I’m now two months sober. But I’ve been through this too many times to say with even a shred of believable confidence that I won’t slip up again. Don’t get me wrong. I want this sobriety. I wanted it with equal sincerity every time in the past, too.
What did my last day of drinking look like? It was January 6, the day of the insurrection in the US. My quitting on that date was merely a coincidence. Rather handy, though, as I’ve never previously taken note of my last day.
My quitting didn’t come on the heels of a big epiphany. You see, I couldn’t go cold turkey. I was so interminably dependent upon alcohol that even after I knew to my bones that I could no longer drink, I had to continue to do so to prevent myself from dying from the withdrawal. I had to agonizingly cut back for weeks before I could cease entirely, which felt like sharing a bed with someone I knew wanted to kill me.
What My Alcoholism Looked Like Before I Quit
In a nutshell, I drank around the clock. I no longer drank for pleasure. I drank for relief from the agony of withdrawal, which would rear its head after barely more than an hour or two without alcohol.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night with what felt every bit like a panic attack – heart racing, an inability to catch my breath, sweating so much that my sheets adhered to my skin. I’d reach for the bottle I kept next to my bed and swallow and swallow until I’d get pulled under.
Middle of the night drinking would only last until 6am at best, when it was time to take another drag. If I didn’t drink in the wee hours, by the time the morning was to start, I’d be shaking so hard that I could no longer hold a glass at all, not even be able to use a straw, could barely walk for the shaking. Even after a drink, when the liquid heat would steady my tremor, I still needed two hands to hold a drink to my mouth. And so, when most people are listening for the first birds of the day, I was filling up on liquor.
Repeat at around 9am, before noon, middle of the afternoon, before dinnertime, after dinnertime, around 11pm, again closer to 1am until one day bleeds into the next.
I could maintain short bouts of consciousness when work needed my attention, cooking for my family, most of all for my trips to resupply. Other than that, my eyes would slide shut with the force of iron doors. I was horizontal for most hours of most days.
I was going through 3 handles of hard alcohol about every 4-4.5 days, no fewer than 24 units of alcohol per day, sometimes as much as 30.
Physical Symptoms that Were New During This Period of Extreme Dependence
Not only did I no longer have any quality of life, I could absolutely feel my body shutting down. Even when fully dosed, I still shook enough that it was hard to conceal. If I started to withdraw, the shaking was so out of control that you couldn’t put a drink in my hands without the entirety of its contents flying out of the glass like a volcano erupting. My hands weren’t the only thing shaking. I shook from my core, my whole body, out of control. The feeling was miserable and felt like it arose from a place of anxious compulsion, not like the neutral shivers of being too cold. My tremors were tinged with a metallic unease.
Both malnutrition and problems within my brain led to terrible problems with balance and walking, a problem much deeper and more complex than the drunken stumbling depicted in movies. The shaking met with muscle weakness and brain distortions to make me completely unsure on my own legs. I could no longer safely manage stairs. I couldn’t walk for any distance without support. Additionally, my depth perception was impaired, and my eyesight was blurred.
Standing for more than a few minutes at a time was impossible. Before long, I’d grow so tired that I’d have to lean over for support, gasping for breath. More times than I could count, I ended up sinking to the floor in a puddle of tears, unable to stand. Even sitting was out of the question, for the most part.
I’d started having tingling in my hands leading partway up to my elbows. My lips were also fuzzy with the prickles of tingling. My tongue was so raw from the alcohol that it burned 24 hours every day.
The drinking stole away my eyesight quickly. I could no longer see or read at all without my glasses, and words were often out of reach even with them. Between my eyes and my shaking, it was hard to communicate with anyone via messages. Even the simplest sentence would take a ridiculous effort to type.
The alcohol had left my nervous system too tightly wound. Even the smallest movement or sound, from the ding of a new message to a reflection in my glasses, would make me jump.
The swelling above my beltline had become painfully obvious as even my elastic-banded pants became too tight. When standing, I could feel my liver pressing up on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
My sense of smell became perverted. Most everything smelled horrible. Especially food, but my clothing and bed sheets were not excluded. I also experienced phantom smells. The trouble with my sense of smell combined with a lack of appetite meant that I’d go days at a time without eating. Even when I tried, my throat would reject food. It would also reject water. My desire to drink enough alcohol to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay and my constantly passing out meant that there were some days when I’d not even drink a whole glass of water.
It was entirely and abundantly clear that I’d succeeded in poisoning myself, and my body was disintegrating.
How I Quit On My Own
Both because of my mother’s alcoholism and my own experience, I knew that a person dependent upon alcohol cannot safely go cold turkey (and I know of no professional who would advise doing this without medical supervision). Withdrawing from alcohol is incredibly dangerous, and potentially deadly.
Even though I knew it was explicitly killing me, I was equally well aware that I couldn’t just pour my supply down the drain and count my first day. I had to taper slowly and gently, all while enduring the grinding symptoms of withdrawal.
At first, I drank on the same schedule, as often as needed, but I’d only allow myself enough to ease the withdrawal symptoms. Instead of gulping until I’d pass out, I’d take deliberate drinks, then observe, drink and observe. This meant experiencing more shakes than I was comfortable with, and also more time awake with symptoms. This period lasted about a week.
The next step was to start to increase the length of the intervals between drinks. At first, only a little bit. Then, I’d stretch it an hour beyond comfort before allowing myself enough alcohol to relieve my symptoms.
I can remember how it felt like I’d made a big step when I “only” drank six times per day, and still in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning. Eventually, I moved down to four times per day.
The first time I went a whole overnight without drinking was another milestone.
Nearer to the end, I’d only drink after 5pm. And finally, only at bedtime. The last night, January 6th, I had just one drink before bed.
I felt no joy. I felt no pride. There were no balloons. I may have starved it of energy and attention, but my alcoholism, my monster, is still waiting quietly for me in the shadows. It is as patient as time.
