Alcohol, and my history with it, isn't something that I talk about all that often - mostly just because it doesn't appear in my reality that often. I've specifically avoided festivals and other events that include alcohol sales, I don't go to "parties" in that sense, and I certainly don't ever go to bars.
For whatever reason, over the last couple of months the spirits have re-appeared in my life in a big way. I'm not sure if this was a sign that I went down the wrong path(s) in some way, or if it was simply a reminder of how much of the population is out there numbing with these poisons.
I spent a week in Laramie with a friend who drinks quite a bit every day (harm reduction since he is an IV meth addict), a couple of weeks in Denver with someone I have literally never seen sober in the 5 years we've known each other, and finally topping it off with a week at the INC in Cheyenne, where the hotel bar was always full and there were folks popping bottles of all kinds in the lobby.
So, not only was I around the consumption much more than I have been in so very long, but I wasn't in great shape myself going into these situations: I wasn't resourced and ready to be holding the kind of space I ended up holding. There aren't a whole lot of specific moments or anything that come to mind to share, but I just thought I'd set the stage a little bit for why this is currently up for me.
The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back
I made the decision to quit drinking about 8, maybe 9 years ago (I never did AA, or took to tracking my sobriety), after one particularly ridiculous evening. The setting: a party at my friend Ian's house (the designated host of our little group of friends), I drove there, and picked up my friend Robby on the way. I, of course, arrived with a fifth of Jack Daniels for myself, and my messenger bag of ganja and other goodies to sell.
I had barely passed through the front door when Ian spotted me and came over for a welcome toast - a double shot of Barbarossa (a quite cheap spiced rum I didn't like, but everyone else tended to buy most of the time.) No sooner had we taken those shots, than Robby entered the house, and Ian called for another (double) shot, which I partook in as well. To be clear, we're now less than a minute into my arrival at the party, and I've consumed 4 ounces of a 70 proof liquor.
Remember Beer Pong? I always used to like playing liquor pong instead... and that was my next activity for the evening. First, Robby and I layed a game against each other, then teamed up for a 2 on 2 (they drank beer), and at the end of that, the entire bottle of JD was gone. That's about the point that things start to get real fuzzy. I have a clear memory of being in the basement (where the pool table was) and offering people $5? $20? to hit me as hard as they could. As far as I know, nobody took me up on it.
Jump ahead some unknown number of hours (presumably I'd continued drinking this whole time) and my next memory is of being out in the driveway, with this guy (never seen before or since) tackling me, and me just carrying that into having him in a headlock on the ground. After a few minutes of this, we got up, hugged each other, laughed, and he gave me the steel skull ring on his finger. I've only heard a couple of stories about how this all went down, but apparently he was the closest thing to a "taker" on my offer to hit me, and he wanted to actually have a scrap instead.
At this point (or close to it), I decided to head out for the night. I gave Robby a ride home (after which he jumped in his car and drove back), and stopped at a couple of friends' house on the way home to sell a bag of weed. She cleaned & patched me up a bit (turns out wrestling on concrete means the concrete wins), smoked some bowls, and I went home to pass out.
The next morning I woke up with a lot of road rash, quite the hangover, and a few imprints of that skull ring on my face & head. I hadn't realized he was wearing it whilst we were fighting.
That was it for me; I decided that day that I was done drinking. I'd had a lot of black out nights, and done a lot of things that I only learned about from others later, but this one definitely felt like a whole new level.
The Million Other Straws Underneath It
Of course, nothing really just changes suddenly; what we often think of as that moment where "everything changed" is generally just a tipping point. A slow build up finally hits the point where things have to change. The metaphor of course being the idea of the straw that breaks the camel's back; it's not that one straw that does it, it's all of the straws, all of the stresses, leading up to that last one, that pushes it over the edge.
In this case, I had spent many years waking up with a hangover most mornings, throwing up most nights, spending thousands of dollars a month on alcohol, and never really enjoying it. It was the only way that most of my "friends" spent time together, it was the only way that I really went out and interacted with new/random people (bar life), and there were some specific kinds of familiarity that went along with it.
For a couple of years, I had one bar I would go to most nights after work, to get my bacon bleu cheese burger and a few Jack & Cokes. Most of the time I spent selling cocaine was spent at a local strip club, where they had $1 well drinks, half the crew were my customers, and I played D&D with the security guard.
There was obviously something changing in me, leading up to that crazy night. While my drinking had stayed strong, I had already given up coke, and stopped taking any & all other drugs people cared to give/trade me.
As I mentioned before, I never did the AA thing (I went to one NA meeting at some point, and got a very strong "NO" from that experience), and I never really found it hard to quit drinking (or to give up any other drugs) - once I decided I was done, I was just done. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I figured out I was just shifting my coping mechanisms from one kind of numbing to another. In this case as I removed alcohol, video games and cannabis both increased.
A Rolling Stop Becomes a Full Stop
For the following 2-3 years, I told people I had quit drinking, I stopped going to parties and hanging out at the bar, and in general I had stopped. I had a couple glasses of homemade mead when playing MTG with the local pirates, drank a cider or two with my dad (really I would barely start one and give the rest to him), and occasionally have a glass of scotch when out at a restaurant.
This 99% sober approach worked well (or seemed to at least), I didn't get drunk or black out again, I didn't feel like I was ever drinking from a place of habit or craving, and over that same time period was the beginning of my new path in life, cutting out processed foods, GMOs, and animal products, getting back to from-scratch meals, lots of probiotics, and beginning to unravel some of my own trauma and take deliberate control of my own reality.
The first hiccup in this strategy came in 2015, right after my first Rainbow Gathering, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. A dozen or so of us left the Gathering together, staying for a few weeks at our friends' place in Laramie. Unbeknownst to me, the second week of July is known as "Jubilee Days" in Laramie, and that means no open container law, bars set up booths outside and give out samples, and generally an entire city of drunkenness.
I took part in this madness, putting down a handful of drinks that first day in town. Luckily, my body made it very clear the next day that this wasn't anywhere near an option, and that was the last time alcohol touched my lips.
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I really don't miss drinking either and was luck that I had no problems stopping. It can be a battle for some though. It certainly sounded like you needed to stop and that it really began your journey of self awareness and healing, although that in itself is a life long journey. Thanks for sharing this part of your life with us Kenny xxxx
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STOPTom MacDonald! Good beat! Anyway, congrats on your accomplishments.
I have not drunk rum or beer in years, it is something that I have eliminated from my life.
I think we hurt ourselves by introducing those kinds of things into our bodies that only hurt us.
As a young man, he was one of those who drank 3 bottles of rum with his friends and was awake for more than 74 hours in a row, all this was meaningless and then I understood that I was only wasting time and was ending my life.
I think we must look to the past to remember in the present what we do not want to see again and take a big step to make things right.
Thank you for sharing such a personal part of your life with us all and how stopping alcohol led you to begin your journey of healing. It can be quite a battle for some people, it is important to share how powerful the mind can be, when we make the best decision for ourselves.xxxx
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Once you stop, you don't miss it, and wonder why the hell you did in the first place. It's hard for me to completely quit as the hubs has that English streak in him that requires at least weekly beers, but I'm managing to curb that quite well as well. Definitely doesn't serve our higher selves.
I love how powerful the mind is - I'm a big believer in jsut telling myself another story. That's how I gave up tobacco - just said I didn't smoke anymore. Of course those first weeks are hard as you're breaking brain patterns but once that's done, it's done.
Your etymology of alcohol is off, but aside from that, excellent read. I have a family member who is not handling alcoholism well. No "come to Jesus" moment yet, alas.