Estimated read time: 11 minutes
From the first time I stepped through the open door of a treatment center, I face-planted into one of the silliest arguments that still pervades every congregation of alcoholics I have ever been near. What makes one a “real alcoholic”?
I was a newborn baby in recovery, still reeling from my first dose of detox medication, terrified of what I would become without booze, and disgraced by my own shortcomings and failures.
While I was trying to dig a deeper hole and bury myself in self-pity, I discovered we were allowed to smoke and I raced to light a cigarette with a book of matches in hand. (We were not allowed to have lighters.) I wandered into the smoking area, a safe space where I would soon become surrounded by “real alcoholics”.
The first was an 85-year-old woman who walked with a cane and smoked what appeared to be a two-foot long cigarette that was about as big around as she was. She was seated on a wicker love seat with her cane in front of her and the cigarette bearing an 8-inch long ash that was ready to drop at any second. She took a drag and asked, “Why are you here?” (This question would plague me in early sobriety, see “What if I am not an alcoholic?” on our blog page.)
I answered honestly, “I’m not really sure.”
She responded, “Well, they tell me that I’m a raging alcoholic.” She took another puff and cackled happily as smoke flew into the air. “They may even be right. But, a few cocktails when you are hosting a bridge game doesn’t seem that bad, does it?”
Before I could answer, other patients seemed to appear out of nowhere in this particular smoking area and conversations between all of them allowed me to slide into the background.
Soon I would talk to the raging alcoholic again, and this time I found that her few cocktails amounted to a half-gallon of Grey Goose vodka per day, which she had delivered by the case to her home… like a “real alcoholic”
Upon hearing a little more of her story, I came to a pride-leveling realization, quickly followed by a sliver of hope. I wasn’t very good at being a “real alcoholic”.
For most of my drinking career, I had prided myself on being able to drink copious amounts of booze and still be able to function relatively normally. In my teens and 20s, I was often the designated drunk driver, I never forgot details of the night before, and I often could hold more or would continue to drink long after my friends had quit, passed out or puked their guts out. (Nina was even more successful than I was, see her story, “High Functioning and Rock Bottom.”)
Still, here I stood next to a “little old grandma” who could drink me under the table without even realizing there was a contest. If she was a “real alcoholic”, perhaps I wasn’t one at all. I just needed one of the people in charge to understand that, punch my “get-out-of-rehab-free card”, and I could be a six-pack deep by sundown.
Alas, that wasn’t the case. And I began to think that all of the doctors, counselors, and nurses at this place were in a word: idiots.
As I began to get to know other patients, I began to open up about my drinking stories. I stuck with the fun ones from 20 years ago, occasionally 10, but never the ones that led me to meet them.
Every time I mentioned drinking any amount of alcohol–from a taste to the times I had to close one eye to keep from seeing double–there was always someone who chimed in about how much more they drank, or how many pills they popped during a game of golf and still shot under par, or how they woke with a needle in their arm, laughed it out, and went to work.
It was like talking proudly about a modest fishing trip you enjoyed, only to be inundated by anglers from the BASS pro tournaments and a guy who caught a whale.
Even the 17-year-old kid who was there had way more experience drinking and drugging than I did. He knew the exact chemical composition of every drug, the ways they were most effectively used, which ones worked best together, which ones canceled each other out, and which ones are taken together would in his words, “kill the shit out of you.”
One guy who had a Southern accent that sounded close to mine had spent two tours in an intensive care unit from drinking whiskey and was planning a drink on the day that he was released from the hospital until he noticed his suitcase in the back seat of his wife’s car. That guy, more than any other, made me feel like I was wasting a bed that should be used for someone who needed real help… you know, a “real alcoholic”
And there were others who used “hard” drugs that were in their words “much worse than drinking.” I had no reason to doubt that, and I secretly wished I had tried more substances, especially after talking to the 17-year-old. Even as an alcoholic, surrounded by “real alcoholics”, I didn’t quite fit in.
I began making fun of myself. When someone would share a grandiose or horrific story, I’d wait for the perfect time, and chime in, “I know what you mean. This one time I drank a warm beer…”
Still, as the staff reminded me, I was definitely in the right place. I was the one left languishing in detox as others who came in after me headed off to the other side of the facility to a little more freedom and fewer nurses noticing shaky hands that required more medication. I could barely hold down any food, and what little I could set my throat and stomach ablaze.
Finally, I was moved to the lighter side of medical care, but still taking detox meds at first, and continued being the only person under 70 who had medicine call twice a day.
I don’t say that to make anyone think that I was a “real alcoholic”. The truth is that not only was I not able to handle booze when I was drinking, but I was also the weakest sober person in the facility.
