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The author wished to remain anonymous.
My name is Nickson and I have been sober 300 days one day at a time. Time in sobriety has passed quickly. This journey begun one morning in campus when I woke up after a drinking stupor and I was lying down on my dorm floor wreathing in pain from gastric ulcers
I am the second of three sons, and we all grew up in the city. I started drinking from a young age we owned a liquor store. I would sneak and pick drinks. Shortly this led to nearly daily drinking or smoking marijuana. While I was still in high school and my elder brother was in college, I remember on several occasions going to visit him on a Friday, only to find myself awakening one or two days later in a dorm room, from what I now know as a blackout, unaware of what had happened. Despite my increasingly frequent substance use, I excelled as a student. I prided myself on never missing a day of school. I attended all my classes and did my assignments and readings. I was blessed with an extremely good memory. I did not need to study very hard for tests to ace them. By my junior year, I was taking all honors classes and easily passing them, putting me near the top of my class. My friends were all band members who partied like me. I never had any run-ins with the administration or faculty and did not think that I had any kind of problem. When I went to college none of my roommates, five in a dorm suite, drank or partied like I did. Within a week I was able to make friends with some sophomores who were just like me. Within a short period of time, harassing the fourth roommate with obnoxious merriment, I was able to convince that non-partying roommate to swap rooms. I structured my class schedule so as to not interfere with my alcohol and drug use, incorporating a large break between morning and late afternoon classes in which I could get all my studying done. I was offered a scholarship opportunity to go on to PhD studies in computer science but chose stay with friends who partied just like me.
I do not remember ever experiencing feelings as I do today. I recollect, even as a preteen, prior to my drinking career, not being able to feel sorrow. During this period I made a decision to stop smoking marijuana because of the possibility of jeopardizing my studies if I were to get caught. I would frequently leave school intoxicated and continue drinking through the weekend if I wasn’t schooling
However, I had few friends, and none of the friends I had drank as I did. I began to drink at home, frequently wondering the next morning how there could be so many empty beer cans on the counter.
Socially, I was completely isolated. I left my two friends behind and made no new ones. I drank daily in isolation, hiding the quantity of my drinking from my family, secretly replenishing the supply in the liquor cabinet with bottles I hid elsewhere. I still didn’t think I had a problem with alcohol since I had never missed a day of school and continued to excel in my studies. I was unhappy and disinterested in life, and my attention started to wander.
The following week I was called into my dean’s office for a meeting with him He asked me if I had a problem with alcohol, which I flat out denied. I told him that I sometimes would drink quite a lot on weekends, but that it was something I could control. I truly believed that I could. They offered help if I needed it, but I wasn’t ready yet. The ensuing year I tried many times, unsuccessfully, to curb my drinking. With every unsuccessful attempt to abstain, which never lasted more than a day, I became more and more frustrated. I tried to limit the quantity to only one drink daily. That one drink then became a bottomless tall glass of cheap vodka on the rocks with perhaps a splash of tonic to start — leading to me wondering the following morning where the rest of the bottle disappeared to. I began hiding bottles in the garage and under the seat of my car so I always had access to alcohol. I would never use the same liquor store twice in the same week to avoid potential criticism by the sales clerk of the quantity I was consuming.
My relationship with family was absent. I was unable to participate in any kind of family activity, especially if it interfered with my drinking. My family would watch TV in one room and I would be in another drinking to oblivion. If I watched a movie with the family, it was unlikely I would remember any details of the movie the following morning
By this time, I could not go for more than a couple of hours without feeling withdrawal symptoms including hot flashes, sweats, palpitations, and the shakes. I would awaken during the night in withdrawal needing to take some alcohol to be able to get back to sleep. I began to need to drink just to feel normal. I was sliding down a very slippery slope without a solution. I was unable to ask for help. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. Alcohol had, over many years, subtly become my higher power, fully taking over my life. Every morning I would awaken with fear of going to class. My tremors would be so bad that at times I could barely sign my name, never mind perform the necessary skills for my profession.