Reading the article, then listening to my voice back from April 2020, full of almost innocent-like hope, was so incredibly painful.
Flashbacks are real.
Anyway, I decided to expound on the experience of having had alcoholic liver disease. Statistics and numbers are great for envisioning the number of incidents, but they don’t paint a picture of what it’s like. My intention with this piece is to capture a sliver of how terrible ALD is. I also want to clarify that though I felt horrible, I had it fairly “easy” because I stopped drinking. My liver healed.
Carolyn, Susan’s daughter, also had alcoholic liver disease, and she passed away in January. (See, “In Memory of Carolyn.”)
The summer leading up to my decision to start my recovery process was dreadful. In August of 2019 I drank at least a fifth of alcohol a day, around 17-20 drinks, in ONE day. I was POISONING MYSELF because I hated everything about existing. I perceived having no purpose because it was summer and I wasn’t accountable to anything or anyone. It was the perfect opportunity for me to isolate myself in my then-apartment. I had no commitments except to the bottles I nursed from when I woke up, until the moment I passed out, over and over and over again. I woke up, felt sick, drank, fell asleep to forget how sick I was feeling, rinse, cycle, repeat.
Then one day, I had a doctor’s appointment.
I remember being at the doctor’s office shaking, sweating, hoping I didn’t smell like liquor from drinking the night before. I tried drinking as much water as I could stomach that morning, knowing that it felt horrible to drink, well horrible to drink water, let me clarify. I hid my hands in my pockets to hide tremors. Then I felt the tremors in my neck and my head, my brain twitched, “Am I about to have a seizure?” Every single part of my body was aching or shaking. I just wanted to go home to snuggle up under the covers with my bottle in hand. While in the waiting room, I looked down at my feet. My sandal straps were cutting into them they were so swollen. I looked up instead. My eyes hurt. I remembered they were starting to get a very slight hint of yellow, so I grabbed my glasses from my purse and put them on to distract the doctor and nurse from looking right into my eyes.
Signs of ALD in 2019
On that morning like many others, I couldn’t stop hacking. The fits were uncontrollable, and my ribs were so bruised that the few moments I could laugh in those times, I wouldn’t. I coughed up slimy green acidic bile, retching over whatever sink or toilet was near me until I could get to a drink. When I was off, I soothed my violent nausea in the mornings with whatever splashes of cheap bourbon remained in bottles I picked up off the floor around my bed or bathroom. When I gripped a bottle, I braced myself, anticipating the horrible taste and burn. It was fire down my throat, I burned while waiting for the temporary relief. The nausea stopped. The shaking subsided. Gasping, gripping the vanity in fear of falling over, I would look up in the mirror with liquor dripping out of the side of my mouth. I would look at and not recognize the woman looking back at me. I saw the unusual weight loss, random bruises, the dark circles. Cracked lips. A plump aching belly with no baby in it. I was transforming. I was imploding.
I was fearful of getting on my phone to check my lab results. I didn’t want to think that I would be like my cousin, who died after bleeding out from a simple procedure because she could no longer heal. When I got the blood results back, however, I accepted my dark fate. I got a note from the doctor saying that I had alcoholic hepatitis. If what you see in the screenshot is something you would even want to consider a note. With no explanation from my doctor as to what numbers meant what, I spent quite a bit of time doing research.
2019 Lab Results
My AST/SGOT was 429, a standard range is 15-46 U/L. What did this mean? According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “AST/SGOT is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, AST leaks out into the bloodstream and the level of AST in the blood becomes elevated. AST is different from ALT because AST is found in parts of the body other than the liver–including the heart, kidneys, muscles, and brain. When cells in any of those parts of the body are damaged, AST can be elevated.” And my ALT? It was 9 times the normal range. It was 160. That normal range was supposed to be 13-69. “ALT, is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, ALT leaks out into the bloodstream, and the level of ALT in the blood is elevated.” My bilirubin was 1.8 when normal ranges are 0.2-1.3, so that was another indicator of my poor liver function.
2019 Lab Result “Interpretation”
At that point, I was terrified because I understood that I had to stop, but I was afraid to ask for help without letting my secret out. I knew I needed alcohol to not feel ill but the idea of putting the bottle down terrified me. In my previous experience with getting sober in 2013, I simply stopped drinking, that shit wasn’t going to wrok this time. This time, it was different. I had been alone for what had been almost two months, and I just wanted to stay hidden in my apartment and forget this was even a problem. I wanted to disappear silently. Maybe one day I would fall asleep and not wake up, no one would notice, right?
The physical symptoms very quickly turned into psychological ones. I started to feel crippling anxiety and minor hallucinations. I noticed I would hear and see flashes of things that no one else saw. It got worse when I had to go back to work. Going back to school, I was forced to modify my drinking because I had to make it to the school building alive and barely sober. The daily withdrawal symptoms led to the worst school days. My only safe space, my classroom, riddled me with fear and panic. The sound of a notebook falling, a chair squeaking too hard, a child’s laughter, all those sounds terrorized me. They made my stomach drop each time. My coughing fits got so bad the kids thought I was having an asthma attack. I carried an asthma pump to “explain” the coughing. I knew what was going on. When your liver stops working, the fluids that should be leaving your body don’t, so they find other places to settle. In my case, it was my feet, ankles, and my lungs. It’s a miracle I didn’t get pneumonia.
It wasn’t long before the panic, anxiety, and illness brought me to my knees.
One morning in September of 2019, I couldn’t get out of bed to drive to work. I was terrified of walking out the door. I couldn’t go to work. I knew something had to give when I couldn’t go to the one place I loved the most. The only people I told that I was going to a hospital to were my principal and my sister. Neither knew I went in for my drinking. I blamed it on depression and anxiety. The rest is history, but I don’t know how I functioned when reflecting on those times.