I began to notice this one guy who didn’t brag about drinking a half-gallon of bourbon on the drive into treatment or mention how many drugs he took and survived his overdose. He was challenging patients in other ways. He encouraged them to talk about their feelings and fears. He sat by an addict musician who played the piano and marveled at his ability, even singing off-key to one or two songs. He challenged the 17-year-old chemist to go one day without talking about drugs. Everything about this guy was something that I felt a wimpy alcoholic like me should strive to become.
I even began to think he was like me, a lightweight who focused on the positives about being sober because he had no good war stories. He dropped pearls of wisdom about living sober that rivaled anything I heard from counselors. And, one day he did the strangest thing. He shared a card of encouragement from a friend and broke down and cried. I scanned the room quickly and saw a bunch of heads down, and I wondered if they were chuckling to themselves. I was sure he was the same kind of wimpy that I was, but I was soooooo wrong.
This man was without a doubt a “real alcoholic”. His drinking and using career could rival any other patient’s, and perhaps he dropped a couple of stories to others, but it seemed like I was the only one who knew. I kept hold of the secret like I once held on to a drink. Like a “real alcoholic”, I may go down, but the drink would survive. Somehow, he had clawed his way out of addiction and flourished in sobriety. He lived a rather spectacular life of which I am still a little envious, and when he felt his thoughts turning toward relapse, he sought help before his feet followed his mind.
Instead of being the wimpiest guy there, he was by far the strongest. He did the one thing, I and all the rest failed to do. He admitted he needed help before it got bad, paused his life to seek the security of treatment. Being able to do that is a feat of immeasurable strength in my mind.
He also showed his strength by not feeding into the sickness of romancing the good old days that were conjured up by “war stories.,” He found ways to politely stifle them and turn the conversations back to the solution.
In one particular case, during a bragging discussion of how hard people hit their rock bottom, or whether they were even sure that this time was their bottom, he quietly said the thing that gave me true hope, “no one ever said you have to go all the way to rock bottom, you can get off of the ride at any level you want.” Microphone dropped.
Without getting too confident, I began to see all of the talk of “real alcoholics” or addicts for what it was. A pissing contest by people who had lost so much they had to take pride in something even if it is the level of destruction left in their wake. If you can’t be the best, being the worst works. I was not able to claim the title of worst alcoholic or even the best at getting sober. I am just amazingly, stunningly, alarmingly….average.
And the smartest alcoholic I know, my wife, Nina, is quick to rein me in when I start comparing myself to others in recovery and wondering where they fall on the scale of “real alcoholics”. “Identify don’t compare,” she always says, right as I’m warming up to pronounce myself a more “real alcoholic” than someone else.
It doesn’t really matter what I or anyone else thinks of someone’s journey into and out of addiction. I am grateful for each person who makes it out, whether they suffered enormous consequences or, like me, are rather wimpy. Keep in mind, that when evaluated by Earth People, a wimpy drunk like me is not that wimpy.
A wimpy drunk, like me, still has medical side effects from drinking that have not disappeared in almost 8 years. He or she leaves behind 39 bottles of booze of various sizes and stages of empty, including full and half full. ( I kinda got a resentment about that. How is it that I could only hide bottles from myself?) Wimpy drunks, like me, are unemployable, unable to function as parents or basic human beings. They can’t even figure out how to take a shower for two weeks (Okay, that one is only me, I know. Sigh.)
On the darker side of my battle with alcohol, I had on more than one occasion intentionally put myself to “sleep” by chugging everything I had left. Sometimes I would either puke it up in a bout of alcohol poisoning. But, most often, I would wake up lying on the couch not knowing what the clock said but sure it was time to get another drink. And at the end, I had to drink because I literally could not stop without violent withdrawal symptoms.
Some of you are thinking: “That’s not so bad. I wouldn’t have stopped if that was all that happened. Sounds like a normal week to me.” And, you are right. I quit before things got a lot worse.
But some of you might also be thinking: “Woah! I’m way better off than this guy. I don’t really have a problem. If things get worse, I might think about stopping.” I was there and had the same thought once.
To both groups, I have one question. Do you really want to bet your life on it? Some of us will die. Luckier ones will struggle for years with relapse after relapse. It doesn’t have to be you.
You can choose to get off the ride before rock bottom. It’s not like the person with the hardest life in active addiction gets a special award. All of us who recover get the same thing: a chance to reach the level of human.
Should you feel like a “real alcoholic” or kind of a wimpy one, those of us in recovery will greet you with open arms.
Most of us will be ready with solutions because you are already well-versed in the problem and carry the scars to prove it, whether you see them or not.
Still, if you need to compare, if you feel the need to claim the title of a “real alcoholic”, show me your liver tissue samples, and let’s see who is the baddest.
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