London Bridge Is

I’d like to begin this morning by apologizing for the haphazard nature of my timeline sometimes.  Remember, I already made the disclaimer about letting inspiration lead me, and that’s likely been apparent.  I find that as I’m writing during these morning hours, I end up fleshing out certain parts of my past, because I believe that others can relate.  

And if it helps anyone relate to their own feelings, move past them, and identify behaviors, then I’m happy to contribute to that in any way that I can.  

I don’t think my experience is unique.  I just think that my willingness to write about it, and the drive to do so, may set me apart a bit.  It may be that I need to organize these posts differently later in some way.  Because I seem to keep going back a little further each time that I delve into the past behavior.  

The following writing is longer than what I’ve put forth today.  Lord, it’s just too much for one sitting.  Even for myself.  I truly don’t like to end on a sad note, so likely I’ll write a little side note when I decide to stop for the day.  Sometimes we need to do this.  Leave the difficult matters awhile and come back to them later.  I may see it even clearer and explain it even better.  This is also when I wish I was more educated and well-spoken in psychology…and sociology, because this disorder is not endured alone.  The intricacies of behavior and their affect on others is a crucial part of addiction.  I am fully aware of this, but I can only speak of my own personal experience.

Mostly, I try to look for turning points in the progression of the disorder, triggers that relate to my behavior, and life events that surrounded more troubling times.  Alcohol was always my answer to fear and pain but understanding my behavior has been crucial for me.  Because I see moments when I could have gone another way, sometimes easily, and mostly if I had just reached out.  I always had choice, and many times I didn’t recognize this to be the case.

So let’s go back a little further...to the years before divorce.  In Unpack the Baggage, I talk about the last five years, when I was already divorced and drinking again, but the years leading up to this behavior were significant in progression, and also because the time period carried a substantial period of sobriety-ishness.  I say I was sober “ish” for about seven months, because that period was punctuated by a few isolated nights of drinking that didn’t continue but were still significant.  Honestly, I truly wish I had accurate figures regarding the timing of it all, because I’ve spent more than a little time trying to unpack memories and better understand what is different this time.  What is different about this current attempt in sobriety?  There’s a lot to that question.  And a lot to the answers.

Alcohol isn’t really the focus of this investigation, so I don’t really look at it anymore.  And after many months of abstinence, it’s much easier to see it all objectively.  Instead I look at myself, and how I react and reactED to certain events.  And in this inspection, I find what fuels me.  Triggers, you might say.  And I recognize the growing ability to withstand discomfort, and transcend it into courage. Remember, it’s not about the bottle, it’s about behavior, which always leads back to self. 

I consider it an intentional game of dot to dot….connecting the threads of my behavior that all got me here.  To this moment. 

There were several jumping off points in my drinking that I can identify.  Certain time periods when I began to drink differently.  The first of which came when I went through a period of adjustment after moving with my family to London seven years ago.  

London:

Up until then, I had been a stay-at-home mom who took care of a large household, had wine and dinner with other moms (yes, more alone later), and drove through life without much worry in my stroller-totin,’ big-ass SUV with snacks stashed in every crevice.  I say period of adjustment, as if the adjustment ever happened.  It did not.  I’d say to others, “yes, we’re adjusting.”  But the sentence really ended with a dot, dot, dot.  It was never. Over.  For almost two years.  For me, personally, it was an unwelcomed incarceration in a variety of circumstances that felt like imprisonment.  And I drank right through that uncertainty and pain.  I felt alone and afraid in this new country, with nowhere to roam, and gloomy skies that cried every day.  It’s easy to see now that I was surely depressed and should have been seeking treatment, but I had never felt like that before, nor had I ever taken any kind of medication for such matters.  

These two years shaped two distinct things: what would happen in my disorder and what would happen in my marriage.  Both were riddled with disease.

Sure, I’d feel different about the adventure today, but circumstances were different then, and I was different then.  The kids were much younger, I completely underestimated the importance of a support system, and my hope that “maybe it will be okay” was not only naive, but just stupid as well.  There were signs beforehand that it was a bad decision, but I didn’t listen to these inner whispers.  In truth, I thought they were just fear, and that I could and should push them aside for more appropriate feelings like excitement and anticipation….and I went into full-throttle planning and preparation mode, so I really didn’t have the time to notice much around me.

It was difficult from the very beginning.  Homesickness was real for not just me, but the kids as well.  Children cried in corners.  Husbands traveled.  Clothes driers didn’t dry.  Grocery stores didn’t have bacon.  Daughters got bullied.  Rain fell everyday.  I had to thoughtfully plan out when I could call my friends in the states, and I soon began to edit what I told them about what was happening.  No one wanted to hear it, and I knew that.  I could even hear my husband at the time on the phone with others, telling them what an amazing experience it was for everyone. 