I don’t know how I functioned so SUCCESSFULLY.
I stop sometimes and think, “What the hell?!” The only explanation I can think of is the power of the mind and its determination. A mind fueled by shame and guilt is profoundly capable of massive feats to put up appearances. I was killing myself, and yet I was showing up.
So yes, all these conversations about women and their dangerous relationships with alcohol need to happen, and I’m SO grateful that they are. I can only speak from my experience, but I will say a million times, it can’t just be me. The more we have these conversations, the more people we’ll have come forward saying, “You know what, I’ve got that problem, too.”
My daughter died on Jan 3 this year at age 50 from alcoholic liver disease. She had been struggling with alcoholism for many years, and finally, she succumbed. She was loved and had lots of encouragement to stop drinking. And she did make it to 90 days a few times, but it did not last.
She was staying with another alcoholic for the past year and caring for her, so she had lots of opportunities to keep drinking. One of her many lies was that her liver was fine.
Two months before she died, I noticed her jaundice. We went right to the hospital, where she had gone many times for help drying out, and she stayed for 3 days (all of this during COVID). Those who cared for her gave her good advice and hope, but she got worse and worse in the next 2 months with a swollen abdomen and legs and feet. She never lost her yellow coloring.
She went back to the hospital a few times but was not admitted. She came to stay with me a few times but could not get up the stairs, and lived on my couch. It was horrible to watch.
The last time she came was 4 days before Christmas since the hospital would not admit her. She was not eating, and I tried my best to take care of her. Her son, age 19, came to my house on Christmas Day, so she did have some time with him. The other son, age 21, did not come. They had not seen her for months, so he was shocked and scared. She told him, “I’m not going to die,” but the day after, I called an ambulance since she was very, very sick. The EMT hugged her dad and me and said we might want to consider hospice, which I had thought about.
She gradually declined over the next 7 days, was on a feeding tube and developed pneumonia. The hospital took good care of her and even let us have 2 people visit as she got worse, and they allowed the closest family to be with her the night she died. It was horrible and not at all like the movies.
She was angry and distant for the last few days, so we never had a “good” goodbye. One of the doctors said they had seen a big increase in the number of alcohol-related diseases in the past 6 months.
Despite all the hard, hard, worrying times as her mother and her go-to person, we had many wonderful fun times. She always tried to make it through our holidays and get-togethers somewhat sober. I will miss her terribly, forever.
We had a small ceremony. Everyone who sent cards and commented talked of her very wonderful, sparkly, and beautiful being. She was much loved.
Thank you for letting me tell this story. I needed to write, just like you did.
Sadly,
Susan
When I asked Susan for permission to share her and her daughter’s story, she also asked me to include her obituary. Susan wants to share with the world that yes, Carolyn was very sick, and more importantly, that she was incredibly loved. Please read below:
Carolyn Marie Wanner (July 14, 1970–January 3,2021)
A bright sparkly personality left us grieving when, despite her best efforts, Carolyn Marie Wanner, 50, lost her battle with alcoholism on January 3, 2021 at the Greeley Hospital. Her close family was present to say good bye and must now learn to live without her happy presence.
Carolyn was born in Eugene, Oregon, on July 14, 1970 and moved to Greeley when she was just 6 weeks old. Even as a little girl, she loved people and said hello to anyone who would catch her eye. She could also be counted on to defend her little friends from bullying or harm, a friend you could trust.
A capable student, she became an excellent writer and loved reading and all things having to do with performance and theater. After attending Cameron School, Maplewood Middle School and Heath Junior High, she graduated from Greeley Central in 1988, where she continued to participate in activities, especially theatre, choir, forensics with her group of friends who felt right at home at her house, doing their homework and just hanging around.
Photo by family
She never hesitated to help anyone, even if it meant giving away her last cigarette or $5 when she saw someone in need. Those who knew her were grateful to have had her friendship and those she briefly encountered were always graced with her welcoming smile.
She attended The University of Northern Colorado for one semester, taking a class from her dad and then went off to UC Boulder to earn a degree and had way too much fun socializing, gathering more friends into her life. When she earned her BA in English and Theatre, she was so proud.
In her own words, she said “The energy and allure of the hospitality industry and the people it attracts suit my personality perfectly. I love it!” and that is where she spent her career, working at a number of venues in various capacities, including the first Rock Bottom in Denver. She gave exceptional service at all times and earned a lot of tips with her huge smile and ability to put customers at ease, chatting to everyone, just like when she was a little girl. But, with Carolyn, it wasn’t just about the tips. She was a performer at heart. Her dreams of being an actress were played out doing improv with her customers.
On August 8, 1998, she married Dante Dunlap in Denver and they had two exceptional sons, Max, age 21 and Ethan, age 19, of Denver. She loved being a mom and was often called the “cool mom” by Max and Ethan’s friends. Her sons meant everything to her. Following her divorce, she had a variety of relationships, but never remarried.
In addition to Ethan and Max, she is survived by her saddened mother, Susan Malmstadt, and father, James Wanner, his wife Rene Oya, her loving brother, Christopher Wanner, sister-in-law Sonya PauKune, nephews Blake and Sabin Wanner along with her aunts, Patricia Malmstadt and Carol Haluska, an uncle Dick Wanner, cousins Tere and Steve Schultz, Andy May, Laurie Malone, Carissa Russell, Leslie Andrews, Jennifer and Kristin Wanner as well as extended family and a slew of friends across the state and the country.
The family would like to thank the medical staff at the Greeley Hospital 3rd Floor Acute Care Unit for the exceptional care they provided Carolyn and the family.
Contributions in Carolyn’s memory can be made by check to Greeley Central High School GCHS Thespian Troop 657, 1515 14th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80631 Attention: Brian Humphrey or to the Colorado Restaurant Association Angel Relief Fund for restaurant workers affected by COVID.
