Liquor Store Games

My favorite liquor store is just up the street. I can buy 3 bottles of decent red table wine for 13 bux. It's a ridiculous deal. Some of the brands go for $10 a bottle in other stores. Don't ask me how they can offer this deal. Anyway, this is the preferred store, for obvious reasons.

However, after a while, whether the guy behind the desk is passing judgment or not, I would get a little paranoid. I walked in every few days and left with enough wine to last an average two-person household more than a week - only to march right back a few days later. So, I would spread it around. There's the place near the grocery store, then there's the other place near the grocery store, there's the place a mile down the boulevard and the place a little further down than that. You get to know all the people who work at all the stores. But you secretly hope that they don't remember you.

Then, you have to do the whole "keeping track of when each store closes on Sunday" thing. In a nearby state (one that I work in on Sundays), the liquor stores close at 8PM. The liquor stores close at 6PM in my state, so I need to remember to buy my booze before I leave the state I am working in for the day so I have something to drink that night.

Because, let me tell you, there is nothing worse than realizing you didn't plan well and you have nothing to drink for an entire evening. You have to go to plan B: Eat out and order several drinks at dinner. There isn't much of an alternative.

You see how tiring this game is?

Different Expressions of Alcoholism

I've been doing some reading about Moderation Management vs Alcoholics Anonymous. In MM, they try to rehabilitate you, retrain your Booze Brain to go back to that time when you could have a drink, enjoy it and stop at that. In AA, they tell you that you're dreaming if you think you can stop at that, but, okay, go ahead and give it a try. You'll be back.

I have committed to stopping for 30 days (yesterday was my first full day without). MM mandates that you do and AA says that it needs to be forever, so I figure the 30 days is a given, anyway. I will evaluate how I feel at the end of that time and sort of decide which road I want to take.

There is a part of me that is desperate to believe that I can go back to the old days. After all, I am not the kind of drinker that needs to get up in the morning and drink, then continue to drink all day just to make it through. I have learned, though, that there is no "one size fits all" type of drinker. I am a highly functioning drinker. Most people have no idea how much booze I consume on a daily basis. But I never drink before 5PM and I usually stop after 3-4 drinks. (An aside: If you are not a drinker, then 3-4 drinks sounds like A LOT of alcohol, especially for a woman. If you are an addict, that isn't really much, trust me.) I wake up everyday with a dry mouth, but I get on my running shoes and exercise for an hour, eat healthy all day and by the time 5PM rolls around, Booze Brain says, You deserve a break today!

In AA, they say that only you can determine if you are an alcoholic. What I think separates problem drinkers from alcoholics is craving. A problem drinker can go out and binge a bunch of times, but then spend 2 weeks "drying out," not really thinking much about it until the next party. Problem drinkers get plastered. Alcoholics might not necessarily get drunk, but they can't stop drinking, even when they really, really want to. The magnetic pull of the liquor store is too strong. Usually, an alcoholic has a tremendous level of tolerance and can surpass a problem drinker in terms of quantity and speed, anyway. It's the dependence that separates the two. At least, that is what I have surmised after reading a lot about it.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what kind of drinker you are. If you don't have a healthy relationship with alcohol, then you really need to do something about it. When you are ready, of course.

Booze Brain

I read this really helpful article on how one might stop drinking without going to AA. I love how the writer suggests that you separate your brain in two. One is your normal, human brain. The other is your booze brain. Your booze brain, the writer explains, is wired to survive. And since you have been physically or physiologically (or both) dependent on alcohol for so long, Booze Brain thinks you need it to survive. Booze Brain is sneaky. Sometimes, BB tells you straight out that you need a drink. Other times, BB sings a soft song about drinking while you are going about your day, promising a relaxing time on the couch and a good night's sleep. If Human Brain tries to suggest a night without drinking, BB goes into bargaining mode. Just one, BB says.

My Booze Brain looks and sounds like Audrey Hepburn. So innocent, so sophisticated. If I decide I want to dry out for a while, Booze Brain makes clever associations to try and tempt me. How about you go to Whole Foods, buy some fancy cheese, gourmet chocolate, French bread and a fine bottle of wine? None of it would get me to the store without the promise of a fine bottle of wine. But, BB knows that in order to get me on board, it needs to bring the other things into the fold.

