Heroes

There are a lot of things about my time after I'd crossed the line from heavy drinker to person with Substance Use Disorder, but was still actively drinking, that I have sugar-coated or omitted on my website, in my blogs, and even in all but my most private conversations. Some of that is due to vanity (see the blog post, Pride and Ego) and some from wanting to spare my family putting too much of my gory details on the Interwebs (since I started this, I've feared my circumstances being used against my kids).

However, over time, I've realized that I have done some people who may need help a disservice, by omitting too much. A conversation I have had a number of times since I started as a recovery coach begins with someone telling me that they need to stop, should probably stop, have a problem, might have a problem, think they have a problem, etc., and then telling me I'm "a hero" for what I've done, and that they could never do it. I probably did some of them a disservice by not stopping them right there. Usually, this conversation happens in public, when the other party has been drinking, and I tell myself that it's not the right time. Maybe I've just been afraid.

So here's the truth. There are a lot of heroes in the story of my getting sober. I am not one of them. Not by a long shot. Why is this post titled, "Heroes," and the pic is of a guy with his head buried in the sand? Because that was me. Scared shitless, destroying everything, and doing nothing meaningful to stop the behavior that was ruining my life and the lives of those around me. I am definitely not a hero.

I have never denied, then or now, that I was always a heavy drinker, but I did not cross the line into Substance Use Disorder until I began using alcohol to self-medicate. If you've read my earlier posts, this will pull a lot of my story together, if you haven't . . . like I said, I was a heavy drinker. I started drinking in high school and never missed a party thereafter. Over the years, I drank hard stuff occasionally, but I was always more of a beer and wine guy, even to the end of my drinking. IPAs were my bag, the hoppier (and therefore stronger), the better.

In 2012, my mother, whose welfare I considered my inherited responsibility after my father's death (see the blog post, Arrogance (Pride and Ego, Part 2)), died suddenly, I was no longer happy in my work, but felt trapped in my job for a variety of circumstances, and I had to take on significant family responsibilities immediately following my mother's death. I started using alcohol to bury depression, stress, and guilt. It was "to take the edge off."

I'd say I spent about three years as the textbook definition of a "functional alcoholic" and then another three becoming steadily less functional. I'm sure there are more people who knew what was going on than I ever realized, but I also have had numerous people tell me since getting sober that they "never would have thought" I was an alcoholic. I explain that by telling them I was rarely hammered, but I was always drinking (some of you are probably nodding). For the most part, that really is the truth, but I guess that sounds pretty innocuous to some, and maybe I've been doing that on purpose, too. To be clear, it wasn't.

My days, once I'd crossed the line, were a progression from one drink to another, constantly worrying about where I was going to get my next one. I got to the point where I couldn't go six hours without a drink. But I kept telling myself that it was temporary, while I was going through things. I knew my drinking had become a problem, but I couldn't admit I had a problem, so I didn't try to stop drinking, and I didn't try to get help. Not once. Not for a minute.

When my company was downsizing in 2018 and there was a package on the table, I grabbed it. I would no longer be unhappy in my work, and I had a package that would last a while. I'd go home, get my head on straight, and figure out how to manage my drinking . . . but there was no managing my drinking. I was too far gone. But I could never admit that, and the concept of stopping altogether was absolute madness. I could never do that. So I didn't try.

Finally, in the summer of 2019, my wife had had it. If I didn't get help, I was out (way beyond fair). I had to go to rehab. I finally, and under serious duress, agreed to go get help. As I waited for my ride to the treatment center, I went into such severe withdrawal that they wouldn't take me. I had to be taken to the hospital immediately. When I got there, I was shaking so badly, someone else had to fill out the paperwork for me. I couldn't form letters. That was my first detox. I was there for four days.

When I got out, I began a program known as an intensive outpatient program (IOP), and it worked! I drank nothing for the next six or eight weeks, and it wasn't hard. In fact, it was so easy that I thought, "If it's this easy not to drink, then why can't I just drink normally? I must've just needed a break." In recovery circles, this is known as "I got this." What I didn't know at the time was that, if I took one drink, it would start the entire spiral over again.

So I took that drink. I remember the feeling when I had that first beer, clearly. It terrifies me. Instead of having "a beer," in 20 minutes, I'd had three double-IPAs, and, having not had a drink in six weeks or so, I was lit. But, still, I was going to figure it out. I got this.

There's a saying amongst folks like me, "One drink's too many, and a hundred isn't enough." True that. After six more months trying to control my drinking, and, instead, progressing right back to where I was, I was back in the hospital.

I'm still not going to go into all of the details of the night I got there. When I talk about "playing the tape forward" (see eponymous blog post) to remember where that one drink will lead, the events of that night are where my tape ends. Suffice it to say, I arrived at the hospital in the back of an ambulance, escorted by several police officers. I had done nothing illegal, I didn't hurt anybody, I wasn't hurt, and the police weren't angry or upset with me, but that is how I arrived at the hospital.

This time it took five days to detox me. When I got home from the hospital, my wife had done a thorough job of searching the house for my stash, and she found a lot . . ., but she hadn't found it all, and I knew this was it. I had to get sober now. She was trying to find me a rehab, so, to my diseased brain, it was my last chance to drink. I'd just spent five days in the hospital, heavily medicated and monitored, literally getting my system reset to where I could survive without alcohol, and the threat of never having it again was so disturbing to me, that, in less than 20 hours, I was drinking.

When my wife found me a bed at a treatment center later that day, they said I had to go right away. I didn't expect that, and I knew they wouldn't let me in if I'd been drinking. The drive was a couple of hours. Certainly, that would be long enough to get the alcohol out of my system.

They gave me a breathalyzer when I got there. It wasn't. I failed. Off to another hospital, where I got to spend a cold, bright, noisy night on a bed in a hallway next to a nurses' station. In the morning a driver from the treatment center picked me up and took me to rehab -- no stops! Do not pass GO, do not collect $200, because, if you let me out of your sight, it was quite likely I was going to find a drink.

That's how I got into recovery.

The whole point of Chappy's Blog is to help people. Publishing this, while not easy, felt like something I had to do. So, here I am, full Monty (OK, maybe I left the banana hammock). I hope you still like me, but, if the story above describes to you a guy who made some heroic decision, you need to read it again. I DID NOTHING TO GET MYSELF SOBER. I was a terrified child, a guy with his head buried in the sand.

You need to understand that getting sober DOES NOT REQUIRE some heroic moment of drawing a line in the sand. If there was a line, I got dragged across it, kicking and screaming like a five-year-old. If you have told me you need to stop, should probably stop, have a problem, might have a problem, think you have a problem, etc., YOU ARE ALREADY MORE HEROIC than I ever was! You talked to me! You did SOMETHING for yourself and your family! That's more than I ever did.

I am proud of the fact that I have not had a drink since leaving treatment, and I am proud of the work I do as a coach, helping people get into and stay in recovery. But, I am in no way, shape, or form a hero. I was saved by heroes, and there was no bigger hero than my wife, hands down. She saved my life and saved our family from me.

If you're one of the heroes who started the conversation with me, then I hope you'll reach back out. THAT is heroic. If there's someone you think might need to get dragged across that line kicking and screaming like I did, and you send them this, you're a hero. If you want help getting them across that line, and you're willing to give a call or send an email? Still a hero. Give a shout. I'm back and I'm here to help.

It doesn't matter how you start getting better. It's about what you do when you are better, and what you stop doing, like hurting the people you love.

-Chappy