Triple-negative breast cancer stripped me of my armor: hair, uterus, and breasts. But eight months out of treatment on New Year’s Eve 2019, I was determined: 2020 would be my year!
I welcomed the New Year at home, in bed, actually. I was recovering from my final surgery. My three daughters were healthy and stable, and my 21-year-old son was finally sober. He was thriving in college.
Getting cancer both required me and inspired me to stop drowning my feelings in alcohol. Going through cancer treatment, I had to develop a new set of coping skills. I faced the trauma and the disappointments of my new reality. I acknowledged the hurt, anger, and fear I had. I learned how to live life on life’s terms.
That New Year’s Eve, I was approaching one year of solid alcohol-free living. I was getting my hair done at that point in life, wearing cute outfits. I even started a podcast. The cluster*&%$ was over.
But by March 2020, instead of looking stylish, instead of building my career, instead of traveling to see my kids, I was doing quite the opposite. I found myself in ratty sweatpants, baking banana bread, and staring at three-inch-long salt and pepper roots. COVID-19 forced the world to pause. We had to sit still, examine our relationships with others and ourselves, and cope with a new way of life. We were either suddenly all things to all people or left in absolute isolation and loneliness. If you’re reading this, you know these scenes because you lived them. Maybe you still are.
My therapist told me that her clients who had been through cancer and addiction were dealing with quarantine much better than those who had not. Perhaps it was because although everyone has experienced challenges, not everyone has had to face a life-threatening crisis head-on. Many individuals lack the tools necessary for managing financial challenges such as caring for ailing parents, one’s own illness, or career uncertainty. Experiencing hurdles like these for the first time, these uncertain and uncomfortable circumstances turned more people into maladaptive behaviors. Drinking and doing drugs became a simple solution. I noticed the marked increases in alcohol sales, domestic violence, overdoses, and suicides. The universe told me it was time to share my secret.
My drinking had been in the closet. Literally. I drank in the closet, so nobody would know I had a problem coping with this disaster. Seeing the impact of COVID-19 on society propelled me to come out of my own closet and share my story. A year ago, if you had told me I would go public with my addiction, I would have laughed in your face. However, a year ago, we would have all laughed if a psychic had told us that this, this is how life would look today.
My drinking did not land me at “rock bottom,” but it made me sick. It made me sad. It wasn’t serving me any useful purpose. Today, I run into people who I know feel the same shame I used to feel. They persist in hiding their precarious relationship with alcohol and drugs from friends, family, and frankly, even themselves. I did, too. I get it. They are not alone.
You are not alone.
Since the start of the pandemic, a growing number of people drink and use to cope. If people like me don’t come forward, the stigma and the impact of maladaptive drinking or drug use will always prevent us from living our best life.
Today, my closet? It has become my office, a safe space where I record my podcast, “After the Crisis.” I share my story, talk to people who have overcome serious life challenges, converse with experts, all while offering healthy coping strategies to others on their journeys.
Before I revealed my secret, I was a highly efficient mom of four, an active PTA member, and was deathly fearful of exposing my weaknesses. After sharing my story, people came forward to admit they were struggling just as much as I was. They confessed to having had uncomfortable relationships with alcohol and asked for help.
Now, I have unmasked the real Victoria English Martin. She has bad moments, bad days, and even bad weeks, but nothing compares to those wretched days when she sought solutions at the bottom of a wine bottle. Today’s she’s free.
I couldn’t help but be corny, but today’s a big deal. If all goes well, it’ll be the last time I’ll ever be 99 days sober. If it doesn’t and I spiral entirely out of control to a certain dark fate, it will still be my last time being 99 days sober. If I fall and bounce back, then hopefully, I’d make it back to 99 days. At this very moment, all that matters is now.
Just about the same thing that I wrote, in case you don’t feel like reading.
I finished an interview about a month ago with Vic Vela from Colorado Public Radio for his show Back from Broken. We checked in this weekend, and I shared how I’ve managed to stay sober for this many days in a row.
Immediately I thought of the generic response, “Well, you know, I follow the steps, I follow suggestions, I go to meetings, etc.” Not to say I don’t do those things, because I certainly do. They are a critical part of my toolbox along with accepting that I need medication and therapy.
However, the biggest thing that I’ve picked up on is my writing. Being sober makes it pretty easy to string a couple of sentences together coherently. It turns out that many feelings (especially my grief which triggered me nonstop) that I was always trying to suppress now have a way out. It’s either through pen to paper or by hitting that keyboard. A part of this writing is a part of my program, a part of it is trying to capture others’ stories, and a lot of it is also just letting everything inside me out. No matter what, it just feels really good. It’s a great distraction, and I’m finding joy today in what I create rather than seeking joy grasping onto the external.
Clips from The Lost Weekend. Clearly time doesn’t change addiction.
Oh, and a random thought worth sharing. I watched this old 1940’s film, The Lost Weekend, after a friend recommended it. I’ve experienced near end-stage alcoholism through my own eyes. However, I’ve never seen what it looks like from the outside to be nearly dying and to feel ready for it because every waking moment is a nightmare physically and emotionally. I’ve always known what it felt like, but not what it looks like. It’s terrifying, and I hate that several people I love had to see me like that, but I’m grateful not to be there today.
I pray I’m not there tomorrow, and that’s why I say I just have today. The 98 days before today are gone, they’ve vanished. Tomorrow’s not here. If it comes, however, it will be day 100 and that’s a nice number. I do have hopes for tomorrow and for the tomorrows after that.
The hope I carry is enough for me to stay sober, just for today.
“From the beginning? I was born prematurely, four to five months premature. Apparently I was full of crack cocaine, survived that, went into foster care and was adopted at 18 months.” Chris was so casual, as if being born addicted to drugs and being placed in the foster care system was no big deal. Then I reflected on the stories I’ve heard, about my own story even, and realized that maybe the ability to be one step removed emotionally from our own story is a trait we all carry for the sake of surviving.
