I’ve been thinking about “my story.” I’ve been asked to speak at meetings a lot. I’m a bit of a meeting nomad. My fear of commitment is keeping me from establishing a home group, even though I want to. I’ve always been terrified of committing to anything. The downside to this, however, is you get asked to speak a lot (they always ask the new person) and I got bored of my own story pretty quickly.
It took me time to figure out what I wanted to say so that it would be right and appropriate and check all the boxes. But then I found myself changing it up out of boardom. All still my story, just different angles. That’s the chameleon in me. I can spin a story like nobody – I was taught by my father. He could make anything funny and so can I.
SIDE NOTE: I just finished reading Under Our Roof by Madeleine Dean and her son Harry Cunnane. It’s written in a back and forth manner, sharing each of their stories of his addiction. I highly recommend it. Harry kept talking about being a chameleon, to which I can still relate. A story for a different post.
Anyway, I’m always thinking about my story and how to change it up but I recently started wondering what is really my story? Does it start before my dad left? After? When he got sober? Or when he started taking me to meetings with him? Interesting that I think my story revolves around my father, when I spent very little time with him. But he feels like my connection to AA so he is always part of it. But when does MY story start? Or how?
When I was about 5 years old, I remember, clear as day, having to say goodnight to all the adults. This meant parading me and my brother out in our adorable PJs to hug and kiss everyone goodnight. I didn’t want to though. I was taught not to be rude so I new better than to announce I didn’t want to hug my aunt’s boyfriend so I just held back, which was unlike me – I was very outgoing and always a pleaser. But he was really big, pretty sarcastic, and smelled like alcohol and I didn’t want to hug him. Actually, I didn’t really like him. But I adored my aunt so I figured he must be okay, I just didn’t want to hug him. Not only was I forced to give him a hug and kiss good night, I was then pulled aside and given quite the reaming by my mother. Essentially she told me I have no opinions, or that they don’t matter. If I am told to go hug and kiss an adult or other authority figure I am to do so without questioning it. And with a smile on my face. That message was painfully clear to me that day. And I took that message to heart and carried it with me for years.
I think that was the first time I realized my voice didn’t count. Or at least it’s the first time I can remember that my voice really really didn’t matter no matter what I said or the tears I cried the answer was still the same. I had to hug and kiss him, because I was a child and my job was to make sure the adults were comfortable and happy. It wouldn’t take long for someone to take advantage of that.
I didn’t have my first independent-on-my-own drink until years later, although I guess not that many years later. I was 13 on a school trip and we figured out where we could buy rum. And by we, I mean some other girl in my group. So we took ourselves down to the store pretended to be interested in the barrel of strawberries in front of the rum, and then with everyone else chickening out I brought my pint of strawberries and bottle up to the counter and paid for it. I remember thinking then as we all sipped our rum in our dorm rooms, is this the beginning? Will I end up in rehab or aa? Probably. That didn’t bother me at all, I was just curious if this was the beginning.
I continued to have that thought with almost every drink I had after that day right up until I quit at the age of 46. My father left when I was two but he was still in the same city. When I was five he moved away for work. I still saw him once or twice a year depending on his schedule and hours. But I always felt close to him. For some reason I never blamed him for being away. Maybe that’s because my mother did. she was remarried and happy and wouldn’t have stayed with my dad even if he’d gotten sober while they were married but she enjoyed blaming him for bad decisions she made.
But I guess if I’m doing a deep dive into what is my story I have to remember that those few times a year that I saw my dad there was not one second during those visits that I did not know I was the most important thing to him. And he would show me off at all his AA meetings. and while I might have been more interested in the coffee or the cookies or sneaking a cigarette in back, I guess those messages got through to me. I think knowing the foundations of AA, even if only in the back of my mind, probably got me through many of my years of drinking and I guess instead of saying it finally got so bad I guess I could say it could have been much much worse.
I was painfully uncomfortable in my own skin. I was a really super happy kid but I didn’t understand the world. I was very concrete. things were as I saw them or so I thought. But I lived in a house where the most important thing was appearances so we were always perpetuating stories that I knew weren’t true. And I didn’t understand it. That goes on to this day in my family.
I remember my sister-in-law being hospitalized for an emotional breakdown and my brother was left with their three kids so he was at my mom’s so she could help out and when I arrived to also help out with my own two kids, I was shocked to find out they told the children she was on a business trip. And I was to perpetuate that lie. I didn’t mind not telling the children the truth. I did not think telling them their mother was in the hospital for a mental breakdown and wanting to kill herself was a good idea, but she was a stay-at-home mom. How stupid did they think their children were? well the answer is, their kids weren’t stupid at all, they just knew and understood this concept of making believe. I still don’t get that, Fortunately or unfortunately neither do my children. They call ’em like they see ’em and often it makes others uncomfortable. But I would rather sometimes be embarrassed and/or have people be uncomfortable than to pretend I’m living a life I’m not.
