The Prequel: Anaylzing my addiction and the need for AA

The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

de·sire /dɪˈzaɪər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-zahyuh r] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -sired, -sir·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1.
to wish or long for; crave; want.

2.
to express a wish to obtain; ask for; request: The mayor desires your presence at the next meeting.
–noun
3.
a longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment: a desire for fame.


Of course the clever addict will analyze the hell out of the word “desire.” He or she will look for loopholes aka excuses. After my first couple of AA meetings I decided to read up on the organization. I guess I wanted more information. At first it seemed liked a religious cult. I really didn’t care too much for my childhood religion. I was suspicious because AA is deeply rooted in Christianity values. Its basis is the spreading of Christ in the form of alcoholic recovery. It didn’t require a “door to door” mission but only to those alcoholics who still suffers. In AA, you are told the only way to sobriety is to release control to a higher power. It’s the second step, but we will get to that later.

Let’s go back to the word “desire.” After my first couple of meetings I had to decide if I really wanted to stop drinking. I mean quit, which is different from desire, quit meant to cease, or discontinue, basically stop, end, kill, mourn. The idea of quitting made me want to have a drink. It seemed so final and dramatic like samurai sword to the neck – clean cut, blood spitting out in the air. Quitting seemed so messy. I feared failure. I feared I was setting myself of for future ridicules, boasting that I was sober, and then relapsing and relapsing and relapsing which meant at the same time, compromising my integrity.

In America, everything is so political and unforgiving. WE like our heroes and leaders infallible basically non-human. It’s why so many politicians lie. It’s why heroes always disappoint. I didn’t want to be a hero. I just wanted to get so control over me abusing alcohol. I didn’t want to quit. I wanted perspective. Alcohol was legal. It wasn’t like I was doing crack. Yes, I may do an illegal drug after a couple of drinks but that’s not the point.

Let’s go back to the word “desire.” I liked how it sounded. Yet, two words down, was the word “stop.” I had a desire to control alcohol, not stop alcohol. I needed to understand what I meant by control or if in the fact, I could control alcohol. I hadn’t been successful in the past which lead me to my first couple of AA meetings. When I first started drinking and kept getting fucked up, I thought it was because I didn’t know how to hold my liquor or drink properly. I learned to drink in college which was basically binge drinking. It was at the fraternity parties or a night of clubbing. It was back to back to back tequila shots. IT was downing one cup of liquor after another with the cheer of the crowd. My friends and I always drank to get “fucked up.” It wasn’t to enjoy a meal or conversation but get inebriated to the point of falling down or dancing on tables. It was “party” drinking. The goal, to get stupid.

Growing up, alcoholism ran in my family. Everybody liked to drink beer. I figured since I didn’t like beer I was safe. I figured since I was a martini guy, that my drinks came in pretty Crate and Barrel glasses, I was safe. I wasn’t a paper bag, 40 ounce drinking drunk. I was glamorized techno-colored drinks from polished Bacardi and Absolut bottles.

I think the major problem I had was that I correlated drinking with “partying” and I wasn’t ready to quit the party. I felt I was too young. I felt I still had some good years left in me but I was already thirty years old. Truth, I wasn’t going to clubs anymore. I was drinking bars. I was drinking alone at the computer or watch television. I was drinking to go to the movies. I was drinking to go to an interview. Drinking had become a coping mechanism. I wanted that feeling I used to get when I was “partying” in college. I was a shy kid. When I had a drink, I was a wild boy. I was gregarious and flirtatious. I was the life of the party. In my regular life, I consider myself much laid back, almost conservative. I consider myself a geek. I read a lot. I study to be on game shows. I do the crossword puzzle.

I remember my first two years in college. I was so damn bored. I would sit in my dorm room and dream of a better life. I would watch others and hoped they invite me to something. Finally, somebody invited me to a party. It’s where I had my first drink. At first at the party I felt out of place but after my first drink, I didn’t give a damn. I liked how it made me feel. I didn’t want my boring life. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to soar my wild oaks. I wanted to dance on tabletops and have wild sex. I couldn’t do any of that sober. I needed the alcohol. I needed the alcohol to change.

So what happened? Did I take it too far? Did I change too much? I guess that’s the fear about quitting. I don’t want to go back to my old life. I thought that person was insufferable and uninteresting.

Truth, something changed with the drinking a couple years ago. It became heavier. I wasn’t going out. I was staying in more. I wasn’t drinking to be the life of the party. I was drinking to be a disruption. I started getting kicked out of parties and clubs. I started getting into fights. I wasn’t the life of the party anymore but a nuance.