Chris was raised by his adoptive black family in Dallas Fort-Worth. Childhood was great, and he described his environment as “warm” and he felt like he fit right in. Then he learned that he was adopted. “What changed, the environment?” I asked. “No, it was me,” he replied. There was a change, a shift in Chris. When he was six, his parents sat him down to let him know that a sister was on the way, and she was joining the family exactly as he did, through an adoption. His perception of the world around him was forever altered.
The court had to make sure his home was safe for another child. There were proceedings, meetings, and home visits. He was soon a big brother. Did his behavior change at this age? No. However, Chris had discovered the world was not as it had seemed. He was adopted. Parents put up children for adoption. These were new realizations. Chris asked himself, “What else is there? What else don’t I know?”
He started to wonder. “Where? Who? Why? What?” he said. “All the wondering, really.” “So did you ever find your parents, or look for them?” I asked. “I did,” Chris said. He was 29. He attained unsealed records from his entire adoption process, including his birth records. He was able to read through those. “I found the names. I went to Facebook. There they were.”
“Okay, so did you meet them? Were they together? Were they using? Were they sober? What was it like?” I stopped myself. Sometimes I don’t realize how quickly I can speak, so I took a breath. I often experience the “frenzied speech” behavior that is part of bipolar disorder; if I get excited about something I’ll never stop.
Chris smiled.
“First, I’ll tell you about my mother. She was still using. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, it was rough to meet her, but to be fair, I was extremely drunk at the time as well.” No surprise there—I would be, too. Who wouldn’t get drunk? Well, I suppose a “normal” person wouldn’t; I forget we’re not all the same.
It was the same day that he also met his biological father. And no, not at the same time, (because of course, I asked), but on the same day. His parents are no longer together. His father wasn’t high or drunk to his blurred memory. “To be honest, I’m not sure if my father was or is sober.” They haven’t spoken in two years. He hasn’t seen his mother since the day they met.
The conversation went back to the early days of Chris’s using and drinking. Like many high school students, he began drinking on and off in party settings. “It started then and it felt like it lasted until forever, until I finally stopped. It was still social then. Sometimes the drinks were spiked at parties, sometimes I was with cousins who had access to the liquor cabinets. My drinking didn’t become heavy until I got to college, so I was around 18.”
So how heavy is heavy?
“Thursday through Sunday, every weekend.” I remember those weekends, drunken weekends. The weekends that made it easy to blend in, the weekends where an alcoholic or drug addict might still, albeit falsely, feel a part of the group. The good old days when drinking was the norm and no one judged you yet for your awful hangovers or your reckless behavior. Chris described himself as a “lucid drunk” during his college years. He never blacked out. Though he wasn’t spiritual then, he definitely credits “the universe” with making sure he got home safely even when he didn’t remember it.
His drug use started when he was 19. “Touchy, feely, energetic, spacey” was how it felt in the beginning. “Okay, so when did it stop being fun?” I asked.
Adderall. “It’s one of those drugs where you think, ‘I can do this,’ until you realize that you can’t stop. You think you’re okay, then you realize you’re not okay.” Further, Chris realized his drinking was problematic when he couldn’t manage to stop once he started. His tolerance was so high that people would give him non-stop drinks, but he wouldn’t get sick and he never threw up. He started coming home drunk, getting some sleep, waking up, and then going to class and later work like nothing happened. “I didn’t need to be watched while I drank, but come to think of it, I probably should’ve.” Smiled again.
What about heroin? As he said, “Culturally, as a black person, needles have always been looked down on.” But laughing, he continued, “For all the shit I put into my body, the needle standard was so arbitrary.” Sure, he snorted it and got high, but he got sick. “I felt like trash and it was one and done.” Many first-time heroin users tell a different story, of feeling an intense relief washing over them. For Chris, though, he vomited as if possessed by a demon, and he never touched heroin again.
Chris didn’t finish college but it wasn’t his drinking and drug use, he said. “I never did finish, but it’s because I never wanted to start either.” He didn’t want to go in the first place, but he was pressured to live up to societal norms and his family’s expectations. “I mean, it’s what you do. You graduate from high school. You go to college wherever you get accepted and can afford to go to. You work. Then you die. For a lot of people, they can live that linear life, but I couldn’t. I was always an adventurer, always an explorer. It’s a part of where the drugs came in. I was always curious about them, and I was bipolar. They helped.”
Chris was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 15. He found that psychiatric medications made him feel horrible, so he stopped taking the meds and like many others, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. There wasn’t a drug that was off limits, except for heroin after that one use. His doctors warned him about his drug use, that the manic spikes would be dangerous and the depressive states even more intense given the path he was on, but that didn’t stop him. I understood the feeling. When I was told my liver enzymes were dangerously high and that I had alcoholic hepatitis, I should have stopped, but I didn’t.
For people with bipolar disorder, sobriety can be a delicate balancing game. The extremes lead to self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. The use of the drugs and alcohol create a physical dependency so when the bipolar person tries to break free from the physical addiction, their “medication” is gone. Their relief is gone. It’s merely a matter of time before a bipolar person gets triggered, falls apart, and goes back to drinking or using. According to American Addiction Centers, “The rate of co-occurring substance use disorders in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder ranges from about 20 percent to as high as nearly 60 percent.”
So he dropped all the substances and started going to Bible study. Even though he was trying to stay sober, he still didn’t feel whole. So when he started to drink, he started to feel the conflict between his need to drink for relief and the persona he created for himself at church. He couldn’t “feel through” himself, so he ended up heavily drinking and smoking again, and before long he was back to hard drugs.
