High Functioning At Rock Bottom

Estimated read time: 14 min

The back of the room…

We’re all here because we’ve all been there… Whether you are a white chip wonder or a retread who has been around the block a few times, you have been the newcomer. It may be a blurry memory. It may be trapped in the foggy haze and whirlwind that is early sobriety, or selectively repressed and buried deep down covered up by the fear, shame, or sheer embarrassment that we alcoholics and addicts needlessly carry around.

You might even be far enough removed by your long time in recovery. Yes old-timers, even you! I’m talking about the first day. The very first day, that you took the very first part, of the very first step. I remember, do you? 

Once upon a time…

Let’s go back to about 3 1/2 years ago. I was 20 years old, drunk (of course!), scared, pissed off, and alone in my college dorm room. Believe me, when I tell you, I was a “fully” functional, full-blown, full of shit, alcoholic. If you’ll humor me by recalling that I grew up in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains. A small town if you will, where, for the most part, everyone at least knew of everyone. Big enough though, that it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone knows your business if you could manage to stay out of the “Just Busted” headlines, that is. 

I worked a lot in high school. I was a student-athlete and an (almost) straight-A student. I didn’t have many, what I would call, close friends, but I had a group of people I socialized with. I had co-workers at various jobs that became more like family than friends, and I had teachers and coaches with whom I was close at school. Nothing spectacular, nothing out of the ordinary; a fairly typical teenager with a fairly typical life. My circle was small, but it was a circle nonetheless. 

So, freshman year of college rolls around, I had just turned 19, and I moved 200 miles south. No mountains, no friends, no sports, no job, and no connections, other than, my soon-to-be graduating boyfriend at the time. No disrespect to the “at-the-time”, boyfriend. He was as good a guy as any and still is I’m sure; but I was a college freshman, and he, well…. he was in his 5th year of college. No shame to 5th, 6th, 7th, or even 8th-year college students still working on their first degree, I’m one of you!

I only include that to explain he had a whole system for navigating the place that seemed so foreign to me. He had his roommates, friends, and classmates. The places he liked to eat, the backroads he liked to take, and the routine that fit what he wanted to do when he wasn’t in class. Everything was basically brand new to me, and I essentially had no connections to or with anyone, but him. 

Things with the relationship were already a bit rocky prior to the big move. My drinking had been quite heavy for some time already, words had been exchanged on that subject on more than one occasion, and I may or may not have shown up to his family functions less than sober. I mean honestly, I drank to fall asleep, I drank to go to work, to school, to practice, when I was bored, when I was happy… you get the point. Every occasion was an occasion to drink, I’m a good alcoholic that way!

Just a few days short of the year mark of our relationship things came to a screeching halt. Drunk yet again, or, drunk still, depending on how you look at it, I refused to exit the vehicle after what was supposed to be a nice evening out to dinner with his friends. It was a rather hot evening after sunset still measuring at about 80 degrees, with 80% humidity; car off, windows up, doors closed and me absolutely refusing to get out of the car while he pleads with me to just get out and go back to my dorm for the night. But no, I couldn’t do that, could I? Give in? Think rationally? Be reasonable? Nah, no thanks, that’s not really my style. 

Eventually, as anyone would, he left my stubborn ass there, in the car, to sweat it out, give up and go home, or at the very least sober up a bit; Oh silly boy.  I called his phone, god knows how many times. Sent a slew of texts rambling on and on about how horribly he was treating me, challenging his feelings for me, questioning his morality and definition of love. Well lo’ and behold he came back, I had won! False! I had earned myself a well-deserved, first-class, one-way ticket, to single-town USA! Some may call that my first heartbreak, and maybe they’d be right. I, however, like to call that a precursor to my jumping-off point. 

Poor me. Poor me… Pour me a drink!

I’d like to say that, that night was my bottom, but let’s get real here, it was definitely not! That single, self-inflicted, well-deserved event gave me at least, another 8,760 (the number of hours in a year) more reasons to drink. Not that I really needed a reason to drink, because I really, really did not, but it did help to blot out any reason for not drinking, that, I will say. I spent the next 12 months drinking way more than I should have, but a lot less than I would have, could I have fit more.

