Drink, Drank, Drunk: The Story of an Executive Drinker

My Story is not a new one, nor is it an original one.  Each year, thousands of people realize that they have an alcohol problem.   The journey from happy, party drinker to admitting that alcohol consumption is causing a problem in one’s life differs for everyone.  Some people never get there.  Some hit rock bottom and lose everything before they get it.  Some try to quit drinking and fail.  I hope I won’t be one of the latter, but for now, I take one day at a time.

Back in college, I was probably like almost every other partying collegiate.  Well, almost every other college kid who liked to party with the exception that I always drank more and longer than everyone else at the party.  I was the goofy girl who got drunk at the bonfire and rolled down the hill before puking in my shoes!  How attractive that must have been.

As life went on and I had young children, I don’t remember drinking much at all.  We were too broke to buy the wine I liked and I was too busy working and raising a family that alcohol was put on the back burner; for the most part.  I had it well under control in those days.  But, whenever I had the chance, on vacation or on holidays, I would use any chance to party on.

Photo by Taryn Storm

As we became financially more comfortable and the children were out of their cribs, I had more access, more time and more money to resume drinking.  Those were fun years.  The wild 80’s, drugs and lots of alcohol at every party; and there were lots of parties. 

I tried my hand at cocaine, but realized early on that the first hit was the best and, beyond that, I tried to get the same great high, hit after hit, but never quite got there.  Big red flag in the road, that was!  I’m not sure why I didn’t get the same message from alcohol, but I most definitely didn’t see it.

There were some embarrassing moments along my drinking path, and some funny ones.  All alcoholics have funny stories.  There was a night that I got home from a company party and was talking to my young children while trying to remove my pantyhose.  I tumbled backwards into my closet, on my rear, kids laughing hysterically.  Now there’s a really good precedent for a mom to set for her children.  I’m sure it made a good story for the kids’ classrooms on Monday morning!

There were lots of nights when I drove home after drinking.  I know now that among those deadly accidents that occur each year when an alcohol soaked driver gets behind the wheel, I could easily have been one of those statistics.  However, in those days, we all did it.  We all drank a lot and drove home.  So it must have been okay, right?

In the years that followed, I began a long love affair with Chardonnay.  How bad can a little wine be, right?  I had given up my favorite drink, the very large, very dry martini, so I thought I was doing a good thing for myself.  Truth be told, I started drinking wine because I could drink a lot more for a lot of hours before I passed out or got visibly tipsy.  Good trade off, I figured.  I had become an executive drinker; none of the cheap stuff, only good wine for me.

Meanwhile my husband was becoming more and more irritated with me.  He is the child of two alcoholics and is a very moderate occasional drinker.  Most of all, he told me time after time over the years that he would not live with a practicing alcoholic again in this life.  I wasn’t hearing him.  I thought he was no fun and had changed the rules on me.  After all, we had partied together since college; why quit now?

I also came from a long line of alcoholics.  I will get to that later, but as a result, I have to admit that it runs in my family.  I knew that breast cancer runs in my family so I protected myself and had regular checkups over the years.  But when it came to drinking, I did nothing to protect myself, or my family, from my addictive behavior.

An addict is an addict is an addict, I now realize.  When you have an addictive personality, your addictions can run in many directions.  When I smoked back in college, I didn’t smoke a few cigarettes a day, I smoked a couple of packs.  Many people can’t just “shop,” they shop until they are broke.  The gambling addict will gamble until they have lost it all. 

Then there’s the practicing alcoholic who drinks and gambles; a real combination for disaster.  My father taught me about that as he drank and gambled away everything he could get his hands on until my mother realized what was happening and threatened to divorce or kill him, whichever occurred first!

My beautiful daughter who should have had it all in this world became addicted to painkillers.  She also gambled until her bank account was drained and shopped whether there was money in her bank account or not.  After an expensive stint at rehab, she came home and returned to her old ways within a year; we had no idea she was in such trouble.  Broke, addicted again and in chronic pain, her heart couldn’t handle it any longer.  In 2007 she passed away.

All of that beauty, intelligence and promise was gone.  We were devastated.  How could my lovely thirty-year-old daughter who had a great job, a promising future and an amazing little boy, die so young?  Long after her death I was still in denial that my daughter had been an addict.  She had seemed so normal on the outside and I wanted so badly for her to BE well, that I just didn’t see it. 

For me, her death was my signal to cut loose and drink as much as I could consume.  My patient husband gave me two years after our daughter’s death to get it together before he threatened to leave me.         

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The problem was that I didn’t care if he left.  Then I wouldn’t have to put up with his nagging every time I poured a glass of wine.  Cool.  I’m pretty good company, I thought, I could do what I please without being constantly hassled about my errant behavior.  We had been together 38 years, but I was over his act entirely.  I told myself, if he leaves, he leaves.  So be it.