So is Chris an alcoholic since he started to drink first and drugs came after? I know several people in the 12-step community who call themselves alcoholics even though they have had extensive drug use. Why? They say that once they drink, they can’t just stop there. Chris didn’t need a substance in any particular order in order to want the rest. Anything that was mind altering and brought relief was his substance of choice in that moment. His moods dictated what type of relief he was seeking, so for him the words “alcoholic” or “drug addict” are irrelevant. He could do three lines of coke and suddenly decide to drink or the other way around. It was the disease of “never enough.”
Remember, Chris doesn’t fit inside boxes.
For some people, the motivation to stop is a significant consequence, a terrifying moment, but for Chris, the desire to stop came from within. “I’m drinking all the time by myself. I could drink everyone under the table, do drugs all night, stay awake for four or five days. I’m tired of it. It’s not serving me, it’s not benefiting me, it’s just costing me a bunch of money, and what for? And that was literally it.”
Chris does face some challenges. Chris was known as a source for drugs. “I still have friends or distant family who will text me asking if I can help find them this drug or that drug. It was just who I was. It was an entire personality I had.”
For Chris, a 12-step program wouldn’t work. He’s too much of an individual and he likes to blaze his own path, but he’s not against 12-step programs for other people. “If that would work for you do it. You have to do what’s right for you.” So he has not necessarily abstained 100%, but his life today is drastically different than what it was before. He tells himself not to be so judgy or so hard on himself but to try his best for that day. He felt going cold turkey would be too difficult because it would make him fixate on wanting it more. He’s not counting days and he’s not putting pressure on himself to say that he’ll never drink or use drugs again. He’s had about two shots of alcohol since last fall, and for him it’s important to focus on the fact that it’s two shots compared to the three bottles he would have slammed in the past.
For Chris, it’s harder to deal with the people who are surprised he’s not drinking than it is to not drink. Recently, he faced a challenge when he went to a Super Bowl party and didn’t drink and didn’t use. What about “One is too many and a thousand is never enough”? For Chris he could have one, but he asks himself, “What am I thinking? How am I feeling? Why would I do it? I already know where it’s going to lead me and how I’m going to be feeling later. After one, it’s going to be two. After two it’s going to be three. At that point, I’m just drinking. It creates a circle. The more aware I become daily, the better I am at stopping those thoughts when they creep up.”
Every morning, Chris gets up and looks in the mirror first thing and says to his reflection, “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t use.” He prays, he meditates, he exercises. And then it’s time to face the world.
“I still believe that voice telling me it was my last chance to this day. I knew it was my last chance.” Sara reflected on her sobriety date. After listening to her story, I stared at my phone in shock.
“How? How have you stayed sober continuously for 26 years? That’s an entire lifetime. I could barely get through a couple of weeks at a time last year!” Sara paused for a moment; I could hear her breath drawing in as she braced herself, “Well, let me tell you how it started…it’s a long story cause I’m old as fuck.”
Born and raised in Louisville, KY, Sara’s upbringing led her to believe that the only acceptable and valid family structure was the one she was brought up in. I definitely related to some parts of her experience when she talked about her childhood. She was bright, looked good to others, all-around excellent behavior and grades, and was an award-winning student. She was the type of child that any parent would be proud of. The only facet of her childhood that I couldn’t relate to was that she was a dedicated athlete to what felt like a laundry list of sports. Ice skating, swimming, she did it all. She should’ve walked around feeling good about herself, right?
She didn’t.
Sara and her mother had a turbulent relationship. Wherein Sara desperately sought her mother’s affirmations, love, attention, anything really, she received the opposite. Sara’s mom was usually too busy for her, on the phone, always telling Sara to “go away.” Sara paused her story. She wanted to clarify that despite what she was about to say about her upbringing, her parents took care of her physical needs. I laughed because I know that feeling, too. I also carry scars from my childhood. At this point, though, the best way for me to be at peace about my past is to accept that my parents, and frankly most parents, tried their best given the circumstances they were in. She proceeded to explain that she grew up with a roof over her head, food on the table, but she felt perpetually ignored or in trouble.
That didn’t make sense, “So, wait, how were you in trouble if she wasn’t even paying attention to you?”
Another breath.
“I remember being threatened to be taken away to an orphanage when I was 5. That was the beginning when that (getting in trouble) started happening. I had had a tantrum, and while in the shower, my mother dragged me out to the car, wet and naked, shampoo still in my hair. She had a suitcase packed telling me that she was going to take me to an orphanage…I shrieked in terror and threw a fit. Ever since, I always felt and believed that I was bad, you know, just bad. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t good enough. Nothing I ever did after that was good enough.”
She carried those same feelings with her into middle and high school, where the awkwardness of teen behavior did nothing to help her feel like she belonged. Gossip and kids constantly turning their backs on one another didn’t provide Sara with any secure relationships with her peers. Her teachers loved her. That was about it. Around this time, Sara discovered cigarettes, and she was 12. Within a week of her first cigarette, she discovered marijuana (which Sara calls pot, so I’ll call it pot moving forward) and alcohol. Well, correction, Sara backtracked; it was more of a reunion; her father would let her have some of his nightly beer in an orange juice glass from the age of three. “‘More, more, more! I want more!’ From the very beginning, I knew that phenomenon of craving was in me.”
Sara learned to sneak around with alcohol after that. Now sneaking, that I know all too well. She replaced liquor with water in her parents’ bar, filled nail polish bottles with it, and would snatch her dad’s beer when he wasn’t paying attention, anything she could do to get to her drink. I couldn’t help but laugh, “it’s so funny to me how we’re all so good at hiding things when we need to. We’re so creative!” It’s true; we addicts and alcoholics are a bright bunch. Too bad that smarts don’t save us from our own disease.