I drank before, on the way to and from, and during my classes. I made it to classes and did well academically, while at the same time I would somehow manage to go weeks without actually physically speaking to another human being. I didn’t have a tv nor did I share a dorm room with a roommate so I sat in my single room, with a twin bed and a dresser, watched videos on my laptop, and drank… a lot.

I made my way through freshmen year, landing a job along the way, passing all my classes, but still somehow spiraling farther and farther out of control of my emotions, my drinking, and my will to live. Too depressed and too irrational to go home over the summer I decided to stay in the college town where I still managed to have no friends, no connections, and no real sense of community. I applied to stay on campus throughout the summer session, and grind my way through classes and work over the summer.

The summer session was miserable and somehow lonelier than the traditional fall and spring semesters. It was an eventful summer though, to say the least. Due to poor planning, poor communication, and a grave misunderstanding, I got my first taste of homelessness. Living out of my car, in the summer, in South Georgia was an interesting experience; then add salmonella poisoning, and raging alcoholism to that equation and you get a whole new level of hell. I muddled through it though and maintained my status as a full-time student and employee, all the while sedating myself with a constant flow of booze.

That brings us to the fall semester of my sophomore year, that’s where the fun really begins. After spending most of the summer homeless and showering at local truck stops I was overjoyed to be back in the air conditioning, with a bed, and a shower that I didn’t have to pay for per use. Did my drinking slow down at all? Thanks for asking— no it most definitely did not.

In fact, because alcoholism is an incurable, progressive, and fatal disease, my drinking was now much worse than before. The quickie store from which I purchased most of my booze had upped their inventory of my particular cheap, cheap wine brand to keep up with the amount I was consuming. I was drinking 2 bottles of wine by the start of my 8 am shift, another 2 bottles before my 1 pm class, and at least 2 more bottles before calling it a night and going to bed.

I would have told anyone who asked that I was doing well and finally adjusting to this whole college thing. I was (a) making friends aka the quickie store owner and (b) finding new hobbies aka driving around as drunk as possible to see if I could get pulled over. I would have told you about how I moved on from the relationship and was working on myself. While, on paper, that is mostly true, it’s also very much not.

I was not okay, I was not doing well, and I was most certainly not functioning as well in practice as I appeared to be on paper. Suicidal thoughts, compulsive drinking, impulsive behaviors, and emotional instability were all eating away at me. So I did what any good alcoholic with sense would do, I ran an internet search for a survey; ya know, to see if I might, maybe could, possibly have a drinking problem.

You see I knew I couldn’t be an alcoholic. I wasn’t a middle-aged homeless man living under the bridge. I drank my liquor, beer, and wine from a Gatorade bottle or yeti cup, not from a brown paper bag. I hadn’t dropped out of school (YET), gotten a divorce (wasn’t married), lost custody of my children (I had no children), gotten a DUI (not for lack of trying), or been fired from my job. I couldn’t be an alcoholic, I was too young. I figured it may be possible that if I wasn’t careful I could develop a problem in the future, but no, I was not an alcoholic. Borderline, maybe, but not all the way. Ha!

It probably goes without saying but, I lied. I lied my ass off when I took the surveys, and I took ALL the surveys. I was convinced that the surveys were unreliable because even with the lies I told, many of them still indicated that I could have a “mild to moderate” drinking problem. I called all the hotlines, helplines, and lifelines (it’s really shocking to have to sit on a 30+ minute hold btw). I tried controlling my drinking: not drinking in the morning, not drinking in class, drinking beer instead of liquor, drinking wine instead of beer, drinking from a glass rather than a bottle. You know, the whole gambit.