Truth, something changed with the drinking, I started getting so damn angry. I needed more drink. I couldn’t stop at the club or bar anymore, I drank before I went out, when I was out, and then when I got back. I couldn’t hide the drinking anymore. Everyone would always ask me, are you drunk? It became a regular. I decided to just hang around other drunks. Something happened with the drinking, I started finding myself in embarrassing situations. I was annoying my friends and family members. My boyfriend decided to break up with me. I couldn’t keep a job. I would rather drink all day than go to work. After liquor was in my system I didn’t care about anything. The drink just shut me down. I wanted to control it or hide it better. I wanted to be able to drink and look normal. I wanted to be able to drink and not get confrontational. I wanted to be able to drink.

Something happened, I changed. I was no longer that twenty two year old kid with red plastic cup at the party dancing on the floor. I had become a thirty something drunk stumbling home, falling out in the snow. I couldn’t understand what happened. When did it change? Had it always been that way and I was oblivious. I had stop being that funny articulate flirt that people invited to their parties. I became the avoidable drama. I’ve had been shun me. I couldn’t understand what was happening?

And then add life to it. And then add feeling like a failure. And then add hating my job. And then add all the fucking problems I had with my family. And then add a failing relationship. And then add getting older in gay life. I needed to drink more. And then add bipolar and schizophrenia. And then add depression. I needed to drink more just to feel some kind of normal. My life started spinning out of control. I was constantly depressed which meant I drank more.

I started to think I was giving up on life. Or life had given up on me. I turned thirty years old and I hadn’t done anything I thought I was going to do with my life. I hadn’t written that novel. I didn’t have my master’s degree. I still worked crummy jobs. And the parti-boi thing had expired and I was just another drunk in the bar. I knew the truth.

Let’s go back to the word “desire.” I guess it could be said I hit rock bottom a couple of times. I pretty much figured addicts come in five different forms.

Predisposed
Experimental
Habitual
Coping
Rock Bottom
I had stop coping with alcohol and was dangerous falling to the rock bottom. I had gotten a DWI. I moved to a city where I didn’t have to drive. I once was so drunk I passed out behind a dumpster on a piss stained mattress. I blacked out. I gotten kicked out of every bar or club in DC. I’ve passed out in clubs. I had several people no longer speaking to me or keep their distance. The landlord decided to not renew the lease because of complaints of my drunken rampage. I’d been dangerously promiscuous. I tried to commit suicide on many occasions and ended up in a mental hospital. It was so out of control.

Let’s go back to the word desire. I desired to be able to dream again. I desired to want to live again. I desired to have so control in my life. I desired to repair my tarnished reputation. I desired sanity. But yet I also still desired alcohol. I didn’t want to let it go. It seemed hopeless.

I hated myself when I drank too much. I had stopped working. I had stopped looking for a job. I’d sit home during the day and just drink. I then feel alone or lonely. I start calling people. I start wanting to have meaningless conversations. Everyone hated that because they were at work and I was drunk at home wanting to talk about something from five years ago. I hated when I drank how I kept rehashing the past. I was that that “pining” drunk, also wanted to talk about so shit that happened to me when I was a kid. I wanted to yell about it. I wanted to fight about it.

I hated when I started to drink that I’d want everyone to believe I wasn’t drinking. I’d call and pretend to be sober just friendly. I wanted the illusion of sobriety not the reality.
I wanted to be funny and likeable, not at all what I’m like sober. I’m withdrawn sober, suspicious, and a loner.

I hated when I started to drink, that I get on the internet and start looking for sex. I’m usually not in the right mind to make good decisions.

I hated when I started to drink that I couldn’t stop. I buy a litter and promise myself that I would only drink a couple of drinks, but after the first three drinks, I know I’m not stopping until I pass out. I usually drink the entire bottle, if I’m still awake, go buy another. I drink and drink until I’m crazed out my mind.

I hate the hangover the next two days if I stop drinking. It’s an entire day gone. I’d just lay in the bed in agony or shaking. I can barely talk. I have no energy. I’m sick.

So why do I drink? It’s no longer fun. It’s because I’m an addict. I know the realization is the recognition of a problem. And I’m a “rock-bottom” addict. The addiction has already started to unravel my life. It’s become first before my friends, family, dream, job and stability. I understand the diagnosis. If I don’t act soon, only one of four things will happen to me: homelessness, jail, mental hospital or death. It may take a month, year or several years, but rock bottom only gets worse.

I do have a desire to stop drinking. I decided to seek help in AA. Next was figuring out the 12 steps. To be continued.