Day Five

I'm rather proud of myself, I must say; there's vodka in the apartment, there are plenty of mixers, and my roommate (who doesn't know that I've made the decision to quit drinkig -- or, more to the point, that I'm in recovery) invited me to have a drink. It's a horrid, humid, rainy day here, and it's the perfect kind of afternoon/evening to have a few drinks and just hang out. But I said no, and to my surprise, it wasn't that much of a challenge to my willpower to do so.

I've been trying to pinpoint where exactly drinking stopped being a recreational pleasure and became a hazard. I was NOT a "bad" kid who snuck alcohol in my teen years. On my prom night, I thought my friends and I were being daring by buying -- get this -- two six-packs of wine coolers. I had two, got completely giddy, and that was that. But I grew up quickly; by the time I was 17 (not too long after prom, come to think of it), I was traveling into NYC from the suburbs and sneaking into gay clubs. Even so, on a limited budget, I rarely had more than 2 or 3 drinks a night (screwdrivers, then cranberry & vodka), and believe it or not, I was quite the disco bunny back in the day: the first one on the floor, and the last one to leave, and NEVER an illegal substance to fuel the party. Whatever I drank, I sweat out by last call.

I guess it was around 7 or 8 years ago that I began to slowly realize that my drinking was putting me in precarious positions. I'd wake up and not know where I was, or who I was with; not an unusual story in gay Manhattan, but the beginning of a slide into dangerous territory. In the past 2 years or so, I'd be going out 2 or 3 nights a week -- no longer to clubs, but to bars, where the bartenders knew my order before I sat down; where a $20 bill guaranteed me an unlimited supply for the rest of the night. There were rarely nights that I actually remembered getting home; but my internal honing device always led me back to my door.

Usually.

One particularly scary night, I completely blacked out; from what I recall, I had only started my fourth drink -- which, believe you me, is barely enough to get me buzzed, and I was chatting with a new acquaintance at the bar. I'm fairly certain he slipped something in my drink, because I remember nothing after that; and my tolerance level was/is such, that I usually can go for at least 6 or 7 drinks (or usually more) before I start heading into blackout territory. [Note to readers: when you can actually determine how many drinks you can consume before you black out, you've got a problem.] Anyway, long story short, and ommiting a lot of details, I wound up in HARLEM, of all places, wandering the streets, robbed of most of my belongings (Prada alligator gloves: $2000. Louis Vuitton clutch: $900. Self respect: priceless), nearly arrested by the police, driven home by a stranger, and then harrassed by phone messages from unknown predators for days afterwards.

And still I continued to drink.

Within the next year, I had two Cartier watches snatched directly off my wrist by thieves who would watch me get progressively drunker, then pounce when I would try to stumble out of the bar. And even $15,000 poorer, I just thought, Well, I wasn't meant to have those Cartier watches. But, apparently, I WAS meant to drink. Designer coats, umbrellas, money clips, wallets, cuff links, fountain pens -- all disappeared, and none meant so much to me that I would give up my cocktails.

It's funny how 7 or 8 years of cumulative episodes can't get someone to admit they have a problem, whether it's risky sexual behavior one wouldn't indulge in if sober; or prolonged blackouts; or day-long hangovers; or being taken to, and abandoned in, Harlem; but that's why they say that everyone has to come to the place of realization themselves, and it's at a different point in everyone's addiction. Somehow, by the grace of God or a Higher Power, or (probably) just dumb luck, I haven't been maimed or worse during my travails.

I'm not a dummy. I consider myself fairly intelligent, and more self-aware than most. I knew all along that this -- alcohol -- was a problem. And the problem with being so self-aware, and not wanting to admit that you're an alcoholic, is that the denial and guilt become monumental. I have a feeling that, as I work through the why's and wherefore's of my addiction, I'll be visiting places in my psyche and (shudder) childhood memories that won't be fun.

In the meantime, though, I'm just glad to say that I am Five Days Sober.