Farewell to Alcohol
By Melinda M.
Alcohol Rehab Centers:
You have been the longest running dysfunctional
relationship of my life.
You were present from my earliest memories, when as a
toddler; I finished each of the highball glasses left after my
parents’ parties. Later you carried me through all our family
events; champagne in crystal flutes, white wine with every
meal, liqueurs after dinner.
Alcohol, you sat with us at the place of honor, at the
head of the table, ruling our household and destroying our
family invisibly from within.
You loved me when I was young and beautiful. You
gave me the courage to speak when I was too shy to say a
word. You helped me fit in with my friends, friends who
drank as I did. We didn’t know another way to live, to
have fun, to exist, to love. We were Irish; the creature had
haunted us for centuries.
When I left my home, I lost control of you forever. The
power had shifted. You did not work for me, I worked for
you. At that time, the gracious ways in which I was raised
turned to desperate dissolution. Sips from flutes became
blackout. Blackouts turned into binges, and then I began
to hide.
My world completed its 180 degree turn, when all around
me had disappeared; my security, my identity, my home, my
family, my life as I knew it. It was just you and I, then you
began to turn on me too. My friend became my fiercest foe. I
knew it. I tried but I still couldn’t turn away from you.
Still, I came back to you, over and over again, like a woman
addicted to the wrong man in the most destructive of
relationships. The one that kept her down-trodden and
helpless, the man she would call in the middle of the night
beckoning him back to her, knowing he would eventually bring
her to the brink again.
Time would pass. I would square my shoulders, gain
resolve, start fresh and quit drinking. When I began to get
strong and independent, you would call for no rhyme or reason,
and in a short while I would be lost in the abyss. Again.
We were alone you and I, drinking at home, hiding in
shame. I knew I was addicted to you and I couldn’t stop. I
couldn’t turn from the solace you provided in the earliest
stages of a binge when that warm glow would hit my chest
and the outside world slipped farther and farther away.
Too soon I drank too fast to feel that glow. I drank to black
out, to pass out and to hide from the fact I didn’t fit in
anywhere anymore.
My first AA meeting led me to a full year sober. Shortly
thereafter, when time got tough, I fell back into my old
patterns. I went back to my source of oblivion, the only way I
knew to block the pain, to hide from the failures which seemed
insurmountable.
This led to therapy and several more years sober. But again,
when the pain got too great, I went back to you and the
destruction began.
My years without you have been the happiest in my life. I
cannot explain why I turn back to you again and again. I
know the end result, but I ignore it and charge ahead blindly
one more time. It only took an instant to make that decision
to begin to ruin my life once more and I have never been in
denial at that moment that decision came, I just didn’t care.
Thirty years I gave to you, more or less; slipping, sober,
slipping, struggling, surrendering, recovering, and slipping
again. Each time I failed it was harder to stop. The binges
lasted longer; the devastation was more desperate than the
time before. Each time I had more to lose, but I risked it all to
be with you again.
There is nothing elegant in drinking alone in a dark room.
It matters not if the glass is crystal or an old jelly jar. I have
a skid row in my heart and soul. I am merely a few feet from
a market cart and an overcoat chatting to imaginary friends,
my filthy hands grasping a small bottle in a brown paper bag.
The time has finally come to say goodbye. I cannot love
you any longer. You must leave so I can begin to live. You
must step down from my altar of illusion I can just give up
because I just don’t care enough to be strong.
It is my turn to begin to live now. I’m old. I’m too tired to
fight you any longer. It is time for me to fill the void that has
been inside me, the void you never did fill, but only covered
and numbed for a little while. It is time to close and lock the
door on you and all you have represented to me, all you have
done to me, all the harm I have caused myself, all the ways I
despise myself for this life long addiction, this destructive
love affair which I’ve held onto more than half my life.
There is light around me now. The curtains are lifted. I
will not go back into the darkness with you again. There is
nowhere to hide. You may not have my new address, the key
to my gate, or the gate to my soul, to my heart, to my sanity.
I cannot let you in, no matter how loudly you knock on the
door, how tempting the oblivion may be when my days are
darkest. I will not surrender my marriage to you, my writing
to you, my horse to you, or my home to you.
You’re out of time.
I’m gone. You will never see me again.
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