I drink every day. Got to have my 3-4 glasses of wine. Sometimes, I am really pooped out and all I want to do is get home, but Booze Brain demands that I take a left into the parking lot of the liquor store. I feel like a robot being programmed. Swinging open the doors, taking in the intoxicating liquor store smell and marching over to my favorites. More on Liquor Stores later. That's a whole blog post unto itself. The point is, BB is a mighty force. Non-addicted people do not understand, and they never will because their brain chemistry doesn't work like mine. I've never done cocaine, heroin or any other horrible drug, but I certainly understand the power of addiction. You might watch a show about an addict who chooses junk over her children and think, How? Well, I know how. They've got Junk Brains.

When Human Brain says: Geez, what are the neighbors going to think about all of the wine bottles in the recycling bin?
Booze Brain responds: Throw some of them into the trash and hide a bunch of them at the bottom of the bin.

When Human Brain says: Maybe I won't drink tonight.
Booze Brain responds: Sure you will, silly! Start your quit tomorrow.

When Human Brain says: My health is going to fail.
Booze Brain responds: There are people who drink more and harder than you. What's the matter with a little red wine? It's got health benefits, you know. By European standards, you are quite normal, dear.

Basically, my British sounding Booze Brain has an answer for everything.

My name is Jane Doe and I'm an alcoholic.

Well, maybe. Okay, I probably am.

Let me first say that I will never divulge my real name. It isn't relevant anyway. What matters is that I am beginning a new and sober chapter of my life.

It feels so strange to type that. Writing the words sober and alcoholic and thinking that they have any attachment to me. But, I am really not surprised that it has come to this. Here is a little history (I will probably explore much of this in great detail over the course of time):

• I am 40 years old and I have been drinking a bottle of wine (give or take) a day for 10 years. 
• I used to have a nicotine addiction, but I quit 5 years ago for good.
• My father was an alcoholic, had a 2-pack a day nicotine addiction and was a regular pot smoker.
• Two of my uncles are alcoholics.
• My mother was a binge drinker for several years.

It's somewhat ironic that I started drinking. I was president of Students Against Drunk Driving in high school and I was about as square as they come. My first memories of drinking are unpleasant.

• At 5, my father gave me a shot of brandy before walking to school in sub-zero temperatures. I was a buzzed kindergartner a couple of times.
• Also at 5, I curiously drank from an unattended glass of booze at one of my parents' parties. I later threw up all over the bathroom floor.
• At 10, I took a sip of beer from a can my father had abandoned in our garage. I swallowed about a teaspoon of cigarette ash at the same time and nearly gagged. 
• After high school graduation, a friend's mom bought a celebratory case of cheap beer for us. I drank a few and got horribly ill. 
• The first weekend of freshman year in college, I attended a frat party and drank loads of punch with vodka, then did shots of tequila. I was hungover for my first day of classes. 

I started drinking more regularly in college, but not more than my friends. In fact, I probably drank less than most college students. My tolerance was low, so I would get blitzed at a party after 1 or 2 cocktails.  Back then, smoking cigarettes was way more important. My best friend and I worked ourselves up to a half a pack a day by the summer of sophomore year.

My twenties were spent drinking moderately. And smoking lots and lots of butts. I never drank alone. Ever. I assumed that was a sign of a person with a real problem. I would stop after one drink, with the exception of Saturday nights, when I would have 3 beers at my favorite nightclub then dance and sweat each one of them out before the night was over. I did not crave alcohol. I never really thought about when I would have my next drink. I was too busy chain-smoking to care.

Quitting smoking is something I am sure I could win a prize for. My friend and I used to laugh at those Let's Make Smoking History bumper stickers. We wanted to add the tag line: Smoke Like You've Never Smoked Before! However, I did quit many, many times without much success. I once quit for a day only to be weakened by watching Peg Bundy light one up on an episode of Married with Children. I had a few quits that lasted up to a year. While I wasn't smoking, I was missing it a whole lot. It wasn't until I was totally and completely sick to death of it that I was ready to stop for good. I figured that I didn't have the willpower to do it on my own, so I decided to do it for my father, who, at that time, had been dead for almost 7 years. I gift wrapped my little quit and gave it to him that day. And it was as if a switch went off in my brain. Suddenly, my hardcore smoking addiction that had a serious stronghold on me drifted away. Peacefully. I still can't explain it.

I came to realize that I was the type of smoker who could either have no cigarettes or 10, 000 cigarettes. There was no in between. What I didn't want to admit then was that I am that kind of drinker, too. No fucking brainer, right? Denial is a kooky thing.