I began losing my appetite. I was unable to eat full meals. I began losing weight quickly. I couldn’t sleep without passing out into unconsciousness — which was now happening early in the evening — only to awaken in the same state of withdrawal again. One morning I began violently vomiting. I managed to crawl in the dark to huddle over the commode. I rationalized that the vomiting might be due to food poisoning. By the morning, I was severely dehydrated and could barely stand. The second night, I began to have diarrhea with old, digested blood in it. The next morning I awoke with my heart racing, unable to get up off the floor, realizing that this was the end of the run. I clearly remember three distinct thoughts. My drinking needs to end. I need to be honest. I need to ask for help.
I managed to pull myself up onto the couch. I asked my friend to take me to the ER, knowing that I was having a GI bleed. In the ER I was asked about my drinking. “Social” was my response. I still wasn’t ready to be honest. Later I was discharged home with instructions to avoid alcohol or any other irritating substance. Miraculously, I was able to abstain from alcohol that entire weekend with only very mild withdrawal symptoms. Each successive day without alcohol seemed like a huge success. Nervously, I returned to class. Near the end of that school day, my dean called to tell me that he had heard that I was in the emergency room the prior week. He asked if I needed help, and I responded yes. He arranged for me to see the school psychiatrist the following morning. During an hour-long interview in which I admitted I had a slight problem with alcohol, he briefly told me about a facility and gave me contact information for the contact. I called and made an appointment for later that day. I stopped by school later that morning and told each of my mates about my problem with alcohol and that I was going to be getting help. They were supportive. I was told what I would need to do if I wanted to participate in the program. They suggested that I might need to have an inpatient evaluation, and he instructed me to make an appointment with the director of the program. I was ready to do anything necessary to begin my recovery. One of the things I talked to them about was honesty and the need for rigorous honesty in order for me to succeed. I knew I could not live any more lies.
By this time I had been sober for three weeks and I had made plans to go for a five-day inpatient evaluation. I went to an addiction treatment facility with a program designed specifically for health care professionals. At the end of the extensive five-day evaluation, it was suggested that I stay for an extended period of time. My choices were limited. At the beginning of treatment, I was angry. I was in denial about the extent of my alcoholism — after all, I had been “sober” for more than three weeks prior to entering treatment — why couldn’t I just have outpatient treatment and continue to school? Here I was in an expensive treatment center insurance wouldn’t cover, and I was not earning an income, but rather accumulating bills. I couldn’t see how important it was for me to separate myself from outside stresses so I could focus on me. I was unwilling to really look at myself until one day I finally learned and internalized that until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober. I needed to concentrate not so much on what needed to be changed in the world as on what needed to be changed in me.
My entire view changed. I became willing to change. I became honest with myself. Over the next six weeks, with the help of my counselor and group members, I began to explore my character flaws and incorporate the principles of alcoholics anonymous into my life.
After seventy days, I was discharged and was soon able to return to normalcy with a monitoring contract with the facility. I quickly joined AA and obtained a sponsor. I attended daily AA meetings for the first ninety days. Later, I cut back to three to four meetings a week as I returned to normal. At the appropriate time, with the guidance of my sponsor, I was able to make amends to everyone I had harmed, including myself.
I believe involvement with the program was necessary for me to begin a successful recovery. Without the support, I certainly doubt I would have seized the opportunity to enter into an intensive inpatient treatment program. My delusion about the lack of severity of my alcoholism likely would have prevailed, as I hadn’t yet lost everything. Following discharge from treatment, the requisites of the monitoring contract mandated a firm level of discipline in meeting attendance, responsibility to submit to random drug screening, school monitoring, as well as regular meetings with my associate director. These requirements set up the mechanics for a continued program of recovery following completion of the contract.
I am now a very grateful recovering alcoholic. My life is full of surprises all the time. I am grateful to have a program I can use to help me grow through life’s challenges.
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