My Journey!

  It started years ago, my journey. Long before I even knew I was on one. Everyone has a story to tell, I'm no different. Not in a million years would I have believed this was going to be my story.

  I am an Alcoholic. This was news to me, I was the last one to know in fact. I was 63 years old when the devastating news was dropped on me. The news that I wasn't wired the same as others and I could never drink again. I didn't take kindly to the news, in fact I didn't really believe it. After all for years I had very little interest in alcohol. I could take it or leave it. Mostly I opted to leave it. Then something changed.

 Not over night, not even in a month or a year, but so gradually you didn't even notice the change. Again I was the last to see, I was completely unaware of the change, the new and not improved personality that alcohol was giving me. Looking back now, I wonder why it took so long for my life to implode. 

 At the age of 45 I was free to drink, before that I had obligations and responsibilities, that were better handled sober. Even after I was free to drink and my social surroundings had changed to be more alcohol friendly I was slow to join in, but once I did it didn't take long for the alcohol to take hold and rule my world. Weekend cocktails, became before dinner drinks and after dinner night caps quickly followed. Drinking soon became my biggest hobby, next to getting and finding people to drink with me so I would feel like I had permission.I was like a teenager with the key to my parents liquor cabinet and they were on a never ending vacation. 

  At 63 I entered rehab of my own free will, and I hated every single minute of it. Detoxing was a bitch that packed a hell of a punch. I was like so many others when I entered rehab I was knocking at deaths door and I seemed determined to get an answer. After 14 days in the protected bubble I reentered the real world, believing I was cured and I would never drink and do that to myself again. 

 For 4 years I didn't drink. It was so easy, I didn't crave it, I didn't miss it and it didn't bother me when others drank, not drinking didn't seem to be that big of a deal. I convinced myself I really wasn't an Alcoholic. After all I was already in my 60's when I had that "bad reaction" to alcohol, I had drank for 20 yrs socially without it becoming a problem, and before that I didn't really even drink socially choosing to leave it be, so how could I be an alcoholic?

 It is with complete openness that I say I had no good reason to pick up a drink after 4 years, and no excuse either. I simply wanted a drink. I was having a pity party with myself because because I wanted to be like other adults and party like them. I felt after 4 years sober I had proved to myself and others that I could handle it. That I would be able to drink responsibly, I did, for a little while, drink responsibly. It was, only while we were out, only one, always a mixed drink, a fun drink, never that dreaded straight shot of vodka. Then without my actually noticing I was sneaking to the liquor store getting the little shooter bottles, next it was pints, and then fifths, then I was standing in my closet drinking vodka straight, straight from the bottle.Wondering just how the hell did I get here.

  Back to rehab I went. A 10 day stay this time. A different rehab with a different style. This rehab wants you to answer that question. The " How the hell did I get here" question.

  They take you through all your childhood trauma and any that you may have experienced in recent years, they lay it bare on the table for you to poke through and to relive and to try and deal with in a sober manner. While I was being given tools to help me deal soberly with my traumas I realized whatever my traumas old or new I had been handling them sober for most of my life including the past 4 yrs. My traumas while issues I need to deal with, are not the reason I picked up that damn drink. They are not the answer to "How the hell did I get here."  Being honest with myself I don't have an answer. I simply don't know.

  So many friends would like to say that now the "here" is me sober. That I need to be proud, and realize my achievements. What they don't know what they can't know is my "how the hell did I get here" is always right by my side. Always whispering, always enticing, always begging me to come back.

 Finding the means to quiet that whisper has taken me so deep inside myself. A lot of the time I don't like what I see. I can't back away I can't run, I have to face it, what ever "it" is I need to face it down to see it to understand it. 

 Returning to the rooms isn't a choice it is a need. I have come to accept that without the daily reminder to watch my step I will trip and fall. It pisses me off to admit I can't beat this myself, that I can't just bury it deep inside and forget about it. 

 I hate admitting that I am powerless against Alcohol, but I am. This admission doesn't make this the end of my story, but the beginning of a journey to make my story better.