Saturday 15 October 2011

Definitions of alcoholism

It is somewhere between a cross of loneliness, abandonment, rejection, futility, somewhere you go and you stand on your own and you go home and you cry and you want to die.

I find it quite a shameful life. When I'm drinking on my own, I feel superb. When I have to interact with people while drinking, I find it very troublesome. This seems to be a common theme among drinkers. What starts as social drinking develops into the resentment of other people's perceptions of it and a desire to escape from that judgement, so before you know it you're drinking twice as much at home on your own rather than being with people.

Then the depression kicks in. For many months, years, you don't know if you're depressed because you're drinking or drinking because you're depressed. The problem is that by this point you're physically addicted so stopping to find out is something hardly anyone can do on a whim. The misery of physical withdrawal is not something I would wish on someone who'd gang-raped Barack Obama in a sex dungeon.

Drinking has ruined relationships for me. I'm not even that bothered about being with anyone but I wouldn't say no to it if someone interesting appeared. Yet all year I've pissed away moment after moment with women purely because I either knew I was too drunk to make sense or I was too drunk and destroyed things. A lot of people on r/ca think that sort of thing is funny - I don't. By nature I'm thoughtful about people and this strange nihilism I've developed while constantly drunk is... not me.

Drinking has got me in to shit at work. I don't care about that though: work is a four letter word.

My friends know I'm a drunk, especially since my recent spate of blackouts. Well, who cares. If they like me enough and appreciate all I do for them, then we'll stay friends. If not, who cares, I have another 40 trillion friends who do care.

Reading this back, it's quite clear I'm torn between my natural independence and comfort that my stupid drinking only affects me, and some form of loneliness, a grasp back to the past where I had someone to be normal for and be normal with. I miss her more than I miss cheap beer.

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