Looking Forward to a Tragedy

That's right, time for a little honesty out their my fellow alcoholics and addicts. I have been participating in some discussions with a few of my brethren in an effort to produce some anecdotes that would help explain the power of addictions to those not afflicted. One of these has already been the subject of a blog here (But I'm a Good Parent), and it generated a few spirited discussions at the meeting hall. The subject of this one will be just as painful to reflect on, but if we are to better explain addictions to others we must explore and revisit our past actions together in recovery.

I wanted bad things to happen. I wanted tragedy, death, and misery; if it didn't happen on its own, I would often cause it myself.

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As a practicing alcoholic, I always liked football games, parties, birthdays and weddings because they were always a good excuse to drink. I felt I fit in at events such as these where even normal people got soused. I could rest my weary head from the self condemnation for a while because I was in a place where drinking was expected, I was just doing the same.

Unfortunately, my devious alcoholic thinking went much further than this. If celebrations where everyone was drinking and acting a fool was good place for me to mask my behavior, then events where grief and pain were prevalent became the ideal. It’s really not hard to put two and two together here, we always give a pass to the behavior of those who are facing tragic life events and grief.

“His grandfather died, you know he really has taken it very hard. We haven’t seen him at work for days, I called to check on him the other day and it sounded like he could barely talk.” Yeah right. Maybe it was the third pint of Aristocrat instead of the grief that was making it difficult for me to speak.

I found myself hoping for bad things to happen. I know that sounds horrible, but I actually did fantasize about death in my own family. I made myself sick, I hurt myself, and I caused a many a calamity in order to justify a “righteous binge”. LOL- maybe righteous binge should be the title here.

I have spoke to people who have fought with their kids, argued with friends, arranged to get fired, divorced and even one who has shot himself “accidently”—sad but true. To make matters worse, the stress of knowing that in some cases we intentionally caused these events can increase the stress, guilt and depression exponentially during our lucid moments.

This one is painful to reflect on, but a very poignant example that can be used to explain an addiction to others, especially family members:

You want to know how strong the urge was for me to drink? Well I’ll tell you this, I fantasized about your death not because I wanted you to die, but because I wanted to have the excuse to disappear in another drunken binge.

Ouch. That hurts to think about.