Day One
3 am: I wake up in my usual fog with no recollection of going to bed. The lamp next to my bed is still on and I'm half sitting up, reclining into a few propped up pillows. As usual, anxiety seizes my chest and I panic, wondering if anyone realized I passed out drunk without saying goodnight to the kids. Did they assume I was exhausted and just let me sleep? Worse, was I "awake" and attempting to talk to my family in my blacked out stupor? My mouth is bone dry. I have to pee. I check my phone. No messages. Phew. Back to "sleep" for a few more hours.
9 am: Wake up to my phone ringing. Ignore. I blearily look around and notice a few empty Whiteclaw cans around my room. Hmm. That's not a good sign. I chug some water from my Yeti, toss the cans and stumble upstairs to see what the kids are up to. There are dirty dishes with toast crusts in the sink, so I assume they made themselves something to eat. The 8yo is on the couch watching cartoons on the iPad and the 13yo is up in her room doing god-knows-what.
9:15 am: My phone pings with a text from my dad, who is no stranger to my episodic drinking episodes. "I know what you're doing. You need to get some help before you fall off the cliff." Shit.
The weird thing is that prior to his text, I had spent the previous weeks (months?) obsessing about how serious my drinking had become. At this point, I was drinking no less than 6 shots of vodka mixed into soda in my large Yeti starting around 7 pm and passing out with no memory of it by 9 pm. By the time my alarm went off at 5 am, I would slowly wake up, shake myself awake and haul myself off to work. I thought I had it down to a science, but bothersome side effects were beginning to emerge.
Shaky hands.
Uncontrolled anxiety.
Vomiting daily.
Crippling fatigue.
Extreme irritability.
Social isolation whenever possible.
Rounded belly.
Puffy eyes and dark circles.
Rosacea that no skin regimen in the world could cure.
Dry mouth.
Pounding heart when I laid down sober to try to nap.
Neck pain that had me crawling out of my skin by bedtime.
Constant worry that I would be found out.
Other stuff, like falling down last week and busting my face open. (Of course I had a rational story blah blah blah...)
I had really, truly been thinking about quitting drinking but every time I considered it, a few barriers kept popping up in my mind:
I know it's bad, but I am high functioning, right? I don't drive drunk, I don't go to work drunk, I don't drink in front of my kids and I have never hurt anyone.
What if I withdraw and have a seizure at work and go into DT's and everyone at the hospital figures out that I am a raging alcoholic?
What if I can never fall asleep again?
How can I make this pain in my neck stop without using pain meds that will inevitably fry my kidneys and burn a hole in my already acid-washed stomach?
What if I just can't?
I kept postponing it. But something felt different that morning. I knew I was in trouble and I wanted so desperately to tell someone and get the baby grand piano off my chest. I was ready. But then the phone rang again.
It was my long time girlfriend and fellow mom. Our 13 year-old daughters are each others' oldest friends. She was calling to tell me that her 34-year old ex-husband and daughter's father (a known alcoholic with end-stage cirrhosis and also one of my long time friends from childhood) had died during the night due to liver failure complications. That their daughter was there when they withdrew life support. I knew this day was coming, but I still wasn't prepared for it, so I did what I always do in the face of a crisis: I shoved my feelings deep down and did damage control. I took the job of calling all of our old school friends and making sure they didn't find out on social media. I comforted them and explained in layman's terms what happened from the medical side. I promised I would update them with the obituary and service information. I handled shit, like I always do.
Finally, the afternoon came and it was time to come to terms with my own stuff. I took a deep breath and called my friend, a physician that I've known for years and more importantly, has known as much about my alcoholism as I've let him in on for all those years. I told him I was in trouble, that I was ready to quit and that I had no idea where to start.
He asked me one question. "Are you willing to do anything it takes?"
"Of course" I answered.
He asked me again. I said yes again. And then he told me the plan. It involved going down to a local establishment for doctors and nurses suffering from addiction and meeting with a counselor to assess what kind of treatment I needed. This could range from inpatient to counseling and meetings. I was terrified, I cried a lot, I explained how I had never broken any laws or endangered any patients, I cried more and finally, I agreed. I was to call the number he gave me the next morning and make an appointment.
