What Was Alcohol Doing for Me?
The drink made more sense when I stopped looking only at the damage and began looking at the job I had given it.
For years, I asked why I drank so much. It sounded like the obvious question. It was also the wrong one.
The better question was: what was alcohol doing for me?
The answer was uncomfortable because it made the drinking more understandable. Alcohol quietened my head. It softened fear, gave me confidence and created a temporary exit from feelings I did not know how to handle. It worked before it stopped working.
That does not make the damage less real. It does explain why simply knowing the consequences was not enough to make me stop. I was not choosing between alcohol and common sense. I was choosing between the noise in my head and something that appeared to turn the volume down.
Recovery began when I stopped treating the substance as the whole story. Removing it mattered enormously. Then I had to look at the job that remained vacant.
What would quieten the fear now? How would I deal with resentment, insecurity or the need to escape? What could I do when I wanted to change how I felt immediately?
Those questions took me underneath the drinking. That was where the real work began.
An original reflection by Theo Luke Dornan. Independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous or AA World Services.