What's Your Story? Submitted Stories
The Alcoholic Lottery
A long time ago I was born.
Then I drank a lot.
Then I found recovery.
And I was reborn.
This is my story…
I do not think I am from a particularly dysfunctional family, although I am sure if I dwelled on it, I could make them all out to be devils. I choose not to go there because it was blaming others that prolonged me from getting into recovery in the first place.
I won the alcoholic lottery. I am Irish, the middle-child and only girl, and was brought up Catholic. I have over ten aunts, uncles, and cousins in AA. In addition, my grandfather died from alcoholism. Genetic predisposition is an understatement!
As a child and adolescent, I never felt good enough. I was told I was pretty, but I felt ugly. I was told I was extremely intelligent, but I felt dumb. I felt like a bad girl inside, but also felt as though I had to be perfect at everything for anyone to like me. Needless to say, when I expected myself to be perfect, I set myself up for constant disappointment – something I am still working on today.
My fascination with alcohol began early. I remember my parents having a birthday party for a friend and it was so much fun. Laughter filled the air, after that party I associated those triangular-shaped glasses with fun and gaiety and thus began my attraction to this insanity. Soon after, we had an aunt come to visit and my dad locked up all the alcohol in the house, which peaked my curiosity even more.
At fourteen, I began the journey by drinking an entire fifth of gin, and trust me, it was not for the taste (I never did drink gin again). That was my first blackout. I do not remember my parents finding me passed out on the lawn nor do I remember having my stomach pumped. There were few repercussions because my parents thought I had learned my lesson, but in reality, I had only just begun.
I had what I thought was a pretty normal high school life. Beer was a part of everything. I never thought much of my partying with alcohol, because after all, I was not doing the mind blowing drugs that were so prevalent at the time. The extent of my drug career in high school was smoking pot. The first time I tried it, I loved it, only to find out that I had smoked cat nip (my friends were playing a joke on me).
I graduated from high school a year early, having convinced, or perhaps manipulated, my high school teachers and my parents, that I was destined for greatness and needed to begin college immediately.
To this day, I have no idea how I excelled in high school because I never remember being in class. I only remember the parties. In college, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but classes got in the way of drinking, dating, skiing, and other activities. My professors were not buying into my cute, smart, “don’t you know who I am” act, and for the first time in my life I was struggling. College required maturity and work and I did not know much about either of those things. The chasm between what was expected of me and what I was achieving was growing wider. I felt like a failure, but this was not anything new to me.
Over the next few years, I started a rapid climb up the rungs of the party ladder, while simultaneously experiencing a decrease in any sense of self. I did not know who I was or if I did, it was not good enough for anyone to like me. From an early age, my perception of self was entirely based on what others thought. I became a people pleaser and was always the giver and resented it. I began to feel entitled and got in to some serious financial troubles as a result. In an effort to fill up my internal voids, I not only drank and abused other substances, I bought everything in sight.
Then I married into the rich – an NFL football family. This was not a particularly healthy club to join when you are a budding alcoholic. People thought I had it all. On the inside, I was still not pretty enough, not rich enough, and not smart enough. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, but somehow I felt I deserved it. Then came two beautiful children, and while they brought me the most happiness I had ever known, it still was not enough because I did not know how to be happy. My sense of my own need for perfection fell short once again. When the kids were very young, I found my husband in bed with another woman and left him.
As a single mom who was looking for love in all the wrong places, “woe is me” became my mantra. Alcohol, anti-depressants, and tranquilizers became my constant companions. I made visits to psychiatric wards, but the doctors said I was depressed and gave me more pills. No one seemed to realize that my blood alcohol level could have made gotten everyone in the ER drunk from the fumes I emitted. Perhaps they did mention it, but I chose not to hear it.
The law also entered my life. One night I was out to dinner with my kids. One of the restaurant’s patron thought I had no business driving. I was arrested for risk of injury to a minor and had my first taste of handcuffs. My “don’t you know who I am” attitude, and black cocktail dress and pearls did not provide the understanding I expected. They still handcuffed me. The judge tossed out the case and again, I was absolved of thinking I might have a drinking problem.
Next came a DUI and handcuffs again. Soon after that incident, I found my bottom. I dropped the kids off for their regular visitation with their father and when I went to pick them up, I was told I could not have them, I could not see them, and I could not talk to them. I will never forget the searing pain of that moment.
So into AA I went – humiliated, angry, resentful, and certainly convinced that this had to do with everyone else, but myself. Since I wasn’t drinking, I was eating tranquilizers like candy. After three weeks in AA, I knew I was cured! I could now hang out in the bars and drink O’Doul’s. I demanded that the kids be returned to me, but did not hear the answer I wanted to hear. I drank with a vigor I had never known before. I literally spent three weeks, in isolation, day and night drinking, those are the lost weeks, which I can’t remember to this day.
I was then introduce to my higher power, even though I did not know it at the time. I wanted to die, but that was not to be. Instead my higher power had me pick up the phone in a total blackout and ask for help. I was given the “gift of desperation.” I do not remember anything about that night, but I do know that it was one of the most important in my life.
I spent a few days in detox and then spent a month in a rehabilitation center focused on the principles of AA. I was terrified of leaving, for I did not know how to deal with life and I had a hell of a mess awaiting me. I took one step at a time, one day at a time, and began to learn how to not take everything in life for granted. This helped to teach me gratitude, something I was not familiar with at all, but now serves as the mainstay of my life.
My children were returned to me late in my second year of sobriety. I will always remember the day my children were taken away from me as well as the day when they were returned to me. These memories help keep me sober. It has been over nine years now. My life is full. A creative side of me came out in sobriety, and I am now a selling artist. I am back to a career in management and went back to school to become a licensed massage therapist. I do massage therapy part-time, and I also volunteer to help others. The most important, yet painful thing that has happened to me in sobriety, has been the ability to help my son who began his own struggle with alcohol and drug abuse at the age of fourteen. And so the genetic chain continues…
Tracey, Connecticut © 2006 The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Drug Awareness. All Rights Reserved.
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