Alcohol, The Bottomless Pit, and How I Leaped Out

Thanks Now I’m sober and I realize, I didn’t drink to escape the world, I drank to escape myself.” —Phil Volatile

Alcohol was where I ran to when I needed to run to nowhere.

Each time I ran to the bottle, I’d find its lengthy arms wide open to embrace and reassure me that I had come to the right place. And for each gulp, there’d be a quick rush of energy through my body that induces an odd kind of strength cum support that would fleetingly expunge some disturbing memories. It was my go-to for a temporary soothing that would last long enough to keep my mind still.

I needed where to anchor my feeble mind on. Pain and emptiness as a result of heartbreak and betrayal were so sudden and so intense that I quickly reached out for something to brace myself with, else I descended deeper into the hollow that resides within me.

After having a skinful, I’d return home inebriated pretending to want to sleep. But the headache would be merciless, and the hangover would be unforgiving. But a similar thing would repeat itself after a day or two.

Alcohol bandages one wound and opens up many others thereby forcing you deeper into the hollow you’re trying to leap out from.

It was like I wanted to soak a part of me inside the bottle and let it remain there, but I failed because it’s futile to use a substance to fill a vacuum. Substances would end up widening the vacuum instead of shrinking it.

I have through my experience come to realize that people embrace substances because it provides a cover to hide pains. It provides a mask to cover uncomfortable realities. Food could provide that mask. It could be drugs. It could be porn. It could be alcohol. It could be anything. It is what it is for everyone.

Identify the exact reason why you drink.

You stand no chance of kicking the habit until you find out exactly why you drink. Though the pain is there, discovering it would be challenging because whatever you’re depending on won’t let you see clearly. Substances can cloud the mind and stop you from thinking clearly.

Chris Prentiss in his book, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure, writes that “At the bottom of every person’s dependency, there is always a pain, Discovering the pain and healing it is an essential step in ending dependency.”

I didn’t know when I developed a strong likeness for booze. And while I was into it, I never for once bothered to ponder why my alcohol usage changed from occasional to frequent.

“You have to be sensitive to people and where they find themselves at the moment. Be sensitive to people who are not like you.” — Jim Rohn

Being sensitive to other people’s conditions can help you reconnect with life. When you spend time with people that are going through a difficult time like addicts, the less privileged, and the sick, you would appreciate the opportunity you have to keep yourself in good health. You become more sensitive about yourself and others.

Visiting a sick friend at the hospital was what stirred up some critical thoughts and questions that helped me to begin to work on myself. It engendered me to ask myself questions that urged me to seek answers that would help me change my unhealthy lifestyle.

I believe it was the sight of my friend’s frail and shrunk body — and the empty stare in his eyes and in the eyes of other sick people in his ward that jolted me back to reality.

During the ride back home, I began to mull over my life. It dawned on me that I have been living strangely and recklessly for months. Drinking and watching lots of tv programs.

My journal lay on my bedside table as I sauntered into my room. It’s where I put down my feelings, my thoughts, and every of my daily experience each day.

But I have never bothered to read the content. All I did each day was to deposit my daily experiences in my journal, toss it aside, and move on with my life.

However, on this very day, there was this sense of urgency to read every content in my journal. Quickly I picked it up and began to peruse the content gently and passionately.

It didn’t take long to be done with it. I dropped it on my desk and moved to the edge of my bed to sit. But I couldn’t sit. I returned to my desk turning my neck from one side to the other as I brood over my life.

Reading my journal was an eye-opener.

I have been using alcohol to temporarily transport myself to an unreal world where everything seems alright. I clutched the bottle tightly and drank along because I was enjoying the cover it was providing for me.

Reading my journal helped me to retrace the steps I took in the past. To resuscitate some feelings and bring back some unpleasant memories.

It uncovered everything that I unsuccessfully tried to use alcohol to bury. The Pains and losses that I thought were benign were what pushed me to the bottle. I have been using alcohol to shield myself from the reality I wasn’t ready to accept.

Identifying the root cause of my dependency on alcohol left me feeling restless. Maybe I could’ve managed my pains in a much better way if I had accepted the pains initially.

Denial was what drove me to the bottle. It was why I had booze stuffed in my home. It was why I got closer to friends that frequent the bar. Denial denied me the chance of taking the right path. Denial drove me into a path that seems smooth but was very rough and thorny.

