Tourniquet

There is a moment in every addict’s life, the one just before the hit. I know mine. It usually involves a mirror. Have you ever noticed that in almost every bar there are mirrors behind the liquor bottles? When you stand in front of them you inevitably see your own reflection. The first time I noticed, I was seven years old. Until then, I wasn’t tall enough to see my own reflection. At seven, I remember standing in front of my father’s bar and looking at myself just before downing my first vodka, straight from the bottle. 

Twenty-two years later, I found myself on a stool, inside a bar at two o’clock in the afternoon. I was on my forth round of vodka and orange juice, drowning my sorrows in a bottomless glass, surrounded by people who didn’t even know my name. I had made it to three months without a single drop of alcohol, but this day I had decided that, instead of calling a friend, I would just take care of the problem myself by forgetting the best way I knew how. I say “best way” because it wasn’t the only way, but the way I chose because I was simply too scared and ashamed to admit that I was scared and ashamed. I can tell you that I struggled for a good thirty minutes after ordering that drink. I stared at it and told myself that I was worth more than this choice I was making for myself, that I didn’t need it and that I could work everything out, sober. I lifted my head to see myself reflected in the mirror behind the bar, raised the glass and downed the first of many to follow. Disgusted, I stayed for hours until stumbling out of the bar and walking home. 

You see, it was my nth try to get sober. I had been to more AA meetings than I care to admit. I have read stacks of books on addiction. The problem however was that I was a dry drunk. Sure, I wasn’t drinking but I wasn’t dealing with my issues. I was just pushing them away inside of myself until the stash outgrew the space to hold it. That space being my emotional self and that “stash” being my abuse. Everything stems from something and that “something” doesn’t go away by itself or by drinking yourself into a stupor, cutting up your arms, eating beyond your need, gambling beyond your means, or sleeping your way to salvation. Addiction comes in many forms and all have the same results in that the addict experiences more hurt and sinks lower to the bottom. I knew that if I didn’t stop harming myself, whether it was the drinking, or another form of addiction, that I could very well end up living a life I truly didn’t want to live.