A history of God and Me part 7

Much could be written on what happened between December of 1992 when I drank again after three years of not drinking and June of 1993 when I attended my first 12 step group. Much. But this is a blog, not a book. And it currently has this theme running regarding a history of God and me. For me drinking was filling an emptiness inside of me that ran deep. Deep. I was not allowing God to fill my life up. I had gone from angry to resentment to bitterness to downright hate towards my wife. Married fifteen years at this point I had had enough. And I had just come out of a two year hell involving chronic pain/pain pill addiction/depression. It made for a not so nice cycle which fed on itself. When the pain eased up, when the pain pills stopped, I felt the need to fill my life up with something new. A void. I felt the need to drink to relax. After all I could relax drinking and dammit I certainly deserved it with the cards I had been played!

 A huge deception for me with drinking was what would start out as or hopefully become a heavenly escape for me, ultimately became my hellish capturing. I could not escape myself and the consequences of what I was doing. But I could participate in denial. I was a natural at denial. Believing that which I denied made it all the easier. I did not have a drinking problem. I had just been going through some rough times in my life. So if my drinking and behavior got a little excessive or out of hand it was understandable and justifiable. After all, would not anyone who had been through what I had feel deserving of some fucking relief? And God had let me down(in my mind). I was no longer going to church. Wife and the two kids went but not me. Little did I know the route I chose to escape hell would only bring it upon me. Ultimately I ran from myself and my problems but no matter where I went there I was.

 And I was drunk. Every night. Plastered. I had long fantasized about leaving my wife but had not due to our children. Now with a girl of nine years age and a boy of five it was not an easy thing to contemplate leaving. I did not want to hurt my children and I would miss them. I had been extremely close to my daughter throughout her life. Well, until I started drinking again in December. My son and I sadly had become somewhat of a blur. I could not remember much of the last two years with respect to his and my relationship. I had been visiting pain pill land then. The kids...Oh God I did not want to hurt them. I was afraid of hurting them.

 But drinking gave me that nice artificial confidence that I could conquer the world and master the universe. So in March of 1993 I left the wife and kids and moved into an apartment on the other side of town near work. If my drinking had been bad before(it had) it now became catastrophically damaging. If one was to take all the drinking of my entire life and put it in a box it would not be as big a box as the December 92 to June 93 drinking box. And particularly that part of the drinking box from March 93 forward to June. There are certain parts of the movie "Leaving Las Vegas" which really disturb me(great movie by the way). I know why they disturb me. Because I see me in those certain parts. Certainly.

 Back then life consisted of waking up with a nasty hang over, running to the bathroom to expel the prior nights remains, going to work, working poorly and unproductively while thinking about the coming nights activities, relieving daily shakes by the bar in my car after work, drinking and spending money at bars where reality was not a preferred element but fantasy pushed instead, leaving at closing time, listening to sad messages on the answering machine from my children calling to talk to me and then passing out. That was it. Weekends were different as I did not work. Then the drinking could be 24/7. And it was. 

I could not understand why I got the shakes so much. I really had no idea at the time it was the effects of Wild Turkey and Tequila on my metabolism. I just thought I was not getting enough sleep and work was stressing me out and this and that. From about two or three o clock every day I was just all undone with shakes and nerves. So Easter day(of all days) I bought a pack of cigarettes to help take the edge off. Looking back at the timing of that purchase I wonder if it was a fist in the air at God type purchase? I don't know. Prior to this I had smoked periodically and recreationally all my life. Not often but occasionally. It seemed like a good idea to get a pack. Maybe that would help. Yeah. So I celebrated Easter with a smoke. The pack lasted several days. Then it seemed like a good idea to get another pack. Although it did not remove the shakes it did seem to help with my nerves some until I could get relief from the glass or my car bar. I liked smoking. Nice. Kool deal. No, a Marlboro man! 

Occasionally, just occasionally there were moments of clarity. Those moments when I thought to myself, "self, what the fuck are you doing to your life and the lives of your family"? May of that year I moved back home. It was all good at first but I took my problems with me. I took me with me. I took drinking with me. And now I took a new habit with me, smoking. No one liked the smoking. The kids seemed more bothered by that then the drinking I no longer hid from them. My daily and nightly routines remained the same. Only the locations had changed to protect the guilty. What had been out of control all year now was absurdly beyond excessive. Hell just grew hotter and hotter. The wife threatened to kick me out many times. That same wife who begged and pleaded for me to come home during our two month separation now threatened to boot me out. What was her problem? Where's the love? 

Combining another one of those rare moments of clarity with suddenly thinking she might actually kick me out, I promised to go to a step 12 group one night when I got home plastered. I went the next night. But I knew there was no way in hell I was an alcoholic and no way in hell any of those low life scum buckets would be able to tell me one iota about anything, let alone drinking. But I promised the wife. So I went. I hated everything about my first meeting. Everything. I hated the people there, I hated what they said. I hated especially the fact it was a meeting on the first step and directed at me. Oh let me be the center of attention in a bar but not here please, no thank you. But the thing I hated MOST was when I looked towards the front of the room at a speaker podium. 

 It had a sign on it which said, "Let go and Let God". At meeting's end I left angry and went home and put a bottle of Tequila to my lips. Let go and let God, you got to be fucking kidding me!