Acceptance comes before recovery.

“Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change it.” — Jamie Lee Curtis.

When my losses hit me in the face. I thought it wasn’t going to affect my mental health. I thought it was manageable. But I was wrong for it had an immediate impact on my mental health. An impact that engendered me to begin to use alcohol to numb the pain.

Acceptance was where I found the strength that helped me to step onto the ladder of healing and begin the slow climb to full recovery. It was like I have been lifted and dusted from the dump. I began to feel better and mentally revitalized after acknowledging and accepting what I’ve unsuccessfully tried to run away from. I felt somewhat restored and ready to Journey on the right path.

Begin the journey to recovery.

The trauma or the pain might be something you considered to be benign. But the truth is that trauma is trauma — and pain is pain. And a loss is a loss. None is benign. None is gentle to our emotional well-being. They can impact our mental health in ways we can’t imagine.

A seemingly benign loss can quickly drive you into an unhealthy habit. All of a sudden you begin to draw closer to a new lifestyle, but once you pause, reflect on how you got to where you are, probably after having an honest chat with the right person who can expertly guide you to identify your pain, you’d begin to see the origin of your pain.

Your Journey to recovery would then commence. The journey starts once you stop trying to run away from yourself. Once you decide to accept your pain and feel it. Only then would recovery commence.

Takeaway

If you can determine exactly why you drink, then you’d know whether it’s worth it to make the effort to quit or to continue to drink. Finding out exactly why you drink is when you’ll begin to fight to stop. That’s also when you stand a better chance of nipping the habit in the bud.

But if you can’t identify why you’re friends with the bottle, then you might find yourself on a long ride with alcohol.

Realizing why you drink is the key that would unlock many doors.

It would cause you to let the hollow be. You will drop the spade and stop digging it. You’d begin to make a deliberate and consistent effort to step out from the dumps without using any fleeting soothing.

You’d rediscover hope. You’d realize that even the tiniest hope is hope. And that hope is reassuring and strong enough to keep you going. This awareness and energy will push you to go seek the right way to heal.

You’d gradually begin to untie yourself from the clutches of dependency. You begin to look out for people to give you a helping hand. For no one can leap out of a deep hollow unaided.

The hollow would then begin to shrink.

You can neither fill it nor bring yourself out of it because every substance that goes into your body is armed with a spade to dig the hollow deeper and wider.

You have nothing that can fill the vacuum. It’s beyond you to fight and win the battle alone, but it’s within your power to stop yourself from destroying yourself.

Gradually you begin to mount the ladder of healing. You begin to take aided steps that’ll gently remove you from the pit. And as you climb on, some rays of sunshine will appear in your life. It’d illuminate the dark alley in your mind and help you attain full recovery.

Conclusion

We cling to substances because it gives us a fleeting soothing that helps us bind emotional wounds that are yet to heal. We try to use it to fill the vacuum created by various problems in our lives. But the more we cling to a substance, the worse the situation becomes.

The urge to drink won’t die, but it’d lose its strength if you begin to and continue to reject it by taking responsibility for your life and fighting to remain firm with your resolve to stay sober.

Even if you fail and revert to alcohol, you get back on track and keep moving.

Don’t punish yourself. Don’t judge yourself. Just keep going.

I don’t use any substance to shield myself from life like I once did. Pain of any kind is part of life. They’re the uncomfortable realities of life that I now acknowledge and accept.

I don’t pretend they aren’t there or try to run away from them like I once did and got myself ensnared with the bottle. Rather I face it and see it through.

My journey to full recovery isn’t devoid of tricky ring roads and road bumps that forced me to many unwilling halts. I fought hard until I freed myself from the grips of alcohol. I have been sober for more than two years.

I achieved this by consistently doing things that starve the urge to depend on a substance. And that’s staying busy with the right activities and maintaining a close relationship with the right individuals.

Being connected with the right people is overly important for everyone because in the absence of a quality connection there would be a vacuum. And you’d find yourself lonely and may start reaching out for a substance to help you feel the vacuum.

You keep connecting with the right people. The right connection helps us to enrich our lives. It’s how we give ourselves the warmth we need. It’s how we refill our lives with the right energy needed to keep going.

Johan Hari in his Ted talk, Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong concluded with the quote:

“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”