Then came a turning point.  A friend who was supposed to meet me in Paris for a “girl’s Paris adventure,” cancelled on me at the last minute.  So, reservations having been made and paid for, I decided to go it alone.  Then I would be able to write and drink as I pleased.  I thought it would be just fine. 

I have to say that I held it together pretty well on my solo trip.  I never got drunk or fell down, as I’ve been known to do, and, as I was responsible for myself, I knew I’d never get away to travel alone again if I blew it and was found drunk and swimming in the Seine!  So, although I put away my bottle or more of wine a day, but did it in shifts, and mainly in my apartment. 

Then something weird happened.  I realized that I missed my husband.  You know, the nagging, annoying guy that I was always complaining about? He was at home worried out of his mind about what I might do while drunk in Paris, but I behaved and calmed his nerves and did have LOTS of time to think about my situation.  I realized I had a choice to make but I’d get to it when I got home, I rationalized.

When I returned home, in the safety of my own space, I went back to my old ways.  I began sneaking off to lunch alone so that I could drink a few without hubby knowing so that, at night, when I poured several BIG glasses of wine and drank them, he would think those were the only glasses that I had consumed that day.

I began buying bottles of wine, six at a time; cheaper that way, I told my little self.  With six you get a discount!  Far out!  More for less!  (Did I mention I wasn’t drinking cheap wine?  At $14 per bottle, this was fast becoming seriously expensive.)  I would also sneak a few bottles into the house at a time so I didn’t raise any husbandly eyebrows.  I got so clever that I figured out that if I kept one or more open bottles in the refrigerator, he couldn’t keep track of them all!  Keep ‘um confused, that’s the ticket.

I began to open two bottles of wine during the day and keep one in a cabinet where my husband wouldn’t be likely to look, and one bottle open in the refrigerator.  Then, when I drank some of the refrigerator bottle, I could refill it with the bottle in the cabinet.   The bottomless bottle in the refrigerator became inconspicuous and less likely to raise suspicion.  Since I could hold a normal, sane and sober conversation after 3 glasses of wine, (big glasses!) I never appeared “drunk.”  Only my liver and I knew the truth.

One of my most clever maneuvers was sneaking wine into my glass while we watched television together.  We usually sit in bed in the late evening and have dinner and watch TV.   At my bedside, out of my husband’s line of sight, the top of my nightstand usually has several bottles of Pellegrino Sparkling water, a glass of water and other assorted stuff.  It became easy to sneak in a small glass of wine and a large glass of water.  Later when my husband wasn’t paying attention I could pour the glass of wine into my wine glass.  Voila! Once again, I had created the bottomless wineglass.

I wasn’t seeing the signs that were clearly in front of me; I didn’t want to see friends or to go out with anyone.  I denied that the pains in my stomach at noon each day were not the stomach flu, but were my body yelling for alcohol.  I didn’t realize that, although I had long ago given up drinking and driving, that I chose instead to stay home where I could drink without worrying about driving.  I would never choose to go to any restaurant where alcohol was not served, but I told myself that I just liked my wine with food.  So I ate more and drank more with it.

I really don’t care for or care about hard alcohol, so I must not be a real drunk.  I kept telling myself this each time any comment was made about my drinking.  Yep, just keep feeding yourself crap until you’re so full of it you might just explode.

Last weekend my husband left to go to visit clients.  He didn’t ask me to join him as he usually does.  At first I was relieved.  I could stay home then have lunch and lots of wine on my deck, then nap before he returned.  Then it hit me; what if he didn’t want me to go with him because he knew I would want to have my wine along the way?  What if he was afraid that, as out of control as I had become, I might embarrass him?  What if he just didn’t come home?

That’s when I decided to do something about my situation.  I had thought long and hard about it in Paris, now was the time to act.

So, I removed all the wine bottles from the wine rack, all of the corks from the kitchen drawer, bagged up the empty bottles I had stashed around the kitchen and let them all in a pile by the kitchen door.  I then opened my laptop and took the “are you an alcoholic” quiz.  Along about question number 6, when I ran out of boxes to mark “how many drinks do you have each day?” I decided to close the laptop and take my sorry ass to an AA meeting.

I know a bit about AA because both my Father and my Son have been active members at one time or another.  My son still is an active AA member and swears that the meetings have saved his life since he got sober seven years ago.

The day I walked in the door of my first AA meeting and introduced myself as an alcoholic, was the first time I had ever said it out loud.  That was two days ago and I haven’t had a drink since.  Two sober days may not sound like much to you, but I don’t remember the last time I had even one day without a substantial amount of wine; so it’s a really big deal to me.

I know I have taken the first step toward living sober.  It may be a small one, but, nonetheless, the first step.  The rest of this series is my story of working to take back control of my own life.  I tried and tried to control the alcohol but I was not able to control it.   Maybe this will be a first step in a new direction.   

Now, let me introduce myself to you; “Hi, I’m Taryn and I’m and alcoholic.

Follow my journey to sobriety; part II at:  http://healthmad.com/addiction/drink-drank-drunk-the-story-of-an-executive-drinker-part-2/

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