There was time when I thought a trip to a tropical destination, or any destination for that matter, was simply incomplete without rum drinks, and if that wasn’t a possibility, vodka or gin would do. Airplane travel, sitting on a white beach by the surf, guided excursions, vacation dinners, lunches, some breakfasts … all included alcohol. I’d even start drinking while packing for a trip in the excitement of it all. I’d usually start the journey with a killer hangover and a disgruntled family, but I’d jump back in the booze saddle pretty darn quickly. I knew the equation for fun and it included booze, the higher the alcohol content the better.
So the fact that I am took a trip to Belize last summer completely comfortable with not drinking, and enjoyed (most) every last non- alcoholic sip is nothing short of miraculous.
This blog may sound like a memoir of a party- girl turned grateful sober person, and it is, but so much more. This may sound like an entitled white lady’s first world problem, and it is, and so much more. This is a story about the dark, sad existence beyond the end of a bottle. It’s a heartbreaking and truthful look at what the warning label on a bottle of mango flavored Stoli's should tell, you but doesn’t. Does a bottle of Stoli's even have a warning label?
Turn the calendar pages back four years to another trip to Belize and one of many relapses that are trail markers along my journey. I went to Belize that time sober, and remained so for most of the vacation. Until I secretly imbibed in a drink, okay three, at the pool bar of the resort next to mine. I couldn’t allow my family to see me drink. I had put my husband and three kids through a lot earlier that year. They had done life without me while I did 45 days in an inpatient rehab center two hours from our home. I missed two of my kids' Birthdays while there. They were turning 8 and 12. This stint in treatment, which would be the first of three, was preceded by months of heavy drinking. The precipitating event however was the insistence of my boss, to do this treatment in order to keep my job.
I wish I could say that this was a wise suggestion made for the sake of my health, however it was direly needed after I had been escorted from work by a police officer after returning from lunch three sheets to the wind and thinking no one would notice; not my co- workers, not my seventh grade students, not my own two boys who were students at that school. Needless to say, they noticed.
Who does that kind of shit? Who then puts it in writing for anyone to see? How does a person regroup after such a self- imposed shit show?
Who considers drinking on a family vacation after such a debacle?
An alcoholic. A person with a biological, social & psychological enmeshment with a substance. An addict.
So, that moment four years ago, while pool bar side, I came around to realizing that I had done a lot of hard work in the past three months and deserved a drink, that the rules that applied at home did not in a foreign country, and that no one would ever have to know if it was just one teeny, weeny little drink. Although that one was kind of watered down so I had to get a couple more while I was at it. I drank on vacation with 75 days sober. Then I didn’t. For the next week.
After returning home I resumed some days without drinking and rewarded my good work with a drink or two the next day. That soon turned into small bottles, mind you small pint sized bottles, not mini shooters, and I was back to blackout slurring me within two months of leaving rehab.
What the hell? Did rehab not work? Was I a really shitty person? Was I too severe of an alcoholic for anything to work? This was a hard time for me … and my loved ones.
However; hope alive, I did recover. I healed and continue to heal. I learned and continue to learn, listened and continue to listen. I accepted that I was one person amongst a collection people- billions of them- on one beautiful, fragile, finite planet with teeming with vibrant life. I learned to live life on life’s terms, which is an attitude I can gratefully practice while in a hammock on the beach, and most anywhere. Life is good. Better than good. It’s awesome in a very real and tangible way.
If I can heal then so can you.
Was my last tropical trip a wonderful, joyous post card- worthy vacation? Well, no, this is real life. It was, all in all, wonderful. I did not drink. My children, whom I could have lost or driven away at one point in time, were with me. They can still drive me nuts. The country and area we were in was beautiful and the locals there so incredibly nice. Part of their tourist economy-based job is to offer alcohol at just about any chance they get. My protection of my hard- won sobriety was in place, and it took a lot of energy. I was, more than I am regularly at home, reminded of the relationship I had with alcohol at one point in time. It was like driving past the home of a close friend who had died. I am aware that friend will never come back. Yet, there is a recognition of a loss I have experienced.
For an alcoholic, drinking is less about the physical calming effect the drug has, although it is about that too; it is about being an emotional crutch that helps one do life. Until it doesn't.
Why would I share this with any and everyone out there? It’s certainly not a fame & glory kind of story. My war stories usually end with me in sad utter defeat with unexplained bruises and a lost cell phone or wallet. These aren’t things that I revel in remembering. I share this because although the details may be different, the disease is the same. I write these for the alcoholic who still suffers. If one person, stuck in a lonely isolated world of addiction feels hope from these words, then they have served their purpose.
Take some & pass it around.
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