Let’s get into a bit more of the “why” behind this blog. A natural place for me to start is the days before I started drinking and for me, this is before I was 21. I was a happy kid and don’t recall any hardships in my life that would lead me to drinking as a means of escaping traumatic events. Alcohol didn’t loom large in my life, because there weren’t people in my family that I had any awareness of having alcohol issues. The only concrete evidence of drinking that I can recall clearly affecting me personally was a night when one of my parents was reading in the living room. I was 8 or so and was thirsty, so I picked up the nearest glass which had a clear liquid in it and since it was so hot outside, the condensation on the outside of the glass was all the more attractive. However, that was not water, it was white wine. I was disgusted by the surprising taste. It was awful and since it wasn’t enough to feel the effects that come with alcohol, I walked away completely puzzled as to why someone would want to drink that.
In middle school, I remember a friend who lived next door having to come spend the night with us because his dad came home very drunk and violent. I actually slept through it, so I only knew what my parents told me and what my friend shared with me the next day. It was weird and didn’t feel real. In high school there were definitely parties with drinking as well as drugs–though I wasn’t invited to too many that I recall. The same is true for the start of my college career. Whether it was walking through frat row or just in the dorms, there was alcohol available. In part because of my Christian identity but also because of a fear of getting in trouble (with the police, school, parents, etc.), I never indulged. I also felt pretty strongly that if I enjoyed life (which I did), drinking would only cause me to have times that I’d forget. My motto was “Why would I go to parties and drink when I wouldn’t remember if I had a good time?” There was even a time where after a shift ended at the pizza place I worked, at 3:00 AM or so, there was a poker night at the restaurant. I was invited to that and I think I stuck around for a bit, but I turned down the beer. It just wasn’t interesting to me.
After two years at my first university, I failed out. Although I like to call it “reaching a mutual agreement between the school and me that I wasn’t ready for college”, that’s really too generous and places some degree of blame on the school. It’s all on me. The reality of it was that I wasn’t mature enough and didn’t have the time management skills that are necessary to make it through a higher education successfully. Interestingly, this same set of skills is required to make it through adult life as well! Yet, I didn’t drink. Although I was very disappointed in myself, I started to plan ways to “make it right” and sought a job after I moved home, looked into careers and continuing my education, and, fatefully, started talking to military recruiters. After I’d made up my mind to enlist, while I was waiting to ship off to boot camp, I delivered pizzas for a nearby chain and picked up some nights in the kitchen as well. It was a good time, but I was surrounded by people that were very much into partying, drinking, and drugs. Again, although I was invited, I just never found the idea of partaking to be appealing. So, it wasn’t even that I resisted peer pressure, I just said no thank you.
Not drinking was a pretty solid way to set myself up for shipping to boot camp. For 12 weeks, it was guaranteed that I wouldn’t be able to drink or smoke, so by entering service without those habits, I was in a better place than many of my fellow recruits. Plus, although I had a lot of room to improve my physical fitness, I wasn’t any further behind the curve because of smoking or drinking. Graduating boot camp and then heading off to infantry training and intel school, I continued to stay away from booze. I was also still under 21 and living in fear of breaking the law.
All that changed when I turned 21. Well, it wasn’t so much because I turned 21, but because of events around that time. In short, not long after I’d showed up for my first permanent duty station, my parents had discovered that I’d continued to have a relationship with a person that they didn’t think was healthy for me. On one hand, I was old enough to make that poor decision on my own, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the other hand: that I was lying about it. The lying was the problem.
Combining that feeling of disappointment from being caught in a lie with the overwhelming confusion over what I’d just done to my life by enlisting was a recipe for trouble. For a few days after I checked into that first duty station, I’d spend my off time lying in my room with the lights off, pondering how to become a conscientious objector and get out of the military or how to end my life. It was a very dark time. Not too long after that, though, a friend from intel school stopped by and we worked it out so that I could move in with them. That was a very positive change. We’d spent quite a bit of time hanging out on the East Coast and in spite of different experiences growing up, there was enough in common that we really hit it off. To this day, they’re still one of my best friends.
All that to say, it was a surprise to them when we were walking to the store to grab some snacks and I turned and said, “I think I want to get drunk.” They didn’t understand what I’d just said. Nothing in their knowledge of me, my history, or personality aligned with that. Yet, I’d recently turned 21, so my first inhibition was removed. Combined with a desire to escape from my current dark place, it was too tempting to resist. We picked up a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and that night we kicked off what would be a long relationship between alcohol and me. There are quite a few details that figure into that night and the future months, but there’s one that stands out: alcohol made me feel nothing. “Nothing” is a bit much, though. It was just that everything felt fuzzy and nice. Warm, even. My friends’ marker for a buzz was that their lips would feel numb. I don’t know that I ever felt that but I definitely felt warmth all over my body. I was a little woozy, but happy. It was just nice—I was just gone.
Over the course of the next several months, I continued to explore the world of alcohol, looking up drink recipes, spending time walking around the PX in search of something new and exciting to drink, going to bars, and spending way too much money on nights out. From the start, though, drinking was a daily activity. I don’t think there were very many nights that passed that didn’t involve me drinking some amount. Weekends were heavy, of course, but weekdays were drinking days as well. It didn’t matter if we had a formation run the next day, we went hard on getting drunk. I think that’s partly just what we thought was expected of the military culture: you work hard and you play harder. There were a few times where I was worried about how I felt like I had to drink each night, but without fail, I’d end up drinking again. I distinctly recall more than one occasion of sitting in front of my computer, firing up some video games, and thinking about how nice it was back in the day when I didn’t feel I needed anything like getting drunk to relax. Yet, I didn’t stop.
At this point, I’d only been drinking for a year or so, and I was already asking if this was okay. But I kept plowing ahead. There’s more to cover and I’ll dig into that here soon, with a few moments of pause on particular events through my drinking life. I’m curious, though: Have you spent time reflecting on how you got started drinking? Did it just happen socially or were the events that made you feel like you almost had to drink? As I’ve found a lot of value in these types of reflections, I recommend you do the same. You might not end up with a revelation—I certainly didn’t right away—but it might be instructive in something that you’ve taken for granted.
Next week I’m going to jump ahead in time, closer to the present, and talk about my journey through the wonderful world of “quit-lit”. There are a few key books I’ve read that really sparked a difference in my mind and I’m looking forward to sharing those with you.