My Last Day of Drinking

I am an alcoholic, even though I do not live under a bridge or have I lost my wife and family or my house or business - yet. Approaching my 36th birthday, I spent some time reflecting on where I was at and where I was heading in life.

To be totally honest, when I was drunk, everything was fine. But as happened every night, when I woke at 2am with a headache and full bladder, I would be overcome with grief and depression and feel almost suicidal that I was so weak to have let myself become alcoholic. I knew it had to end.

And not just stop for a couple of days or make a pathetic announcement that I would stop and then slowly build up my drinking over time until it was chronic again. Or tell everyone some story that I was exhausted and try and make excuses about it.

I made the decision and accepted that the bald, blunt reality is that I cannot control my drinking, and that it is a hopeless and shameful battle for me to think I can have a few drinks every now and then and be functioning. I admit that I think about getting alcohol everyday and plan my business and career around it.

I have been drinking alcohol to excess for more than a decade as a means to cope with whatever life events I was facing and even when there was nothing really doing, I would drink, cause i would be anxious that I would get anxious without it. So I drank also out of fear of not drinking and being sober at night before I fell asleep.

Yeah, so it was pretty fucked. So, being the completely hopeless alcoholic, on my birthday I committed to myself I would stop alcohol altogether in 100 DAYS! Yippee! I was doing something about it! I had made a commitment and admitted I had a problem.

So anyway, I gave myself carte blanche after that to drink myself basically to death. I drank dozens and dozens of bottles of wine, hot bottles of champagne in tumblers with ice, drinking tall bottles of beer in the car whilst my wife drive around town. The complete fucking rockstar alcoholic except I was not a rockstar. Just an alcoholic.

And I felt sad and depressed and life lost meaning and I was indulgent and lazy and moody and either drinking or asleep, sprinkled with some work in between.

And then on the last weekend, I really tried hard on the Saturday night and drank the house dry. Next thing, it is Sunday, the last day. And I see myself in the wardrobe mirror kneeling by the side of our bed, (so my wife wouldn't see) and glugging down Japanese Rice Wine. 18%, watery hard to say what it tastes like, salty rice juice?

And then I knew it was rock bottom.