My Plummet Into Alcohol Addiction

by Tom
(CA)

First Happy New Year to all my suffering brothers and sisters. I feel a lot of your pain. And have learned a great deal from everyone who has posted.
I have a problem with alcohol. I drink until I go to sleep.

What is quite sad is that I openly tell people that I find a dark corner in my home and drink until I fall asleep. Which is the brutal truth. I think the brazen attitude for which I present this information seems to skim over most people as a joke. I chuckle along. Knowing full well, I really wanna cry.

I think it really got bad when I lost my girlfriend. She was the love of my life. I thought I would spend the rest of my life with her. But it was a long distance thing, and she lost her respect for me ... I'm thinking because of my constant whining about how lonely it'd been, grad school was rough ... etc. More than likely, she wanted to start her life.

I found out she had been dating another guy a few weeks before Christmas whom she also planned on marrying. About 8 years ago. It was crushing. I couldn't breathe, couldn't eat. Definitely couldn't sleep. I grew up at a time where people were supposed to "man-up". Never cry over a woman. And I didn't.

I internalized it and numbed myself to the pain by drinking. To make matters worse I also racked up a huge student loan that hangs over my head and feels like a swinging pendulum blade ready to drop. I curled up back into my dark corner.

I love having a drink. Feeling sophisticated that this is how those guys on "Dallas" handled their problems. Course only to realize years later J.R. needed a liver transplant to live. Yeah, we just saw the solution to the problem was a glass of scotch and a cigar. And that's what I did. To keep numbing the pain.

I'd wake up more depressed, more alone and after close to 15 years of somewhat hard drinking, a loss of equilibrium. I don't talk to people the same way anymore either. I have a skittish cadence now, due to shakes. It's a minor tremor, but it's still scary.

I may be clinically depressed. I find no joy in my life as I did when I first moved out west. I tell myself that there isn't anyone in this world that would want me and all the problems I come with. Yeah, I know, defeated attitude doesn't help.

I'm 36 now. It sucks that I constantly feel that I haven't grown up. Because grown ups know how to handle themselves. Knowing what I've done with my life really saddens me and the cycle continues. Thank you for reading. Any advice or pearls of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.