Monday, October 27, 2014

This is my story

I got drunk for the first time in the summer heading into my freshman year in high school. I was on the only family vacation I ever had and we were in Newport Beach, California or "Balboa". My relatives were part of a large food supply company and the bosses hosted us in the tiniest restaurant I had ever seen and our table pretty much filled the whole space. I kept getting poured wine and I kept drinking it. After the second glass it felt like my eyeballs were moving back in for in tiny quick motions and I felt warm and free. I got up and went to the bathroom to look at my eyeballs in the mirror. I stared at my face but I did not see my eyes moving , even though they gave me a swimmy feeling. After dinner we walked the streets of the island and it was liking seeing for the first time. Shop windows with lighted displays illuminating pricey fancy things was a dazzling sight.

I did not know it at the time, but the detonation button had been activated for me. Like the countdown clock on the TV show "24", my days had been numbered and my time was running out. So what began in the fanciest, loveliest place I'd ever seen, a place I'd only seen something like on TV, my alcoholism was activated. The year was 1982.

I was set up by genetics , soaked in environmental triggers, but when I felt the effects of those closes of purple colored wine, the disease was activated. There was no turning it off , no going back. The lines of dominoes had started falling and it was going to be a race to the finish. I became alcoholic. I was activated.

On my own i didn't have a single coping skill for life. The warm glow from the inside of me out and the euphoria that alcohol caused, honestly let me feel like for the first time in my life, everything was ok. When you have spent your life, even if it was just the first fourteen years of it on "high alert" the moment you get to relax and break is a profound moment. Even if it was chemically induced, I found relief.