The Night Before

I vividly remember this day.  It was a Saturday, I was up before everyone (because hello 3AM wake up call).  We had gone out the night before. When I say gone out, I mean we stayed out way too late at the neighbor’s house drinking.  I barely remembered getting home.  I barely remembered putting my child to bed.  My make up was still on from the night before, but at least I had made it into my pajamas this time. I also woke up with high anxiety and a pounding headache.

The Morning in Question

I laid in bed for a few minutes, piecing together the night before. Quickly, I grabbed my phone to see if I had made any calls or sent any texts that I had to address or apologize for.  One eye was slightly closed so I could focus and actually read the texts. There was undoubtably still alcohol in my system from the night before.  I knew that I was not going to fall back asleep at this point, so I got up and went downstairs

Although I could tell I was still a little buzzed, I could feel the hangover creeping in.   The nausea, the headache, the feeling of absolute garbage. Unfortunately, this was becoming my base line on the weekend.  I decided that some coffee might help. Maybe it would give me a little pep to deal with the rest of the day.  That’s when I saw it, sitting next to the coffee maker.  The bottle of wine I had opened the night before.  Now, typically there would not be anything left in this bottle, but I had decided to bring a fresh one to the neighbors.   I looked at that bottle of wine and thought to myself, man, maybe if I have some, I could push the hangover off a little longer.  Maybe this will give me the energy that I need since I knew it was going to be a long day.  Maybe I can just keep the buzz going long enough to convince my husband that we should go to a brewery for the afternoon. And then I could have a few beers and get myself back to neutral. I knew the drill though, those few beers would inevitably turn into more than a few beers. We’d get some to bring home and drink all evening, again. Then the cycle would start all over again the next morning.

The Moment

The next thing I knew, I poured that wine into a coffee mug and sipped it as I watched TV.  It brought me back to life and made me feel like a functioning human being again. One glass became two, and that opened the floodgates.  I now knew that this was all it took to get back to normal.  If I just had some wine before everyone got up, I would feel better.  I could get through the morning, and I could keep drinking heavily at night because now the repercussions were easier to deal with.  I was on the edge of a very slippery slope already. I didn’t know it at the time, but this new discovery would lead to my inevitable downfall.  

The Progression

After this day, the progression of my disease ramped up.  On the weekends, drinking in the morning became my new normal. One or two glasses of wine to start my day slowly turned into chugging vodka in my closet just to get me back to neutral.  There were days that I passed out before 11 AM just to wake up and start drinking again.  This should have been an indication to me that something was wrong, but it wasn’t.  I should have been screaming for help and trying to get myself to stop at this point, but I didn’t. I just kept going.  

Somewhere between the progression of chugging wine and then switching over to vodka, my husband began to question what was going on with me.  He knew something was off, he wondered why I was slurring my words, and I was quick to fall asleep at random times throughout the weekend.  I denied that I was drinking every time that he asked, but he knew.  I would look at him like I was insulted that he could even ask me if I had been drinking.  This charade went on for years.  Binge drinking around the clock.  Some days it didn’t affect me that much, and I would be able to fly under the radar and get that buzz that I wanted.  Enough to feel it.  Enough to calm me down, but not slurring of the words and passing out.  I strived for those moments every weekend, but they were few and far between and when I didn’t get that balance, I was off.

The Denial

Even as I was taking pulls of vodka in my closet as the sun came up, I still thought that I had my drinking under control.  My drinking started innocently, but it didn’t end that way. It took me into dark places that I had to claw my way out of.  I made it out alive, but there were many days that I didn’t know if I would.