Jeckyll and Hyde

Jeckyll and Hyde
Originally uploaded by 3:16 Art & Design
In tonight's Big Book meeting, the speaker chose a powerful paragraph from "There is a Solution". A few lines that made an impact on me were as follows: "Here is the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control. He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking. He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is always more or less insanely drunk ... He may be one of the finest fellows in the world ... he has a positive genius for getting 'tight' at exactly the wrong moment ... "

When I began my drinking career, the only shift from when I wasn't drinking to when I drank was that I got louder and and less inhibited and a bit daring. Within two years of regular partying, I was drinking alcoholically. And what marked this transition was that the shifts from not drinking to drinking became more and more dramatic. I truly was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By day, I was kind and helpful and could lend an ear to a friend. I attended college classes and still tried to get good grades. I was very attached to friendships and quite sensitive. Once enough liquor went down my throat, I was sarcastic and mean and obnoxious. I threw cups of beer on people for no good reason. I called people derogatory names that I would be otherwise mortified to say outloud when sober. If you didn't drink like I did, something was wrong with YOU. I badgered and belittled people who didn't drink or drank moderately.   The people I first became friends with in college were discarded like trash by my 3rd or 4th year.   By my last year in college, the daytime "me" began drinking by noon, so there were only small windows of time that anyone actually saw me sober.

In old photo albums, the difference between what I looked like at age 18 until I graduated at 21 were night and day. My freshman year photos depicted a still somewhat naive farming town girl, with the bowl haircut and a twinkle in her eyes. The senior year pictures revealed a flaming alcoholic, already bloated from the effects of daily drinking sprees and nearly 65 pounds heavier, facing the camera in a hazy stupor. I can recall my photo album from my senior year and every single picture found me with an alcoholic beverage in hand.

"More or less insanely drunk" ... that would most definitely capture the way I drank for the last 8-9 years of my alcoholism. I transformed quickly, often after just a couple of drinks. I wasn't personally satisfied until things got blurry and I couldn't walk straight. My blackouts were happening more and more frequently. People would share things that I did and said with me the following day and I would pretend to remember, yet had absolutely no recall. It was not uncommon to find me passed out on the side of a road, attempting to get back to my apartment leaving a party. People who knew me would find me and bring me back into parties and "prop" me against a wall or in a chair, until someone would "claim" me and take me back home or put me on their sofa or their floor. I would wake up half-undressed, sometimes with one shoe or no shoes, or one winter glove or just in a bra and pissed on jeans. Sometimes I didn't recognize where I would "come to" at and then wander outside to get my bearings. And I thought this was a normal part of the drinking experience !

After college, my drinking episodes would find me with scary people in scary places. I fraternized and sometimes slept with ex-cons, drug dealers, truckers and bikers. I gave blowjobs in bathrooms and in parking lots and god-knows-where-else. I'd puke outside of bars and parties and come back in for more. I made many visits to E.R.'s for drunk-induced mishaps. I was finger-printed and had a temporary record (now expunged) and even a probation officer for a year when I got pulled over for swirving across the yellow lines and my drug dealer boyfriend put his stash of cocaine in my glove compartment and it was found in the police's search of my car. I was a "special person" who took care of mentally retarded people by day and then turned into a retarded drunk after dark.

I cannot think of a more exhausting, humiliating, disgusting way to live. And I did this for a solid decade. "We shall not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it." I have to write and talk about these things because this is what ultimately keeps me sober a day at a time. Tucking them neatly away into storage will make it that much easier to get comfortable and that much closer to a drink. AA promises me that I will never have to live this way again.

It is such a relief to rise and know where I am.
To not have to dodge anyone for fear of what I said or did to them. There is no more Jeckyll and Hyde; I know the truth of who I am each waking, sober moment.