I spent the rest of the day vacillating between depression and anxiety. Before bed, I took a melatonin and drank a few cups of Sleepytime tea. Despite this, I had a restless night, full of strange dreams and when my alarm went off the next morning, I was exhausted and soaked in sweat. That ended my first day of sobriety.
9 am: Wake up to my phone ringing. Ignore. I blearily look around and notice a few empty Whiteclaw cans around my room. Hmm. That's not a good sign. I chug some water from my Yeti, toss the cans and stumble upstairs to see what the kids are up to. There are dirty dishes with toast crusts in the sink, so I assume they made themselves something to eat. The 8yo is on the couch watching cartoons on the iPad and the 13yo is up in her room doing god-knows-what.
9:15 am: My phone pings with a text from my dad, who is no stranger to my episodic drinking episodes. "I know what you're doing. You need to get some help before you fall off the cliff." Shit.
The weird thing is that prior to his text, I had spent the previous weeks (months?) obsessing about how serious my drinking had become. At this point, I was drinking no less than 6 shots of vodka mixed into soda in my large Yeti starting around 7 pm and passing out with no memory of it by 9 pm. By the time my alarm went off at 5 am, I would slowly wake up, shake myself awake and haul myself off to work. I thought I had it down to a science, but bothersome side effects were beginning to emerge.
Shaky hands.
Uncontrolled anxiety.
Vomiting daily.
Crippling fatigue.
Extreme irritability.
Social isolation whenever possible.
Rounded belly.
Puffy eyes and dark circles.
Rosacea that no skin regimen in the world could cure.
Dry mouth.
Pounding heart when I laid down sober to try to nap.
Neck pain that had me crawling out of my skin by bedtime.
Constant worry that I would be found out.
Other stuff, like falling down last week and busting my face open. (Of course I had a rational story blah blah blah...)
I had really, truly been thinking about quitting drinking but every time I considered it, a few barriers kept popping up in my mind:
I know it's bad, but I am high functioning, right? I don't drive drunk, I don't go to work drunk, I don't drink in front of my kids and I have never hurt anyone.
What if I withdraw and have a seizure at work and go into DT's and everyone at the hospital figures out that I am a raging alcoholic?
What if I can never fall asleep again?
How can I make this pain in my neck stop without using pain meds that will inevitably fry my kidneys and burn a hole in my already acid-washed stomach?
What if I just can't?
I kept postponing it. But something felt different that morning. I knew I was in trouble and I wanted so desperately to tell someone and get the baby grand piano off my chest. I was ready. But then the phone rang again.
It was my long time girlfriend and fellow mom. Our 13 year-old daughters are each others' oldest friends. She was calling to tell me that her 34-year old ex-husband and daughter's father (a known alcoholic with end-stage cirrhosis and also one of my long time friends from childhood) had died during the night due to liver failure complications. That their daughter was there when they withdrew life support. I knew this day was coming, but I still wasn't prepared for it, so I did what I always do in the face of a crisis: I shoved my feelings deep down and did damage control. I took the job of calling all of our old school friends and making sure they didn't find out on social media. I comforted them and explained in layman's terms what happened from the medical side. I promised I would update them with the obituary and service information. I handled shit, like I always do.
Finally, the afternoon came and it was time to come to terms with my own stuff. I took a deep breath and called my friend, a physician that I've known for years and more importantly, has known as much about my alcoholism as I've let him in on for all those years. I told him I was in trouble, that I was ready to quit and that I had no idea where to start.
He asked me one question. "Are you willing to do anything it takes?"
"Of course" I answered.
He asked me again. I said yes again. And then he told me the plan. It involved going down to a local establishment for doctors and nurses suffering from addiction and meeting with a counselor to assess what kind of treatment I needed. This could range from inpatient to counseling and meetings. I was terrified, I cried a lot, I explained how I had never broken any laws or endangered any patients, I cried more and finally, I agreed. I was to call the number he gave me the next morning and make an appointment.
I spent the rest of the day vacillating between depression and anxiety. Before bed, I took a melatonin and drank a few cups of Sleepytime tea. Despite this, I had a restless night, full of strange dreams and when my alarm went off the next morning, I was exhausted and soaked in sweat. That ended my first day of sobriety.
Comments
Post a Comment