Tell Me What’Cha Sippin’ On
High school is not a great conductor for self-esteem. Even the intelligent, attractive, athletic, wealthy, charismatic kids couldn’t escape with 100% of their pride intact. It may even be a requirement for graduation; did you pass all of your classes? Check. Did you pay your outstanding library fees? Check. Did you dish out $200 for a polyester robe and matching quadrilateral hat? Check. Did you suffer enough humiliation in the last four years to permanently damage your psyche and ruin any chance you ever had of being an unproblematic employee/spouse/parent/friend? Check. Pictures of my smoke-show mother and her prom date look like an Abercrombie and Fitch ad, but even she was dumped for the Homecoming Queen at one point. I promise you, nobody with a diploma is unscathed.
The degradations I experienced in high school were not particularly cruel or tragic. Didn’t everyone spend junior prom crying on the floor of a handicapped stall at Panther’s Stadium, blowing their nose into the hem of their dress? Yes? No? Take an institution designed to classify children by their most surface and vulnerable qualities, add teenaged hormones (emotional, sexual and otherwise), sprinkle in a desire (and subsequent failure) to belong, and you have quite a combustible group of adolescent humans. Not to brag, but on top of all of that baseline stress, I also had a crippling, undiagnosed anxiety disorder. And, because I was 16 and the world was spinning on its axis, a guy came along and took what little self-worth I had left and stomped it into the ground like a cigarette butt under the stadium bleachers. Y’all. I was a wreck.
I’m certainly not going to sit here and claim that I’m a grown woman alcoholic because a teenaged boy once did me dirty. My therapist reads this blog and if she thought that I really believed that to be the origin of my issues, she’d throw her DSM at my face and abandon her entire career. Everyone has trauma from teenhood. We grow up. We forge our own paths, we learn more about ourselves, and we use the hurt to construct better defenses against the problems of our adulthood. Frankly, if we weren’t all so burned from our youth, we might not have the savagery it takes to deal with adult problems. Or, if you are like me, you instead avoided adult problems by drinking heavily. When that quit working, you employed your inner-savage to then get sober. Different route—same destination—higher body count.
I was an alcoholic in theory long before I was a full-blown alcoholic in practice. There were plenty of times when two beers were more than enough, and I could enjoy myself and then stop. That was just “fun” drinking. I’m not an alcoholic because I crave, need, want, love, or long for booze… I’m an alcoholic because there are times when I look down and I see red satin creeping up my legs. I smell hair spray. I hear “Love In This Club” booming through the speakers in the ballroom. I feel cold, damp tile on my butt cheeks and painted cinderblocks against my back. I can recall the repeated motion of clenching a wad of commercial grade toilet paper in my French Tipped fingers and reaching up to dab a series of smokey, mascara polluted tears. The universe takes me back to that moment so often that I have to wonder if I am, at my core, a rejected 16-year-old girl. I tried being happy, I tried living life for myself, I tried medication, I tried therapy, but nothing worked. Nothing could erase that notion from my conscious thought. Nothing but booze, anyway.
There is nothing easy about recovering from addiction, especially in the beginning. While I would never compare addicts or their addictions, I do surround myself with a large, diverse community of people in recovery and it has made me aware that I am very fortunate. Since the day that I decided to stop drinking and run head and sword first into the battlefield, I have not had a single moment of temptation or desire to drink. Yes, I am aware that every alcoholic reading this wants to punch me in the face… or tit. It’s true, though. Drinking, for me, was never about wanting to drink. It was always about avoiding my genuine self at whatever cost; at $5.93 per bottle (tax included), the cost for a two-day supply of not-reality seemed like a bargain.
Now, just because I’ve made it nearly a year without drinking and without struggling to not drink, doesn’t mean that the absence of alcohol hasn’t left a gaping hole in my life. For most of the past year, I had to fully surrender. The change in my life was jarring. The anxiety was abundant and constant. The shame was enveloping. The pain… the heartache… the devastation… there are no words. I think there were hours at a time when I would mentally black out just so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hurt. It was too much.
I used the pain, though. I pushed through it because I had to, but also because I knew that if I could get through those difficult moments during that unimaginable period, I could get through anything. Without drinking.
For the grand scheme of a sober life, I had all the right sensibilities. I worked hard. I trained hard. I conditioned myself expertly to get through any challenge that could come in the next 50 years without turning to alcohol. What I did not account for, however, was the teeny, measly, miniscule ways that not having an outlet like alcohol would creep into my life. I thought about the big things to death. How would I get through a wedding reception? Could I still go to parties? Could I still go out to drinks with a group and not drink? Did I have to avoid bars all together? Confronted. Dealt with. All good.
But what about awkward silences? Bouts of boredom? Having to be vulnerable? A case of nervous jitters? Preparing for an uncomfortable, but necessary conversation? I’ll be honest, I did NOT see those coming. I was so focused on how to handle situations where I would normally get drunk, I forgot all about the situations that I used to handle with a couple glasses of wine. I know from experience now that there is an empowerment in looking amazing, feeling amazing, being amazing, and going up to the bar to order a seltzer with lime. I also know from experience now that there is a total helplessness in sitting across a dinner table from someone, feeling a lag in the conversation, reaching for your glass of pinot grigio to boost your wit and intrigue, but instead its fucking water.
