent of addicts return to their addiction. 90 percent of people who try to lose weight end up gaining the weight back. Yet, I’m an “A” student. I used to be overweight, about 40 pounds overweight and I’ve kept it off for over ten years. It’s not easy. I had to relearn food. I had to accept I was going to exercise for the rest of my life. Funny, the alcohol did help because I ate less. I know it’s going to be a challenging life. It’s a life. It’s my life. I want to tell a different alcoholic story. I want to tell the truth.

Yesterday, my boyfriend gave me twenty dollars to go to the grocery store and I immediately thought to myself, liquor money. But I didn’t buy any liquor. I want to not drink more than I want to drink. I get it. I get it. I get it.

And now the hard question, do I really want to get better? I'm I ready for the lifestyle change? I get it. I do get it. It's just so damn hard.