I started drinking when I was about fifteen. My dad was very domineering, and verbally abusive, so at first, I used it as an escape from the way he made me feel. I wasn’t one to get silly or fall down when I got drunk, but I did tend to get obnoxious, loud, and abusive. Even violent. Something I have never been proud of. I’m fifty now, so the drinking age was eighteen back then. My dad and I even went to a few bars together. Never worked out very well, though. It was a good bet we’d get into an argument every time. My childhood sweetheart and I had broken up at nineteen, and I was in so much pain, I couldn’t just internalize or externalize it anymore. I needed something to calm my mind until I could go to sleep. So, drinking it was.
I didn’t care if I was okay during my drinking nights out, or if I had been obnoxious, or if I had gotten into a physical or verbal fight with anyone. I just didn’t care, and I didn’t remember. Those who were with me had to clue me in. “Do you remember what you did last night?” Or waking up, finding I didn’t have my purse, and retracing my steps until I found it. Or my car not being parked outside, and then a phone call, a friend promptly telling me they drove me home, and then drove themselves home.
I would drink until I got dizzy, and then drive back home and pass out. That’s the only way I could fall asleep. Many times, I should have been hurt or killed, and wasn’t. When I was 23, I was working for the post office, and making good money, and I saved up for a white, ‘74 T-top Corvette. It was stunning. I loved driving that car. Every minute. I grew up in Morristown, and a friend and I could go around the green several times to see if we’d see someone we knew, or go to Jockey Hollow, a beautiful park we hung out at. It was a memorable time.
I worked with all men, and one day, they invited me to watch the World Series with them at a bar. I had nothing better to do, so I did. I left the bar, about a half an hour from my home, started down a main road, thought I saw a raccoon dart out, swerved, did a few three sixties, veered off into the woods, and hit a tree head-on. No more vet. I wasn’t hurt. Alcohol. Addiction. Pain. Now more pain. A vicious cycle.
I drank to drown out my thoughts and feelings, I drank to forget, block out what I didn’t want to think about, I drank to calm down, and I drank when I was celebrating something happy. I drank when I was sad, I drank when I was angry, I drank when I was lonely, and I drank when I was surrounded by a hundred people. My make believe world was better than my reality. I drank more than I did anything else.
I met someone at twenty seven, we got married six months later, and I had my first child at twenty eight, my second at thirty one, and my third at thirty four. I was still drinking, but only when my husband was around to be with the kids. My Catholic, Italian background guilted me into knowing I couldn’t and shouldn’t drink while I was with them. We would have barbecues and gatherings and holidays, and I would get as wasted as I could. My husband and I started not getting along while I was pregnant with my first child, but I wanted to have kids, and thought I could deal, and we could do it, but that didn’t hold true. We fought constantly. Drinking was the only release. Then, when my daughter was three, and my son was one, my mother was ravaged with cancer and for three months, my family and I watched her die a little more each day. Knowing she was going to die, and having her die, turned out to be two different things. I was devastated. I felt so alone, so alienated, so lost. My mother was gone. How do you deal with that? I talked to her three to four times a day, she was a nurse and she would call on her breaks and check in. No more calls. More alcohol. A few while I’m alone with the kids won’t matter. What matters anyway, my mother is dead? I was a mess. Thoughts I should never have been having, but were.
