I Don't Like Me...But I'm All I Ever Think About!

That first drink came in the summer of 1979. It was 30 years ago but it seems like yesterday. Whoever said that time goes by faster the older you get was definitely on to something. I didn't drink for another 2 years after that because it sickened me so. But I knew I would again. It was a feeling as deeply rooted as knowing I would wake up the next day. I would learn to "handle my liquor like a man." But liquor handled me.

There are things about my addictive mind that baffle me and I know I will never understand. If you went to a Chinese restaurant and got sick you would stay away from the place for a while or maybe never return again. If you did choose to go back and got sick again that would be all she wrote! You would never go again. When I was little I had a babysitter who made me eat tuna fish and mayonnaise every day after school because she subscribed to the "eat what there is or eat nothing at all" approach to kids. I can not stand tuna or mayonnaise and would gag as I ate it. But I was starving after school and that was my only choice. When my mom found a new sitter I never ate it again. To this day when my wife makes tuna salad I get a little queasy.

The strange paradox with booze and drugs, as I would later find out, is that when it makes you sick you go back for more. Every time I drank I would get violently ill for the first few years. I figured I'd get used to it. I knew it was an "acquired taste." Coffee for me was an acquired taste and I love it but when I first started drinking it I didn't hurl all over myself and everywhere around me. My body was telling me right from the start that the sauce was poison to me. That little voice inside me showed up in my stomach and then onto the floor.

There is a lot of debate as to whether alcoholism is hereditary or socially imprinted on us. I believe both are true and how you get something isn't as important as how you respond to it once you know you have it. There were drinkers in my family, both hard drinkers and non-drinkers. But not one of them ever poured a drink down my throat. I always did it myself. A boss never did it. A girlfriend or wife never did it. No one ever put alcohol and drugs into me except me.

I have also heard people say that they were alcoholic long before they picked up their first drink. That statement confounded me for awhile but I embrace it now. As far as I am concerned I had alcoholic tendencies before that summer in '79. The first thing I knew was that I didn't like myself very much but I was all I ever thought about. I thought the world revolved around me and when it didn't it should have. If I was happy then everyone should be happy. If I was sad then everyone should be sad.

I thought I was one of a kind. I was either above you or below you. I never met someone and thought to myself that they were just like me. If I walked into a room full of strangers and they halted their conversation as I strolled by, I was certain they were talking about me and definitely didn't like me. I tried to fit in with every group but isolated whenever possible. The sad part was that I hated being alone but found comfort in not being with the crowd.

I hung out with the jocks because I played baseball and basketball. I hung out with the stoners because they liked rock-n-roll and punk. I hung out with the geeks because I felt they were misunderstood. I hung out with all the cliques but was never in any of them. It was easier to make a guest appearance in one and move into the next before they got too close. I was not about to share my true feelings to them and let them see the real me. I didn't know who or what the real me was and I was going to figure it out on my own. A need to figure things out on my own kept me "out there", drinking and using for a lot more time than need be. My alcoholic mind has the strange notion that asking for help is a sign of weakness or stupidity. If I let the world know I didn't understand something they would tell me what was wrong with me. I didn't need any help beating me up. I did it constantly for years and sometimes I still do.