For years, I have tried to find a pleasant way to reflect on my behaviors and relationship with alcohol. I had a reason for everything...I drink anything fast. If it was a soda it would be gone just as quickly. Only it wouldn't. It is my liquid xanax. Nope, booze makes me more anxious. I'm not going to drink today. Maybe just one...bottle...of....wine. Year after year, promise after promise to myself...to my husband.
I then shifted to acknowledgment of the problem. Perhaps this will buy me some time. Anyone who would listen, "I drink too much". "It's Miller time". "What a day! Sounds like a night for pinot grigio". If I said it first, it wouldn't hurt as badly if someone said it to me....which had started to become what was happening with my significant other.
Because my father's Friday drinking and lies caused such drama in my early childhood I was determined to stay away from alcohol - the weekly fight between my mom and dad was like Groundhog Day.
John, you've been drinking.
No I haven't Sue
I can smell it on your breathe...you're slurry. (getting increasingly shrill)
I didn't go drinking, Sue.
or better still, when mom would toss us all in the car to drive by his favorite bars or more sophisticatedly titled "restaurants and lounges".
His car would be there - we would go home and the above dialogue would happen again where shame and fear were doled by both sides and I internalized it all. Daddy was a smoker so too much alcohol made him cough so hard until he threw up scared the fuck out of me. What if he died? What if my friends knew about his drinking....still only on Fridays and never in the house? What if he killed someone impaired driving? Shame and anxiety became my weekly feelings in this ritual. I felt isolated and alone. My much older siblings were not close enough to my age to form a solid bond. I was unable to hold onto friends because I would instantly become jealous, clingy and needy so I spent much of my time alone in my room, alone in my thoughts, knowing that no one else was this screwed up or in such a screwed up family.
