Sunday, November 13, 2016

Blackout.

I tried to stop drinking alcohol completely.

I don't want to drink anymore, so I stopped for a while.  I knew that I was only drinking to numb myself and try to make myself feel something (anything!).  And I was hiding from things I didn't want to think about, all at the expense of my liver.  It worked well to drink until I couldn't quite think at all.  I thought it all worked quite well.

But every rational and intelligent part of me can admit it:  Alcohol really makes things worse, when it comes down to it.  Yet, when I was doing it, every time I was actually drinking, it felt like it was helping.  I was not rational and I was not myself.

 I hated myself.
 I wasn't in reality.
I didn't like reality.

I drink now, but occasionally, and try not to do so excessively.  I at least know why I am drinking, and I think about those reasons with every swallow.
****
It was a few months ago that I started blacking out completely when I drank a certain amount.  I would have no memory of anything that happened after I crossed that certain limit.

Blank.

Completely darkness.

I remember nothing of those nights.  I remember absolutely nothing, and I can't bring any of it forth in my mind.  It's just not there.  Apparently, I can be very hilarious when I'm not even aware that I'm...  awake?  I am doing lots of things, and walking and talking and apparently thinking, yet I am in a blackout.  I don't remember any of it.  I don't know any of it.  It is as if I wasn't even there.  I mean, I wasn't there, was I?  I wasn't there.  I was absent.

I could also be really scary.  I would spend hours telling Sam about every single thing he had to make sure the kids knew if I died.  I wanted to tell him every family story, and memory, and make sure he knew what each thing was in my jewelry box, or in our cupboards that were family heirlooms.  I would know I was going to die, I guess.  I don't remember.  I did know every single thing that I needed to tell him and it was a lot.

That scares me, to blackout.  It scares me to have Sam recall hours we spent together "awake," when that time is completely gone for me.  I don't want that.  The kids are never awake when I drink, and I don't like it... I don't want it... and I try not to do it at all...

Having a little champagne or wine on a romantic date, or a beer on a hot summer day... I want to do those kinds of things... but I want them to be memorable and infrequent... special.  I'll admit it.  It became a daily thing... drinking at least a few glasses of wine every single day.  And some nights we would drink so much that I stopped remembering those nights.  Drinking became more than unhealthy and self-destructive. It was terrifying.

I was scared I couldn't remember.
But I was scared that I couldn't stop.
It wasn't so scary, and I could... I did it.
And I feel better.

God.

It feels better to wake up, and actually remember the falling asleep part