Older teens and adults started to take an interest in Sara once she crossed over to drinking and using. Suddenly she found herself “not giving a shit. I didn’t care if they (her classmates) liked me or didn’t like me. I just started partying really hard. In the 70s, people called them the ‘freaks.’ That’s what I was, a ‘freak.’” The feeling of rejection from her mother and then her peers quickly disappeared. Alcohol and drugs started to give Sara a feeling of power, a sense of belonging, a false sense of maturity. She described the “relief” she felt of no longer worrying about anyone else, of their judgments. She felt at that time like she was in control of herself, of her feelings.
Of course, that relief was only temporary.
Sara started to hang around gas stations with her girlfriends, waiting for creepy uncle types who would be willing to buy them alcohol. Any and every party that she was invited to, she attended, using and drinking whatever she was offered. “So, you’ve talked a lot about quaaludes, pot, and alcohol. Where was heroin in all this?” I was so curious about the late 70s, early 80s, considering that today overdoses with opiates are so prevalent. “Heroin got big after ‘big pharma’ got everyone hooked on pain pills. That was way after I got sober. Back then, people died from drunk driving or on occasion from suicide, not from overdoses, not like today.”
Sara was spot on. According to the CDC, in the US in 1980, the number of people who died from drug overdoses was 6,100. By 2019, it was 70,630. Out of that number, 49,860 died from opiates, including pain pills and heroin.
Drugs and alcohol had become so instrumental to Sara’s stability that she leaned on them through what would be anyone’s worst nightmare, rape.
While on a liquor run, she ran into some older friends who invited her to a boat party. There were over a hundred people who crowded this boat, older kids. Sara drank the whiskey fast, smoked some pot. All the while, someone at the party had targeted her.
“This guy came and grabbed me. He pulled me off of the boat, and it was dark. It was night. I had a swim meet earlier that day, and this girl on my team French-braided my hair; I left the French braids in….anyway, I remember I escaped from this guy, I got back on the boat and hid from him. He came in there and he found me and he dragged me out. I was screaming, screaming to all these people, ‘Help me!’ And nobody would help me. They just let him take me away. He took me out there and he raped me. Then this other guy raped me. I think I knew who one of the guys was, and possibly the other guy. They were in on it together.”
My heart broke for her. I was scared to ask if this was her first time. It was.
“They beat me up. They ripped my hair out. I was covered in dirt, in pee, their pee, grass stains, mud. They tried to shove gravel down my throat to keep me from screaming. I was left there for dead and someone from my neighborhood found me and dumped me on my lawn. My brother found me out there, carried me inside, put me in my room and closed the door. I came to the next day, my parents never noticed. They didn’t even know. I woke up torn up. I think that was my first hangover. I was 14. That was the first time I felt true fear, horror, how awful everything was. So I put my clothes on, snuck out, and went back to the gas station to get more liquor. I went to another party, did acid and quaaludes. I knew then I shouldn’t go around these people anymore, my soul told me not to, but I would do it anyway. After that, I left my body mentally every time I had sex. I just felt like men were always going to take it, anyway.”
I hated it, and though I don’t share the horrifying experience that Sara just described, I recognized the feeling of the pain, the dread, and the need to drown it out. The need to cope through oblivion. The feeling of knowing better yet being driven to do the exact opposite.
Needless to say, Sara’s behavior continued to spiral. Once again, she was betrayed by friends and nearly drowned when she drunkenly fell off a boat and into a river while hanging out. “You’re going to drown by the time we get to you!” they shouted. Panicked that even her swimming experience couldn’t save her, she felt herself swallowing water and was prepared to give up when she heard a voice reminding her to do the dead man’s float. She survived, but her risky behavior led others to think she wouldn’t live to her next birthday, and they contacted her parents. Sara’s mother and father acted like they were shocked. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but Sara ended up in treatment and got sober for the first time.
I remember that I was terrified my first time in treatment, and that was being a grown woman. By the 8th time, I was just tired of it, but what was it like for a teenage girl? To Sara, it was okay. She got used to it, and being a sober high schooler wasn’t bad. She had a tiny circle of sober friends, and they did fun normal teenage things. She remembers going to meetings with people who now have over forty years of sobriety. Things got steady for Sara. She finished high school, kept her good grades, and started college. It was not long before things fell apart, again.
Sara managed to stay sober the first semester of her freshman year, but the day she moved on campus, literally semester two day one, she got drunk. This time around, Sara didn’t go back to drug use. She stuck only to alcohol.
“You knew being sober worked. Why did you go back out?” I asked, knowing damn well why she did, because she’s an alcoholic, enough said. Nothing we do ever seems to make sense.
“I wanted to fit in. When I was younger, I didn’t want to fit in with my peers, this time, I did.” The classmates she hadn’t cared for had now grown into classic binge drinking, partying college students, Sara’s kind of people. At this time, Sara knew she had a problem, she just ignored it. She started having run-ins with the police. Despite her increasing number of arrests, she had about six of them for public intoxication, what felt like never-ending community services that the judges kept giving her, and nearly getting expelled from school, she didn’t stop drinking. She was horribly sick every morning, barely taking “nights off” of drinking. At this point in her story, I figured she must have dropped out of school.
I could envision the smirk on her face. “I’m smart, I still got good grades. I was on the Dean’s list, and also on the dean’s list, for my conduct.” she laughed. I chuckled, too. Come to think of it, if I wasn’t naturally bright myself, I don’t know that I would have ever finished any schooling, either. Sara got by with taking night classes to accommodate her drinking schedule and eventually graduated, arrests and all.
“I didn’t know what living like a normal person was,” Sara told me as she described the sound of the dot matrix printer as it printed her arrest record, page after page after page. I later Googled what a dot matrix printer was and what it sounded like. The funny thing about addiction is that despite us being from entirely different generations, the undercurrent remains the same. A disease is a disease, diabetes doesn’t change from one person to another. It was the same disease thirty years ago as it is today. Our experiences are our own, but the disease of addiction remains the same.
