Begin the Beguine

Hi, my name is Ted, and I am an alcoholic.

It’s very hard to know where to start writing in this blog. The subject matter is intensely personal and will at times be very painful for both authors and readers.

In reality, it was even difficult to decide on a name for the blog itself. The current name (LearnAboutRehab.com) makes the site matter sound much more narrow in focus than the reality of what we write about here.

Another complicating set of factors in writing here is our intense need for our own – and our respect for others’ – anonymity. Many bottles of ink have been spilled and many heated discussions have occurred regarding this topic. The founders and charter members of Alcoholics Anonymous considered it so vital that they named the group accordingly; each A.A. meeting begins with reminders of the importance of respecting the anonymity of the group and the individuals in it; and each meeting is closed with another reminder about leaving what is said and who see in the room.

My own need to maintain my anonymity and to respect that of others’ is not borne simply from “respecting the Elders” of A.A. It is also driven by my own experiences of small-town living, of having heard how others felt when their privacy was violated, and my own feelings when well-intentioned people did not maintain my own anonymity and took it upon themselves to share information about my situation with others.

I do not doubt the motives of the people who did that – I sincerely believe them to have been well-intentioned at the time. That, however, does not erase the feelings it engendered in me:

• a sense of loss of control in a situation where so many other aspects of my life had spiralled out of control
• feelings of betrayal or “being used” as some sort of example (again, with good intentions; but there is a certain road that is paved with good intentions)
• self-isolation out of concern for further betrayals of confidences

The final, and perhaps the greatest challenge to writing this, is the intense swirl of emotions, the complicated inter-personal relationships between those involved, and the simple fact that I was a “blackout drunk” for quite some time.

The feelings and the relationships between the people writing here will obviously colour some of what is discussed. That is human nature.

But put quite simply, I could not construct any sort of cohesive history of what happened. I do not remember parts of it, and other memories are distorted. A frequent exercise in rehab programs is to ask the person how much they drank per day, week or month; or, worse yet, how much they spent on booze in a given time frame.

There is simply no way I could answer the first question – I had no idea. Near the end I drank enough to prevent myself from going into physical withdrawal. And the amount of money spent? I guess I’d sum that one up by saying two things:

• It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking Mad Dog 20/20, “just beer”, or Dom Perignon and Remy Martin – you can develop a problem with any of these
• In my experience, I slowly moved down the “food chain”, progressively buying cheaper brands to maximise quantity purchased

The term “blackout” is actually quite misleading. Blackout drunks aren’t just passed out. Those periods of actual loss of consciousness are the ones that are relatively easy to figure out; the person is passed out, “asleep” in a place they normally might not sleep. For example, a dumpster.

But the blackout drunks’ more natural state is to appear largely functional. They may slur their words a bit (or maybe not). They may sweat profusely, but they will always have an excuse as to why. The blackout drunk can (as I have done) have a Blood Alcohol Content of .30, .40, or higher, and still be largely functional. That’s just one glimpse into the fun world of being a blackout drunk.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Celebrate Recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous (qvof.com)
• Marcos Johnson – THE 13 STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS UNPLUGGED #1 (qvof.com)
• Mel Gibson’s record wiped clean (cbc.ca)