1 1/2 Days of Sobriety

So, here it is. If you've navigated to this blog via my other, main (fun) blog, you may be surprised to find me here. On the other hand, given the fact that I named it after my very favorite drink in the world, you may not.

I am an alcoholic. It's not a pretty word, and I'm not particularly happy to apply it to myself; although I am glad that I've reached a place where I'm not trying to delude myself into thinking I'm anything but.

On Sunday night, I had what was hopefully my last drunken episode, ever. The next morning, I was missing my cash, my eyeglasses, a lot of skin off of my knuckles and most of my ability to think and function clearly. I had to call out of work, and I made the decision then and there (even through a haze of gin and vodka which stayed with me well into Monday afternoon) that I couldn't hide from my disease any longer.

I had called work before to tell them I might be late (I was actually hungover); I've even gone into work still drunk from the night before, armed and ready with an arsenal of Altoids and Eclipse gum and able to function perfectly well -- I have to admit, with some pride, that I've done some of my best, most effective work while still slightly smashed. But I had never missed an entire day.

Actually, I'll amend that: twice, I had to miss a day of work after I was slipped a mickey. But, because I didn't voluntarily take any drugs, I could blame it on whatever asshole slipped me a mickey. It wasn't my drinking, after all, which caused me to call out of work; it was the hallucinogens I had unwittingly ingested.

Even after scary episodes like that -- which, granted, could happen to a non-alcoholic, or even a perfectly straight-up-and-down teetotaler -- I couldn't really admit I had a problem. Not even after losing close to $40,000 in material goods -- either lost in a drunken haze, destroyed beyond repair after taking a spill during a bender, or stolen by predators ready to take advantage of a drunk.

No, what led me to finally take a very small, first step in trying to beat this thing called alcoholism was that I was so ashamed that I had finally let my drinking interfere with my professional life in a very tangible way -- by not being able to be present. That, and the increasingly clearer realization that anyone who, at age 32, is putting away three-to-four gallons of vodka away per week by themselves is probably not going to live to see 40: either from kidney failure, liver disease, getting hit by a bus, or finally being physically attacked while stumbling the streets of Manhattan in a boozy stupor.

I haven't 100% decided what my course of action will be. I attended my first AA meeting last night, and I'll likely write a separate entry about that later or tomorrow; I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. But I do know that I've taken at least one step towards getting sober, and I've gone 1 1/2 days without a drink. I won't lie. I really, really want one right now. I don't want ten: I just really want one. But I know that I never, ever have just one, even if, whenever I start drinking, that's all I crave. One to take the edge off the day, or one to enjoy with a friend before dinner. But an alcoholic can't have just one. If I have one, I'll have at least six, and more likely ten or twelve.

So, that's where I'm at. Wish me luck.