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7:58 a.m. - 2016-03-20
Half measures
Jesus H. Cripes. I have turned into someone who writes about kids, the therapist, the plumbing on occasion ... and work. Sad.

I have been drinking. I don't mean right now but -- I was sober for almost 8 years. And then I fell off the wagon. Or maybe I should say "jumped" off the wagon. I decided to do things my way. I can drink, right? I am a sensible person. I am not depressed like I was a rip-roaring drunk. I am happy. I can handle it.

And oh yeah, I did. From July, 2015, to this February, when I got fired. Then I stopped handling it. Then I started spending all my time calculating how much I could drink and be halfway sober to get my kids to school, or 0.00 so I could go get more beer. (I do not drink and drive. I've covered too many fatalities. I don't care if it's less than 0.08; you're still impaired.) Or else I would just walk to the liquor store, somewhat mortified. And then, of course, I would spend the day drinking.

I never thought it would be this hard to stop. I go to at least one AA meeting a day, talk to my sponsor, work the steps, etc. Last week I asked my doctor to proscribe Antabuse for me. That kind of knocked his socks off -- he has been seeing me, and my kids, for three or four years, and he says he had no idea that I had a problem with alcohol.

"Well, I didn't," I said. "And now I do."

So i got the prescription. Filled it. Took it. He prescribed 500 mg, which according to various online sources is rather excessive for someone who weighs 100 lb. But hey, if a little bit is good a lot should be better, right?

So then, of course, my next step was to try drinking. Some people can't leave well enough alone. I wanted to see if it was as bad as they say it is. I waited 24 hours, then started getting tanked.

One thing I can say about Antabuse and alcohol is that it does make you feel rather dazed. Especially if you throw in a handful of sleeping pills. I didn't start throwing up until about six hours after I stopped drinking, probably from the combined toxicity of all three medications.

I've tried that experiment twice and the second time was not even particularly unpleasant. Obviously, I am drinking about 24 hours after I took the pill, but the pill's supposed to fuck with your drinking habits for at least 6 days. So either I am immune or ... I need to take the shit every day, as prescribed, and force myself not to think about how much not sleeping sucks as I am choking the pill down. (I think that is the thing I miss most about drinking -- sleep.)

My kids have been at their dad's through most of my meteoric descent into alcoholism -- this is one of the things I use as an excuse to binge drink. It's Saturday night, kids are at dad's, people everywhere are partying and ... that is what AA would call stinkin' thinkin'.

The bottom lines is that I'm a drunk and when I drink I don't intend to have fun and socialize -- I intend to get fucking admire-the-constellations, blackout, puking, shitfaced drunk.

In AA they say, "half measures availed us nothing."

Well, that would be true of my drinking career too.

So ... I guess I will have to take the damn pill every day, since drinking doesn't seem to bother me after 24 hours. My next experiment will undoubtedly to try to drink within hours of taking Antabuse -- not because I think it is a good idea but because I am an alcoholic and I know myself pretty well. It will seem like a much better idea come 9 pm, or 3 am, when I am not sleeping and still not sleeping. "So what if it makes me barf?" I will say. "I'm not sleeping anyway and it will give me something to do."

Yep, that's the famous alcoholic IQ.


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