 I even tried journaling to “sort through” the mental and emotional issues I was having, tried to start new hobbies, read more books, and almost considered getting religious for a while. I often wondered about what would help me slow down my drinking, in the event, that drinking was my actual problem. At one point, I wondered, “Could I get pregnant, and stop drinking for 9 months?”.  Surely if I got a DUI or busted for drinking on campus that would make me slow down, right? So I tried, I took all the risks. I was as blatant as I could be, and even that didn’t secure any solutions. I was exhausted and unsure of what to try next.

One miserable day, I remembered my uncle and his struggle with addiction, the treatment programs, support groups, halfway houses, 12-step meetings, etc., that he had been to over the past several decades. I considered all the movies, tv-shows, and Hollywood depictions of 12-step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)  and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and I thought maybe that’ll help.

Mind you, I had no impression that any of these programs could actually help anyone get clean or sober, I was thoroughly convinced that all a 12-step program did was help alcoholics feel better about their inability to get or stay sober for any length of time. Still, I looked up local meetings in the area, worst case scenario I get some free donuts, coffee, and some juice or something (hey, that’s what the movies told me!).

I found the meeting location, schedule, and address, and I decided that I’d try to see what it was about the following Monday. The meeting was over on the East side of town, a side of town that I was vaguely familiar with, at 7:30 pm.

As the hours passed that Monday, I wavered back and forth on whether I should go. See I had always joked around that AA/NA was for wannabe quitters, and toyed with the idea of showing up just to be funny and get some free juice and some cookies! Now, out of options, I was terrified to show up.

I had so many anxious thoughts and questions swirling around in my head.  What if I wasn’t allowed? What if I got thrown out? What if someone like me showing up was insensitive to the people there who had real problems? What if they didn’t believe me? I was thoroughly convinced I was too young to be an alcoholic, and that as soon as I stepped in the door I would be chastised, lectured, and asked to leave immediately. So, I decided, “bump it” I wouldn’t go after all.

Flash-forward to 7:00 pm, I was showering up after a long day at work and classes. I had been drinking all day, naturally, and was my usual level of drunkenness for your average Monday evening. Really, without much conscious thought, I found myself in my car and driving over to the east side of town. It was dark, an October evening, so the sun was below the horizon, and the air was cool.

I pulled up to this dinky little Baptist church, with a little front porch, and glowing yellow light. The parking lot was not so much a parking lot but more of like a section of asphalt just far enough off the actual road that cars could stack in next to each other. Parking lot or not, there were cars there. The porch was empty though, everyone must be inside.

Slowly, hesitantly, anxiously I made my way from my car to the porch. There was a strange man sitting there, I hadn’t seen him there from my car. I walk up the 3 little steps to the porch and he walks up to me, a little too close for comfort, especially on this side of town, and in the dark, “You got a cigarette?” he mumbled. I did of course, but a bit scared and taken aback I shook my head no and scurried in the door.

The room was filled with bright lights compared to the darkness outside (I later appreciated the symbolism of this). There were 4 long tables in the room surrounded by metal chairs, a patio sofa, and about 8 people there in the room. I was late apparently, and disturbing whatever conversation had been going on. A few people turned around, the chairperson briefly glanced up from what she was looking at, and I felt a tingling numbness come over me.

“Here it comes.” I thought silently, but no one did or said anything else. Genuinely surprised I hadn’t been thrown out already I make my way towards the couch at the back of the room. I sat down, and a man across the room looked over at me, nodded knowingly, and offered a soft smile.

I don’t really remember what convinced me to show up at the meeting that night. I don’t know if I could even tell you what the topic was that night, but what I can tell you is that I wasn’t thrown out. I wasn’t asked to leave or told I was too young. They didn’t try to convince me I didn’t belong or ignore me as if I wasn’t there.

They were kind, welcoming, caring, and cheerful people. They seemed genuinely glad and maybe even excited that I was there. It was strange, I still can’t explain why it happens that way. What I can tell you is, that the seed was planted. I kept coming back. I still, keep coming back, and it all started with that very first day, I did the very first part, of the very first step.

We all had our “first day” somewhere, treatment, therapy, a 12-step meeting, etc. We’d love to hear about your first day in the comment section below!