WHY I (MOSTLY) BROKE UP WITH BOOZE
setting the stage
I was raised by a deeply emotional, highly demonstrative mother. She struggles with mental illness that went undiagnosed and untreated for most of her life. When I was a child, I was too young to recognize that. All I knew was that my mom was basically a walking, talking, exposed live wire. She also was, and still is, real and raw and forthcoming with her feelings at any cost. The expression of her truth combined with her commitment to feeling all her feelings made her behavior feel unpredictable and sometimes, profoundly unsettling. Her emotional energy scared the hell out of me when I was small, and still occasionally does. As a result, before I learned to navigate feelings, I learned to be afraid of them. The ripple effect of that has been profound. (Note: She is now on the right medication, which has been life changing for her. This post is shared with her permission.)
My earliest memories of feelings are not of my own alone, but of witnessing and being intertwined with my mother’s. I don’t remember the majority of my childhood, but I do have some very clear memories of being deeply uncomfortable with her intense emotions, outbursts and temporary losses of control. Of the few memories I do have, many are of sneaking out the back door to seek refuge at neighbors or running up to my room to bury my face in a bag of candy and my nose in a book. I was so preoccupied with anticipating and avoiding my mom’s emotional tornados that I never learned to recognize or process my own little storms. Instead, I grew to believe that emotions were scary, unpredictable, fearsome things. By the time I weeble wobbled off to kindergarten, I learned to avoid, distract and dissociate rather than face those monsters.
bring on the booze
Food comas, books and escapism helped me avoid my feelings through the first decade+ of my life, but once adolescence and the associated hormonal hell came a-knocking, they weren’t enough. By junior year in high school, I discovered how blissfully detached alcohol could make me. For a naive teenager looking to avoid feelings of discomfort, fear, sadness and loneliness, alcohol seems like a good option. For a lost young woman struggling with depression, disordered eating, body image issues and a desperate need to escape all of the aforementioned, it seems like a great option.
Thankfully, I never became a full-blown alcoholic (I like control and external validation far too much for that), but I did have a precarious relationship with alcohol through my early 20’s. I was never quite able to have one drink. It was as if after one cocktail my brain instantly remembered the delightfully carefree, aloof, emboldened version of myself that was just a few more drinks away. When I was drunk, I never felt ashamed of my body, socially awkward around boys or inferior to the old money crew in Boston. I was bold, funny, fearless, the life of the party, (and terribly sloppy). The best part? As long as I was drinking or zoned out from a hangover, I didn’t have to cope with depression, home sickness, fear about my future, overwhelm at school. A partier among partiers, I never saw anything wrong with my behavior, until I started to realize I wasn’t drinking to have fun like most of my friends were, I was drinking to avoid feeling my feelings. I was drinking to feel like anyone other than myself.
HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 (EVEN WHEN BLURRY)
I am able to understand and articulate all of this now, but for the first 2 decades of my life, all I knew was that feeling my feelings just felt like too damn much. First it was food, then it was booze, then it was food again…always something to numb, dull, detach. Before developing a higher level of self awareness and healthier coping mechanisms, I just wanted to crawl out of my skin or run away when I felt anything other than happy. I was so afraid of my own emotions that I was willing to suffer some pretty intense consequences in order to avoid them. Awful hangovers that sometimes lasted a few days, inevitable bouts of depression brought on by drinking like a linebacker, binge eating then starving myself for the 2 days after a big night…it was all worth it as long as I didn’t have to face my pain.
In every stage of my life, I found a way to disconnect from and avoid my emotions. Eventually, the very pain I was avoiding was compounded by the effects of numbing through food and alcohol. I only ended up more depressed, more uncomfortable in my skin and more out of control of my mental health.
Around the time I turned 30, I was diagnosed with a laundry list of health issues including infertility and spinal osteoarthritis. The combination of a long and painful recovery from back surgery and a loud and clear health wake up call made me take a hard look at the choices I was making. I’m ashamed to admit it took such extreme circumstances to do it, but I finally made a commitment to myself to prioritize mental and physical health above everything moving forward. The first step was facing one of my biggest fears: learning to process and cope with my own emotions.
Cutting to the chase
Short story long, I don’t drink much anymore for three reasons. One, my goal is to be present with and honor my feelings - good, bad and ugly alike. Two, I am less afraid of feeling those feelings, as monstrous as they can sometimes be, and have more faith in my ability to cope. I no longer believe that experiencing emotions is equated with experiencing mental illness. And last but certainly not least, I have other options now. I don’t need to use alcohol (or food) to distract, detach, avoid. I have therapy, mindfulness practices, meditation, breath work, journaling, movement, and a support system; I have tools that support my mental health instead of behaviors that harm it; and I have a desire to treat myself with love, respect and kindness that I never had before.
P.S. For my wine-loving, champagne chugging readers out there, I don’t believe that consuming alcohol is inherently bad! For many it is a happy ritual, a part of their culture and family history, a way to celebrate and commemorate life experiences in positive ways. Not everyone that drinks, even excessively, is sad, lonely or lost like I was. As with food, we all have unique relationships with alcohol. I encourage you to find the happiest, healthiest one for you.