“Who was he even talking to?” I’d think.  "And what vacation was HE on?"  I wanted to go THERE.

I remember thinking that I should just stand in the middle of my den and hold out my arms in a crucifixion stance, because maybe the walls of our dwelling that I could almost touch, would stop closing in on me.  It was the first time that I didn’t have a car, or drive my kids to various activities, and I took this as an opportunity to cross yet another barrier that I never had before.  To drink alone while my kids were awake.  Or to pour a drink before taking them to the park.  When I think about it, it all really makes sense to me.  Well, to a drinker anyway.  I was terribly depressed, without my usual support system of friends and family, my partner traveled for work, I never had to drive, and I was alone in a gray and damp land with young children.  And I was primed for that different kind of drinking…riskier drinking where motor vehicles weren’t a threat, unless I drunkenly wandered into traffic, which was unlikely. Drinking that was even more convenient, because I could find not only wine, but hard liquor at the corner store a few steps away.  Remember.  I'm from Texas, and we ain't got hard liquor at the 7-11.  So, I would be remiss to think that never operating a motor vehicle and having alcohol even more readily available, didn’t urge me forward in my drinking.  On some unconscious level, this was opportunity knocking.  I had already received the invitation into alcoholic drinking, but now it seemed to be rapping on my door.  Daily.  And truth be told, I’ve never felt that lonely in my life, and I would have opened the door for just about anyone and anything.

This period was also categorized as my first daily drinking, where my happy hour first began at 9:00 pm, then 8:00 pm, then 7:00 pm…and so on.  Just a countdown to the inevitable, where I would eventually implode, and fall apart in every way. My partner at the time was on to me, in that he recognized my nightly drinking, and knew of my lack of control just a few months in, when I was alone with the kids.  And I would repeat this exercise, this getting unsightly drunk, every few months.  Regret and remorse would awaken me the following morning, I’d make a renewed effort to endure it all, remain abstinent for a few weeks, and wait patiently for the “come apart” evening to happen yet again.  And it always did.  Honestly, that two years was spent just trying to make it through each day, praying for the peace that I had hoped was available to me, but searched for in a bottle stashed deep within a drawer in my tiny closet.  

The last straw came when I was threatened again and forced to make a more prolonged effort to stop drinking.  And I did.  This was probably about a year and a half into our London dwelling.  And subsequently, we soon decided to move back to the states.  The kids were over the moon with the news!  And I had a renewed hope that it would all get better soon.  Perhaps naive again.  Also shortsighted, because I was only trying to be hopeful, at best.  At least it would be a new beginning, and the worst would be past us all. And if it wasn't new, at least it would be different.  I was clearly ill-prepared for all that I had learned in London, and I was ready to leave it all behind me.  My husband had stopped travelling, saying that he didn’t trust me, we started the extensive plans to return home, and I just tried to hold on awhile longer.  I’d fantasize about being back home, in my comfortable home, driving to baseball practice, sitting on the porch with friends, taking truly DRY clothes out of the drier, going to HEB, driving with the music cranked up.  All of it.

It would be wonderful if I told you that life got better, because I had stopped drinking at this point.  But it didn't.  I just didn't have a drug to medicate myself with.  Nothing about trust, fear, connection, or happiness changed at all while striving for sobriety in London. In fact, fear only got worse, because I was sober enough to be mindful of how bad everything in the marriage actually was.  Everything remained the same, and unfortunately, I could see it all clearly.

But maybe it would get better...if I could just hold on a little while longer.

It's hard to find an appropriate stopping point, but that’s enough for today, folks.  I guess it’s been a little bit of story-telling this morning.  But, the point of it all is really to say that for me, and possibly other drinkers, there were times when I was primed and ready for that next step, that next progression in the disorder.  I drank differently in London.  Even differently than I did once I picked it back up later in the states.  Surely depression was undiagnosed, and I believe this happens a lot, right?  Co-existing disorders where anyone who already uses a drug inappropriately, self-medicates during these periods.  But once you go there, can you ever go back?  I wondered that then.  And I still wonder it today.  If the circumstances would have been different, would I have made different choices in my efforts to maintain sobriety?  And what would have happened if I reached out for help sooner?

London was part of the snowball effect that occurred in my life at the time.  Just a gaining of momentum in the disorder itself, which had to do with my behavior, but also surrounding circumstances and the behavior of others.  To separate it all is impossible.

If you think that writing about these times is difficult, you would be correct.  But mainly because I want to be accurate with my depiction and stick to my side of the street.  And if you think that it brings up pain and a little anger, you'd only be partially correct.  Mainly, I'm left with gratitude.

That life is different now.

And that I am different now.