Alcohol Reduction
As has been alluded to, I’ve struggled with substance abuse since I was 12 years old.
There was a point in my twenties when I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had been intoxicated in some shape or form for over 10 years.
Alcohol hadn’t really been a huge issue for my until my late teens, before that I preferred to use drugs to regulate destroy myself, and quieten the perpetual screaming in my head.
But I eventually took to alcohol like it was a challenge to be beaten.
Like some sort of competition I could somehow win.
Looking back, it’ was evident to me that it was a form of self harm, an act of total self-destruction fueled by self loathing and an ever present yearning for the abyss.
There was a time when I would keep a bottle of Jim Beam by my bed, and would scarcely open my eyes before having taken a significant swig to try and numb the suffering of consciousness.
After many years of this sort of deliquency, I was, unsurprisingly, rushed to hospital in an ambulance.
I hadn’t been able to keep down food or even water in days, vomiting blood and bile as I clawed my way across the floor to the bathtub, a suitably large receptacle for the onslaught of decay violently forcing itself out of my face.
The penetrating pain in my stomach was unbelievable, like I had been and was continuing to be stabbed.
And there was a thought in my head…
“This is finally it”
I was admitted, run through a CT-Scan, hooked up to an IV.
Eventually a doctor ripped back a curtain angrily, to give me my diagnosis.
I had Stomach Ulcers.
But that seemingly wasn’t all, I still remember his words, the disappointment in his voice and the disdain for me on his face to this day.
He’d told me that he was the head of Gastroenterology, had been for a great many years, and that he had come to see me personally.
He’d reached out to sarcastically shake my hand, and said…
“You’ve reduced your stomach to a mass of heaving flesh which no longer resembles an organ. Well done kiddo.”
Before giving me a long, cold stare, shaking his head, and marching away.
Even the Doctor hated me, I’d thought.
And I honestly couldn’t blame him.
I was subsequently hospitalized for a number of months, nil by mouth, delivered nutrients intravenously, and often had large silver bags with giant red biohazard symbols hanging from my IV as they attempted to kill the bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers, and rebuild what was left of my stomach.
Upon the night of my eventual release, I had evidently learned nothing.
Returning home, still ravaged by addiction, pictured, I sit drinking and popping pills, the peripheral intravenous catheter’s for the IV’s still present in my arms.
Somewhere, a video exists of me finally removing them over a bathroom sink, and squeezing a surprising amount of deeply coloured, thick, almost jelly like blood from my exhausted veins.
So, when I say that I drank too much, I can assure you, I mean exactly that.
When this journey I’m chronicling for you, this walk out of depression began, though my alcoholism had subsided somewhat since those hedonistic days, it was still significant enough to have a profound impact upon my life, my health, and my psychological wellbeing.
I only really drank every second day at this point, and whilst not to the debaucherous levels of excess of the past, still it would be considered by most rational persons as too much.
But, if I was going to lose weight, if I was going to chase this betterment I’d been experiencing, if I was going to do everything I could not to end up trapped again in my bed, waiting to die, I had to reduce my alcohol consumption even further.
I couldn’t miss days of walking because I was too hungover, I couldn’t afford the extra carbs and calories while struggling to lose weight, I couldn’t risk a day spent in languishing sickly in bed…because what if became 2 days? then 3? or more?
I was terrified of ending up back there, and I used that terror as motivation to keep chipping away at my addictions.
From the tracking of my morning wakefulness I already had a tool at my disposal I could use, so I created a habit tracker for both my alcohol consumption, and for my sober days.
I downloaded another simple app, just a simple counter app, so that I could tap my phone each time I had a drink, and the total number of drinks could then be recorded into my habit tracker at the end of the day.
Having this data available to me and visualized was a huge help, it created accountability, it wasn’t just “too much” to drink or “I don’t know, lots” or even “not too bad I guess, I’ve been worse…”
It was a definitive number by which to gauge my decline, or my progress.
In a way it also served to ‘Gamify’ my goal of reducing alcohol intake.
I had learned that having data for comparisons, for gauging progress, for the dopamine derived from logging a good day, was tantamount to my success.
I found myself, for the first time ever, hesitating before getting another drink….I didn’t want to add one more to the ticker, I didn’t want to log another big night of drinking…and some days I didn’t even want to miss the opportunity to tick my “Sober Day” tracker, and feel the minor sense of pride…of progress, as I went to bed.
And so, over the course of a year I gradually reduced my alcohol intake, drink by drink, day by day, week by week, month by month, chipping away at the reliance I had, crawling not desperately across a bathroom floor covered in vomit and blood, but instead out of a metaphorical hole that addiction and substance abuse had dragged me into.
It should be noted, that I felt it too.
Alcohol is a depressant, and it has a profound impact on one’s physical and psychological wellbeing.
I found I was having more good days, more energy.
And having my goal of walking every day meant that when it came to that time of an afternoon when my body began furiously craving beer and bourbon, distraction and familiarity, I had something else I could do which not only negated the idea of drinking that day, but also gave me a sense of achievement, and another rung of progress to affix to the ladder I was building, to climb my way out of the chasm I’d found myself in.
I wasn’t perfect by any means, as pictured above.
But it wasn’t about perfection.
It wasn’t about suddenly stopping, entirely and forever.
It was just about progress.
Just one less drink.
Just one more sober day.
Just one more positive afternoon.
Just one more…