I Knew Nothing

The fact is I knew nothing about alcohol -- except that it was a good time fun thing that people who were good sorts drank.

It stuns me now that with the family history--the champion boozers and alcholics in my gene pool--nobody ever warned me about the down side of alcohol. Considering all the other life dangers I was barraged about -- boys, cars, dances, drugs, sex, non-catholics, to name just a few, this is still shocking.

It might have been because I didn't drink very young, or roll home drunk and vomiting, crash cars, or get arrested. Maybe if that had happened, someone might have warned me. But as it turned out, I had no concept of alcohol being equally addictive as any of those other "dangerous" addictive drugs. I had no concept of what alcohol does to the human body, besides relax it and make it laugh, move a bit more fluidly, make it stumble occasionally. I didn't think of it as toxic, or consider that our bodies had to labour to process and clean it out every time we consumed it. I didn't realise a hangover was quite literally a poisoning.

Obviously, this was my own responsiblity, and it was only my own selective blindness that kept me conveniently ignorant. I was very aware of the dangers of consuming processed foods, smoking, pesticides and plastics. I simply ignored the dangers of consuming alcohol. 

Not long before I quit drinking, I saw the doctor for a routine check up and I decided to be a bit more honest about my alcohol consumption than I usually was. I admitted to drinking wine every day... but lied the edge off it by saying, just a glass or two with dinner. At the end of the session he said, the only health danger I see for you is drinking and breast cancer. Daily drinking raises the risk of breast cancer considerably. I was probably 51. This was news to me. 

But let's look at this a bit more closely. I was actually a health freak of sorts. For years I loaded up with vitamins, raw juices, organic food. I walked a lot and kept the weight off. So why did I not do the same due diligence on booze? I would have seen immediately it was badass, and didnt' belong in a healthy body. Why did I think that it was fine to drink several glasses of wine as long as my chicken had been corn-fed, and the veges came from the organic farmers' market? Why did i think it was OK to knock back bloody marys at noon on Sunday as long as the tomato juice and cucumber were organic, and fresh-squeezed in my own juicer -- my cocktails were practically health food!

My attitude to drinking alcohol was that it was inevitable. It did not occur to me that it was feasible, or even possible to live an alcohol-free life. 

How the heck was I going to relax?
How was I going to socialise? Get over my shyness?
How on earth would I celebrate? Or commiserate? 
What about weddings, funerals, Christmas, New Year?
What about weekends?
What about every day, after work?

Everyone who quits drinking, gets sober, seems to go though this. We simply can't imagine life without alcohol. What the fuck are we going to DO if we don't drink? How are we going to function normally? It just seems utterly impossible.

These were not always conscious thoughts. They were deep, still, silent attitudes. They were unspoken fears. Beliefs even. They were incredibly powerful. They kept me trapped.

So how come I now happily live booze-free? I now look at that list and think WTF? That's haha hilarious. How could I have been so blind?

One day I found out that those deep, still, silent attitudes, unspoken fears, beliefs...  were not true. They were a baldface lie, and I didn't need to believe them. Of course, it wasn't really as simple as that.

My eggshell was cracking. And I was getting another chance to examine what was inside -- the precious sweetness of a happy, kind, loving girl... and all the weird shit she'd stashed away over the years.

___________
Me: God, I feel like I'm so close to pin-pointing something really important here, but I can't quite get it. It's frustrating. I'm concentrating hard. Then daydreaming. Then concentrating. Then it starts to get clear, then dissappears. It's like the truth is hovering, but not landing.
She: Good description.
Me: It's making me crazy.
She: Are you crying?
Me: No! Yes. I'm crying. But not sad hot angry crying. Soft crying. Release, relief crying. I guess this is why I'm writing this. To get some relief from something. Not even sure what. But that's what's happening.
She: That's a good reason to write.
Me: It's a really different experience. I feel like I'm writing with a stick, poking, prodding, seeing what's going to happen if I apply some pressure here, break the skin there, take a whack over there. That's what's going on -- I'm experimenting with it. With myself even.
She: You're doing a good job. 

__________________
Looking back, I can see so many times when I knew drinking alcohol was the stumbling block to something I really wanted -- a healthy body, an open, free mind, deep inner peace, the enthusiasm to write freely, to create. And I let it stay there, trap me, hold me back. I didn't stand up to it, see it for what it was. I continued to drink, to blot myself out, numb and dumb myself, because that felt normal -- that was what I was used to. Withdrawing, suppressing, feeling trapped.

I spent so many years trying to work the system, trading off drinking with working really hard, saving really hard, exercising really hard, eating well, doing yoga... Doing everything right, 110%. Because being a non-drinker just didn't seem like it was an option -- but I did have some reconciling to do. I was going to keep drinking, but I had to pay for it somehow.

Now I know my alcohol habit was keeping me afraid, small, withdrawn -- just like I'd been as a child. I was doing exactly the same shitty stuff to myself as I'd blamed my parents for doing to me.

NEXT