Is My Drinking A Problem? Naming the Gray.

There was not an “Aha moment” ala Oprah. My decision to quit drinking was a slow awakening. It was an inability to ignore the overwhelming disappointment I carried most mornings after I drank. It lingered through the day until it was an appropriate time to pour myself a stiff one and dull that nagging feeling. 

I wasn’t on benders every day or blacking out by any means, but I knew I could do better. I knew I could BE BETTER. That voice went from a whisper to a shout over the years.

Unfortunately reader, I don’t have a crash and burn story to entertain you with. No rock bottom to tell you about. I can certainly regale you with tails of excess, mysterious bruises, movies I’ve watched and cannot remember the endings to and hundreds of inappropriate comments, said altogether too loudly, and in the wrong company. One of my more scandalous shenanigans is ending up tail over tits spread eagle at my friends sons wedding. It was equal parts sky hight heels and whiskey mule but I was certainly grateful to be wearing Spanx so the nice young men helping me to my feet didn’t get a gander at my hoohoo. Horrifying. (insert me crawling into a closet with the staunch determination to never emerge) Those I have plenty of. They suck me into shame spirals at 3 am on random weeknights. I have tons of little dumpster fires that, added up, could constitute a crash and burn I suppose. But there wasn’t one big last fireworks ending. No losing the house, children, or husband because of it. Not the Hollywood version of tumbling over the edge. It almost makes me feel guilty. Like I shouldn’t even be speaking of my problem with alcohol if I haven’t dug a hole so deep I can barely see the light. But…

…It turns out, there are plenty of us out there. Seeing we have a problem, but perhaps not considered “alcoholics” in the traditional understanding of the word. Holding it all together (to the outside observer) but blurring those edges, just enough, to make us wonder if it’s TOO much. We may fret over it, day in and day out, but when that 5 o’clock cocktail bell tolls we answer. Maybe with a sense of trepidation. But we answer it nonetheless. 

I heard a term recently that deftly explains where I am in the big scheme of alcohol consumption. The Gray Area. From what I can understand from mainlining Sober books, podcasts, blogs, and instagram accounts: is that I am a part of what seems to be a HUGELY underestimated crowd of people. You know—the ones between the annoying “I have one glass of champagne on NYE” and the “I woke up in the slammer after breaking into my ex’s apartment after I downed a fifth of vodka”. Just like pretty much everything else in this world, there is a continuum. I fit smack dab in the middle.

From the outside my life seems pretty good (or at least I hope it does…ask my neighbors and let me know). I have a home in a city I love, a great husband, two fabulous almost grown girls, I love my sister and brother and parents and have wonderful supportive friends. I enjoy gardening, cooking,  reading, writing and am fairly healthy. But do I drink a bit too much at social gatherings to hide my anxiety? Check. Can I open a bottle of wine while cooking dinner and finish it before bed? You betcha. Can I successfully mix 15 different cocktails without looking at a recipe? Most assuredly. Have I second guessed a positive response to an RSVP after I found out is was a dry event? Absolutely. Was I going to kill myself in the next five years from liver disease? Probably not. But was I on my way in the next decade? Possibly. 

My drinking was affecting my life. Not in a good way. It was shrouding this big, Grande adventure behind a gray veil. I could still see it, be in it, and interact with it, but it wasn’t in color. I wanted the full technicolor version. I wanted to go back to being Dorothy in Oz and see everything with vivid clarity. Like it was the first time again. 

That brought me to these questions: 

If I’m wondering if I have a problem? Does that mean I have a problem?

 And Is it a drinking problem? Or is it problem drinking? 

Does it really matter? 

If you think you have a problem with drinking. And you keep thinking about that problem with drinking. More exactly—obsessing about that problem with drinking. If you know that your life would be better without alcohol, because you’ve taken a break and felt physically better, more mentally clear, and just happier in general. BUT then you get cocky, and  convince yourself that somehow NOW you can be that rare Pegasus that can turn it around and socially drink an appropriate amount, just to let loose and fit in and have fun WITHOUT resulting in a tornado of self destruction and water-cooler gossip on Monday. And time and time again you come to realize that that horse is simply not gonna fly. 

Again (for the Me in the back row): If I think I have a problem with drinking, does it really matter if I have a problem with drinking according to someones else’s definition of the problem? If I continue to ask, isn’t that my answer? Is this the “Does a bear s**t in the woods” thing all over again? (Why are we constantly asking that question? Seriously why Nietzsche?) I felt like the amount of times I asked myself that question was teetering on madness. Insanity=doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Thank you Albert Einstein. 

It was glaringly obvious that each time I quit for a cleanse, Sober November, Dry January, etc: I felt better, smiled more, got more done and generally lived a fuller and more meaningful life. But inevitably I’d start up again with the expectation of being in control. Truth is? I was never in control. It almost always escalated, for at least a little while, and sometimes a very long while, after I resumed. Which left me with an overwhelming sense of dread. 

But here’s the thing: All those stops and starts led to one beautiful, wonderful, BIG realization: I knew I could do it. I could quit. For a pre-determined amount of time I could absolutely quit. I had done it before I could do it again. I just didn’t know how to stay quit.

But I could learn. I could figure it  out. I have been figuring things out on my own pretty much my whole life. I have waded through an abundance of failures without much finesse —but I have almost always landed on my feet or, at the very least, lived to tell about it. And this time I had a treasure trove of information to be excavated from on the world wide web. No more card catalog, analog, days for me my friend. I had  audiobooks, Podcasts, and volumes of empty journals to fill with my sober thoughts, nightmares and discoveries. I just needed to pick a day one. The rest would follow. So I did. 

January 4th, 2021

82 days ago

It all starts with a day one.

Jennifer