After college, Sara met her husband, who she stated became her “new drug.” She still drank, just not as much. She was now getting validation from him and not just the bottle. He joined the military, and they lived what appeared to be a beautiful life in Florida by the beach. It was like a return to her childhood, everything on the outside looked “perfect,” but on the inside, she felt far from it. She still lived in fear, and she still had an emotional and spiritual emptiness. Even skimming her high school yearbook, she realized that though her classmates described her as joyful and cheerful, she knew even then that she had a void that she always needed to fill.
While married, she became a periodic drinker instead of a daily one. Though she could stay away from alcohol for periods at a time, when she had the first drink, she couldn’t stop. Sara required an intervention each time she drank in order to stop. She wanted to seek help but her husband at the time discouraged her, telling her that she didn’t have a problem despite getting angry with her every time she got drunk at his suggestion and then couldn’t be his designated driver. Sara knew better, but she ignored what she knew because she valued her husband’s word as the end all be all, even when he became verbally abusive. Once again, she lived with low self-worth. She suffered in silence daily until he abruptly divorced her before getting stationed in Japan. She returned to Kentucky, and her drinking picked back up.
Sara started drunk driving, losing cars on weekends, waking up with the sick feeling in her stomach, dreading the unknown. Had she hit something? She vaguely remembers several near-death experiences, and then in July of 1994 (a few months before her sobriety date), she got her first DUI. She should have gone to jail, but on her fifth court date in September, the arresting officer did not show, and the DUI dropped down to a misdemeanor. Did Sara stop and think, “Maybe I should stop?” Not at all. That night, Sara got drunk and drove to celebrate getting out of her DUI situation.
That was the night of her last drink.
She remembers waking up in the morning at home. She didn’t know where her car was. She really didn’t remember much of the night before. However, she was incredibly sick, and she dragged herself into the bath, barely able to hold herself up. She sat down in the tub as the water washed over her, that same voice that saved her from drowning spoke to her again. This time it said, “This is your last chance. You better take it.” Sara said, “I believe that voice to this day. I knew it was my last chance.” It was the voice of God. It was September 23, 1994. The Tuesday after, she went to her first recovery meeting since her teenage sober years. Her reception was not a warm one.
She decided then that she would be sober despite others’ attitudes or behaviors toward her. Even if they didn’t reach their hand out to help her, she was going to stay sober and stay alive. Sara had gotten through the worst of times in the past when people betrayed her, and she was going to stay sober, even if it was just her and God carrying her through. It was a moment of clarity. She thought to herself, “this is the end. There is nowhere else to go. I couldn’t drink; I had no other choice. Am I going to do this or not do this?”
It’s been twenty-six years of sober living since.
We were running short on time, but considering that she has at this point lived more years as a sober woman than as an actively drunk/high woman, I had to have her share about living sober.
Jokingly she said that her first motivator to stay sober was the desire to stay out of jail, “that’s the easy reason,” she chuckled.
Seriously though, she described her first two years as the hardest. At 105 days sober, she looked at herself in the mirror, and it was the first time she could see herself. “I actually was present. My soul, body, and mind converged into one for the first time.” St. Patrick’s Day and other days that people celebrate by drinking weren’t easy to get through. “I was salivating, craving. I remember getting off work at five. I was going to get off the expressway to go to a bar, and I said, ‘well, guess this is it.’ But while driving, I remembered someone saying to pray for cravings to be removed, and while I prayed to God, I ended up missing the exit.”
For Sara, staying sober isn’t all about the fellowship, the socializing. Being around other sober people is definitely important, but she needed to break her codependent tendencies. She spent her life using the external to being her internal joy, and it was always fleeting. Working with a sponsor, building her spiritual base, and her connection with her higher power, which for her is God, has filled that void she had felt all those years ago.
Sobriety isn’t easy. Sara wanted to make sure that anyone who reads her story understands that. We did not get to cover twenty-six years of her life, but she’s dealt with life on life’s terms. Death, heartbreak, loss, ailments, Sara’s lived through all of it, and she’s stayed sober. For Sara, staying sober means having power. It means knowing that she’s enough. She has freedom. She has peace. Anytime she’s been triggered, she asks herself, “If I drink, what will my life look like in six months?” Suddenly, whatever trivial thing was triggering her becomes insignificant in the grand scheme of things. “Whatever is going on, you won’t remember what pissed you off in six months. It’s not worth it. It’s temporary. I ask myself every day what is worth more than my peace and serenity. Nothing is. I’m willing to give up everything to have peace and serenity.”
When I heard Sara say that, I felt inspired. It was a hope shot for me. I literally just gave up everything in December to have my own peace and serenity, and hearing a woman with twenty-six years of sobriety essentially say the same thing lets me know that I need to keep doing what I’m doing. Maybe one day I’ll be like her, telling my story to a newly sober person.
So, after all she’s lived through, how does Sara feel moving forward?
“If you’re a victim, you’re never free. You’re never happy. Everything you feel is always dependent on what someone else does, says, doesn’t do, or doesn’t say. I don’t want to be dependent on other people for my happiness anymore. I learned to write a new story. I mean, I always used to tell my story with a negative connotation. That was who I was. I always framed it as something that kept me from succeeding. I was held back by self-pity because I kept blaming everything that happened. Telling that same old negative story kept me stuck in it. I tell a new story now. My story is now about me living how I want things to be. I firmly believe that anything is possible with God. There is power in our words. If you say you can, if you say you can’t, you’re right. Even if things aren’t how I want them to be right now, I’m still going to speak them into existence in the way I want them to be.”
“Sara” participated in Bottomless to Sober anonymously, but her story, like all of our stories, carries a message of hope.
We don’t need to know who it was to know that we do recover.
Thank you for sharing your experience, strength, and hope.
