Do I have a problem? No, I have many.
Some friends have noted that my commentary on this adventure
creates an image that I did actually have a drinking problem. That in itself is
quite a confronting notion because I never thought of myself as having ‘a
problem’. Sure, I admit that I was partying a lot and in not wanting the fun to
stop, I had some issues cutting myself off from the bar. Perhaps I celebrated
the birth of Jesus last Christmas a little more than you would expect from a
non-practising Catholic, but so was everyone else. Right?
I searched for answers, keen to find out what constitutes a
drinking problem and was surprised to find a few very broad statements that I
seem to fit into.
-
Yes, I was a little lax when it came to controlling my
drinking limits
-
Yes, I suffered nausea, vomiting and headaches at times
-
Yes, I may have been verbally abusive when some twat
shook my feathers
-
Yes, I didn’t get much work done some days after rolling
into bed at 5am
-
Yes, I ended up with some credit card debt because I
replaced budgeting with shouting rounds on my credit card
-
Yes, there may have been an occasion when a family
member noted that I should cut back
I’m a
little shocked because I saw myself as more of a good time gal than a raging
drunk. Although, having said that, I was obviously feeling like things were
getting a tad out of control at the end of last year otherwise I would not have
forced myself into abstaining for 100 days. The most shocking part of this is that I think
a lot of people would also agree with many of these statements. According to
the powers that be, you only need to answer yes to three before you should
probably start re-thinking your drinking habits. From this, I can only deduce
that there is an extremely fine line between having alcohol play a cameo as
opposed to a starring role in this play called ‘Life’.
Many
years ago I sat in the garden of Northside
Clinic as a visitor, talking to all sorts of
people who had issues related to alcohol. A striking observation was that
alcoholics come in all shapes and sizes.
There was no particular ‘look’ or socioeconomic background. They were
sons, husbands, mothers and fathers. They were young and they were old. One
thing they had in common however was that a small habit had snowballed into an
uncontrollable desire that was affecting their ability to function. Its
understandable how one of the first steps of AA is simply to admit you have a
problem. Drinking is so entrenched in our Anglo-Saxon culture that the deeper I
delve into this Odyssey the more I think we ALL have a problem. Maybe we are
all just treading on a tight rope, sometimes we fall off and then we jump back
on. Others don’t have the strength to pull themselves up alone.
Do I
have a problem? Yes, I have many. Alcohol is not one of them.
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