How I Ended My Abusive Relationship With Alcohol
My first taste changed my life at 14. Now I’ve found peace without it.
I had my first taste of alcohol at the impressionable age of 14.
Shortly after my birthday, I stayed the night at a friend’s house on Coney Island. My friend’s father was a neighborhood mechanic who ran a shack of a garage. He always had a steady flow of older-model cars driven by abuelos, who refused to speak English. He was also a heavy drinker. That night, my friend and I crept in the back room with a bottle of his father’s E&J and spent hours talking about the girls we liked and the clothes we wanted to wear during our first week of freshman year.
You don’t forget your first experience with alcohol, mostly because everybody’s story ends the same — sick as hell, next to a toilet. The only sense I remember is that I felt… nothing. And I liked it. From that point on, I associated numbness with normalcy.
That association followed me well into my twenties. After I was in a serious car accident that resulted in multiple surgeries, I spiraled into a dark depression but didn’t know how to articulate my feelings. All the love and support from family and friends couldn’t get the bottle out of my hand. At the time, I didn’t consider myself an alcoholic, but my propensity for keeping a bottle around affected my relationships. Instead of seeking comfort in the presence of those who genuinely cared about me, I found ways to sabotage those connections. My need for alcohol made it hard for people to be around me, especially during the holidays and in social settings.
Eventually, the invites stopped.
I found that being a recluse was easier than telling people I was in a bad place. People came to understand my disappearing act. I’d conditioned myself to believe that there was a specific pain I’d experience that couldn’t heal, so I continued to seek reprieve in a tumbler glass.
Jack Daniels helped me make sense of things. Avion Anejo released the tension that resided in my neck and shoulders. Yet drinking often left me emotionally and mentally paralyzed, fearful, and…