Drinking was fun, and damn I was good at it. I was always good at everything when I started it. My grandparents got me tennis lessons at one of their Florida vacation places the woman had previously coached Tracy Austin and decided that I was so wonderful I had to get into tennis immediately and she wanted to coach me. We were on vacation so obviously I was not going to stay there, but I really loved that I was super good at something. and I figured the only way I could screw it up would be to keep doing it. if I continue to play tennis maybe they would learn I wasn’t that great. all the adults were so happy and proud of me what if I couldn’t live up to it? so maybe I won’t play tennis. I will just let everyone remember me as the person who was super good at it when I first picked up a racket. And so went the rest of my life.
I’m not sure why I was so good at drinking. Maybe it’s because I didn’t throw up? Or pass out? Or at least it would take me a lot more than other people. I wonder if that’s a physical deficit. I think it’s your body’s way of warning you you should stop what you’re doing when you throw up and pass out. I was actually jealous of people who did that regularly. I thought I would never drink if that’s what it did to me. I don’t know if that’s true or not because it never did that to me. My body could keep going long past when it should. and, at least until the later years, I could pull myself together and look really good in the morning too. I never liked hearing how pretty I was because people always said it like I didn’t need a brain because… but it sure helped me with a hangover.
Another thing that came painfully easy to me is making up stories. I wasn’t a liar per se. To this day I don’t like to lie. And don’t lie to me. Big or small I don’t like lies. That’s not to say you always have to divulge every truth either, but I don’t like lies. Perhaps it’s my true Irish genes that differentiate between a good story and a lie, but there is a difference. I could come up with the perfect story in a fraction of a second as to why I was going someplace or doing something, which made me very good at covering my tracks, which made me very good at getting away with stuff. I was grounded for most of high school because, as my parents would say, I got busted for everything, every time. And while it may have appeared that way, it was just the tip of the iceberg.
I guess that’s why I was so good at drinking. Drinking made life easier, right up until it didn’t. That inner turmoil that I had, constantly feeling like a child in charge of making the adults happy, not understanding the stories we told to the outside world while looking inside my family and seeing it’s not true, and always feeling like the new kid at school because I switch schools a lot. All of this chaos inside me created a level of pain and discomfort that alcohol helped me get rid of.
I could be as dramatic as the next girl, but generally drinking made me happy, put me in a good mood made me extra daring, definitely funny for a crowd, and always great to be around. If you wanted to have fun I was a chick to follow, always just a little bit on the edge.
Also, I come from a drink at lunch family. “Only people with a drinking problem have to make rules for themselves like I can’t drink at lunch or only after 5…” So in my house the way to prove that you did not have a drinking problem was to have zero rules around drinking. That did not work in my logical brain. But I ran with it.
For me it was not a matter of if I would quit drinking it was just a matter of when. I remember a scene from ghostbusters, I think I was in my teens, where she’s unpacking groceries and pours herself one glass of wine as she preps dinner and has the TV on and I remember wondering if I would be able to do that. Just have one glass of wine alone by myself in my apartment. I couldn’t wait to become an adult and find out. I quickly realized, however, TV and movies were not realistic. No one can have just one glass of wine. I mean why would you even bother?
I could also rally anyone with me. Especially those who didn’t really drink, they loved being with me. I gave them an excuse to let loose and have fun, or at least that’s what I called it. I was a judgment-free zone, you do you – as long as you have a drink in your hand and you’re following me, of course.
I always went through cycles. I would get super healthy, eat well, exercise and not drink or smoke for a little while. Then slowly I would start drinking again. Keep in mind that during these health fits, my goal was never to quit drinking permanently just to reset my mind and body.
At first my drinking would be relatively normal but would soon escalate. Slowly, I would start smoking again. At first only when I drank. and then I would have to drink all the time so that I could smoke. Then I would get very comfortable with both, I was always an unapologetic heavy drinker. I figured everybody knew what was coming so it was up to you to be there or not. And then at some point for some random reason I would decide to do a cleanse or diet or dare that would have me “getting healthy” again. And the cycle continued.
The biggest problem with being someone who can quit on a dime, is it you always believe you can. It’s okay if my drinking gets out of control because I know I can quit. See the irony there? Makes perfect sense to me.
I know that’s not my full story but it’s a start. I’ll let you know when I have more.