The Hidden Problem of Problem Drinking

Problematic drinking often looks like no problem at all.

Photo by Kelsey Chance on Unsplash

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If you are stuck in drinking patterns you are not happy about, and if by “not happy about” you actually mean “are scared to death to even look at,” I would be so grateful if for just one minute you would be so kind as to take a deep breath, and really, truly, honestly, earnestly, on purpose hear me when I say this one thing right into your precious, fluttering, hopeful heart: There is nothing wrong with you.

There is nothing wrong with you.

And because there is nothing wrong with you (and there isn’t - do you hear me saying this to you?), you can trust and know that the little voice inside of you that is maybe not screaming but is just kind of tugging at the sleeve of your mind, and whispering in your head: “This isn’t good for us. I wish we weren’t drinking anymore. I wish this thing would stop hurting us.” - that voice is the real you. That voice is the real you trying to get through to you without hurting you worse than the alcohol already is.

So it tugs. It repeats. It annoys. It will not let up. That’s why you try to drown it out with wine everyday. Or beer or vodka or whatever. And it almost works.

Almost.

But almost isn’t enough, right. Almost can never be enough. And that little voice knows it. That little voice knows that the only way this life is ever going to be enough is when you own all of you. Of course, owning all of yourself sounds like a fuck ton of responsibility and no fun at all. Maybe that’s why you think that little voice is an asshole. That little nag of a voice that tries to get you to stop drinking is very persistent and equally frustrating so you try to negotiate with it by saying things like:

Okay, okay, I hear you!- I’ll drink more water next time. I’ll start later next time. I will just have one. I will just have one. I will just have one more. Just one more, okay, just shut up. We can still keep doing this drinking thing, look around, everyone else is and they are fine. I’ve got it. Relax. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.

And then the hangover comes, inevitably. Not because you are weak or defective, just because the drink always drinks itself and then it drinks you eventually. That’s a tale as old as time. That’s just the story of alcohol and it’s been going on since before you were born and it will go on long after you take your last breath. Alcohol feeds on itself. Once it gets in you, it doesn’t let up.

And once it’s inside often enough, it has a reason to want to stay: it sticks around to argue with that little voice of your inner truth. Once alcohol has you convinced you need it to be happy, or not sad, or relaxed, or confident (you do not need alcohol to be any of these things and if you believe you do you are already in trouble), now it can use your own false beliefs against you. Now alcohol has a dog in the fight. The fight over who gets to have control over you.

Control sounds super dramatic, right? I mean, after all, you are still functioning for fuck sake (is it for fuck’s sake or for fuck sake?). You only drink too much sometimes, not all the time. You still have your family, your friends, your job, your nice house, your bank accounts. You take care of the kids, the pets, the car, the vacation planning and grocery shopping, the bill paying, the holiday decor. You work out. You like yoga. You try to eat healthy and you use one of those face shaving roller whatever the fuck things to try to keep a ‘naturally youthful’ glow. You are cute. You are funny. You are charming and personable and polite and kind and trying your best to juggle all the things.

You like reading this article and also you hate me a little bit for writing it. You are not stumbling in public drunk. You worry that if you reached out for help, no one would believe you if you said you had a problem. You don’t even know if you believe you. There are so many voices in your head that you are less worried about which one to listen to and more worried that you should listen to all of them. Confused, you keep it all to yourself. And this only makes the problem worse because it makes it circular. And the trouble with not appearing to be at risk of serious harm is perhaps the biggest risk of all.

For the most part, the drinking problem is invisible. Because it’s not so much a drinking problem as it is a thinking problem. I hate that that rhymes, but alas. The thing you likely hate most about drinking, aside from the hangovers and all the other nauseating consequences, is the thinking about the drinking. The time spent wringing your mind about how to stop messing up. How to keep alcohol in your life without suffering the consequences of it. How to keep it but not lose yourself at the same time. How to control it. How to control you. Why can’t you drink responsibly? Like the Alcohol Industry told you? What’s wrong with you?

Nothing is wrong with you. That’s the comforting, maddening thing. Nothing is wrong with you. Please, if you remember nothing more of this article, if you remember only one thing and we never cross paths again, please just remember that there is nothing wrong with you.

If you struggle with alcohol it is because your system is functioning exactly as it was designed to function. And the poison is, too. Nothing is wrong with you and this is how it was always going be. Alcohol hurts. That’s all it is designed to do. You cannot separate alcohol from pain. The two are inextricably linked. The degree to which a drink numbs you is the degree to which it harms you. You can try to limit the drinks to one or two, but the pain, the harm, is still there. Your body still suffers. It’s still the same old, tired story. Alcohol isn’t as nuanced as we pretend it is. We can swirl it around in a Waterford glass all we want, sniff it, sip it, spit it back out, write it in fancy cursive on a swanky bar menu, swoosh it around, admire the way the candle light glistens through its hints of amber and smoke. It’s still poison. It’s still toxic. It’s still the same tricked-out, glamorized, glorified, artificially plumped-up, smeared-around lipstick on a pig.

When I was drinking, I hid the heaviest and most reckless side effects to a large degree. But I was deceiving myself. I was mistaking trying to isolate the episodes for being able to control the alcohol. I was ‘being responsible’ by trying not to drink in a way that would cause harm to others or embarrass me (in a surprise to no one, I will tell you that it didn’t work). But hiding is not controlling. Hiding is creating an illusion of control so you can give yourself permission to lose it when you decide conditions allow. Drinking became a game I played on myself. How many times can I tell myself I’m fine because I’m terrified to even consider the fact that maybe I’m not? A lot of times, it turns out. Two decades worth of countless, over and over again times.

And for so long, that little voice whispered in my mind: This is not good. This is bad. We blacked out again. We are not in control. We are sick again. We are not safe. We are scary. Can we stop now? It never went away. Eventually, I began to listen. And it was scary to listen because if you stop arguing with the little voice that’s been warning you of danger, it means something in you believes there may be some truth hidden in there. The fear of listening is the fear of what you might (finally) be forced to hear.

Even before you can ever put down the drinking, the bravest thing you can do is turn toward that little warning voice inside, and be still, and just listen. Listening is the first sign that you are willing to believe there is nothing wrong with you.

Listening scares the part of you that doesn’t want to give up the drinking. So the drinking voice argues back, exactly as it was always going to do, because the drinking voice doesn’t just want control for now, it wants control until you’re dead: But what if you are wrong? What if you are just being dramatic? What if you are fine and you are just like everybody else and what’s the big deal? Why can’t you just be cool? Why don’t you just relax and calm down and have a drink or two? What are you, special or something? Who cares?

But that little voice, that little voice that is you looking out for you, will not let up. Again and again, not terribly loud, but clear as a spring blue sky, she comes through: “Something is wrong. It isn’t you.”

~

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