Self-esteem is not a constant. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes it does so drastically within a five minute period. I’ve hit my highest high and my lowest low in the last 12 months—you’d think that either one of those would be enough to cancel out my prom night PTSD, but… no. Here’s why: Twice now, I’ve been told that my absolute best is still laughably not good enough. … you don’t ever come back from that.
14 years ago, I had a hand that couldn’t lose. I’d been counted out, but I made an epic comeback. I had fallen madly for a boy that could, eh, take me or leave me. John and I had been seeing each other for 6 months but we “weren’t calling it anything.” I did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, whatever way he wanted, because I was 16 and stupid. He insisted that we had “a great connection” but that I didn’t really “fit in with his friends.” So, we kept it a secret. He kept me a secret. Come February, to my horror and mystification, he asked another girl to prom. I was devastated. I wallowed. I snapped out of it.
First, I got the date. Ryan. Funny, cute, popular—he had just dumped the hottest girl in school and then he asked me to prom. What? WHAT?! He said I had a great sense of humor and he found me very entertaining, which is the politest way to not call someone “hot.” Fuck it, beggars can’t be choosers. Then I got the dress. Red satin, cut above the knee, crystal band around the waist, and a V in the front all the way down to my belly button (perky, adolescent tits for dayysss). Not many teenaged boys can pull off a tuxedo, but Ryan looker dapper as Hell when he came to pick me up in his Dad’s brand new Lexus—we were an hour late to take pictures because we were playing with the self-parallel parking feature.
The night rightfully belonged to me. I looked incredible, my date was handsome, he was a great dancer and he doted on me all night long. We were the envy of the entire school. People were literally starring in awe… everyone except John, of course. Who, as usual, barely noticed me. I only had to see him and his date kiss one time before banishing myself to the bathroom floor for the rest of the night.
You only need to be told once by someone that you care about that you “don’t matter” in order to be forever humble. Even if it happened at age 16—that shit sticks with you. When it happens after you’ve given, and given, and given, and tried, and tried, and tried, you are left feeling drained. Empty. Worthless. If you, at your best, don’t get acknowledgement, then how are you supposed to be alright sitting in your own standard mediocrity? You can’t. You live in doubt for 5 more years, then you turn 21 and you start drinking yourself appealing again.
Temporary solutions are just that: temporary. You coped poorly, you hit a wall. You hit rock bottom and the whole world saw it. Somehow, you managed an encore performance of achieving your “personal best,” but it turned out to be a farewell tour. You jumped through the hoops, you walked the tight rope, you kept the lions at bay with just a wooden chair and a prayer, and you made it. You did your best. Your best wasn’t good enough.
So, now you’re 30. You’re tired. You’re used (pre-owned?). You’re acutely aware of your numerous flaws and those perky adolescent tits you had to fall back on last time? Noooottttt so perky anymore. It’s a Friday night and you don’t want to get drunk. You don’t want to drink at all. You just want to sit and have a conversation with someone and feel like you are charming and attractive. It doesn’t come naturally anymore because you’ve had every ounce of confidence beaten out of you by liquor and lesser men.
I knew I’d miss being able to drink myself into oblivion. I didn’t know I’d miss drinking just enough to feel good about myself. Actually, if you take the idea of drinking out of it all together, I just miss feeling good about myself. The sad part about the shrapnel of my mentality that I’ve been able to piece back together after high school, is that being treated like garbage by a man I cared about didn’t make me change my expectations for other people. It made me rethink my expectations for myself. That’s not a good way to think…
This year, I’ve been seen, heard, and told that I’m impressive. I’ve been told that I accomplished something. I did the impossible—I’m a conqueror. I’ve even let myself think that about myself on occasion. But I let the attitude and opinion of the one person who wasn’t impressed dictate my worth. That’s not a good way to think either…
At the end of the day, I have to find a way to be alright with who and what I am. Not being alright with who I am is what lead me down a path of fabricated confidence and fatal addiction. I am morbidly aware that I am not perfect. I’m more than a burden—I’m a liability. My best is not sustainable, but it comes around often enough to be worth my worst. I know I’m funny sometimes, but I can’t do it all the time. How can I expect people to take me seriously if I’m never serious? I can be a real ballbuster (that’s an understatement, I can be a straight-up bitch), but its not an act. I’m not a def jam comic. It’s a combination of my fluency in sarcasm and my inability to suffer fools. Still, it has an off-switch. I contain multitudes; I can call you an “idiot” and want to hug you in the same 30 seconds and both actions be sincere. I can be all of these things and many more.
What I cannot do anymore is lie. I can’t fake anything. I don’t want to do what I’m told if I don’t feel that what I’m being told to do is right. I can’t be a ball of nerves all the time because I feel like I’m falling short of other people’s expectations. Its miserable and its exhausting. I also don’t have another 3 years to lose drinking to feel self-assured. My tits and I are both 30. Its probably time that I start to spend my time with people who give me that 2-glasses-of-wine confidence when I’m stone cold sober.
