Three years ago, I clocked out of work, took a very large shot of vodka, walked out the door, and drove home. Only I didn’t make it home. At least not until several hours later, after a pit stop at the police station. This wasn’t my first time being pulled over; I decided to refuse to blow because there was no telling what it would read.
It turned out to be the right decision in the end. Probably the best decision I made that night. I didn’t even really think about driving home from work that night, or anything other night I had more than a shot before leaving. It was a six-minute drive home, I thought I would be fine. Except for the strong sensation I had that night, that I shouldn’t drive.
I ignored my very obvious intuition telling me to not drive, that I needed to call an uber, because I was too worried about leaving my car at work without a good explanation — I was worried about getting accused of drinking on the clock, because some nights, I had been.
That night in the police station, I vowed that I was going to change. I was done drinking. There was no more room for back and forth on it. My decision was final. It had to be. I had to quit drinking because I was ruining my life, and for what?
Three years and a couple of months ago it was the holiday season of 2019. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend and move out of his place into my own. It was a renovated classroom inside of an old school turned apartments. It was a small studio with a shitty, disgusting green carpet with a large stain in the middle of it. The one room extended into the small kitchen that had the bathroom off of it. That was it.
But it was cheap, it was freedom; it wasn’t my parent’s house. I was miserable, though. I was lonely. I was depressed. I began slowly losing my mind in that crummy little studio. I began drinking more and more, again. I was abusing it. I was using it to cope, to numb the pain I was in.
I remember being at my aunt’s for Thanksgiving that year and having a couple of drinks. It was when I was driving home that I felt like such an asshole. What if I got pulled over tonight? After being with family. What if they found out how much I had actually had to drink tonight?
I felt so ashamed. I promised myself I wouldn’t drive again after drinking. That night was the last time, I swore. It wasn’t. I lied. I let myself down, again and again. I don’t know why I kept doing it. I knew the fucking consequences. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I felt like I couldn’t stop.
It was as though I liked it. I liked driving with a buzz. It was like an extra high to drive and just not care. I know how awful that sounds. I know how dangerous it was no matter how little alcohol I consumed. I shouldn’t have been driving, ever, at all. I honestly was risking going to jail at this point in my life by driving under the influence again. And yet I continued to do it, anyway.
I spent the holiday season alternating drinking binges with sober weeks, maybe two at a time. When I gave back in, there sometimes was little to no moderation. I would just go all in and end up crying on my kitchen floor.
I remember New Year’s Eve night that year. Crying on my kitchen floor after becoming overly stressed out over a friend’s drama. This was my only friend and I once again felt unseen, unworthy, like an annoyance. I was so fucking lonely and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was wasted and aching from the inside out from the heavy emptiness that is being alone.
I was crying out, bawling, wishing for a different life, wishing people liked me. I hated myself for being this way. I hated myself for my issues with alcohol that I didn’t understand. I hated myself for having issues with emotions and stability and mental illnesses that were all causing issues in relationships in all areas of my life. I was barely hanging onto the desire to stay alive.
I woke up the next morning hungover and miserably depressed. I stopped drinking again. Until I gave in a week or two later. This on-again, off-again game continued until that night in February.
It had been several days since I had a drink. I knew I didn’t have any alcohol in the house that I actually wanted — a couple of white claws and an unopened bottle of champagne. It had been a stressful night at work, so I quickly talked myself into doing a shot, ignoring any voice telling me not to. I figured one shot wouldn’t hurt.
That shot, that decision, completely fucked up my life for the last three years, while at the same time improving it and making me a better person than I have ever been.
I truly thought my life was over that night. I thought I was going to jail. I thought I was never going to see my dog again. Somehow, I was brought home that night. I was free still. For now, at least.
I bawled my eyes out in relief and regret as I came in the door and released my dog from her crate. I held her as I cried. I hated myself. I had sworn I was never going to leave her again and here I was, coming home from being detained away from her again.
I had a complete breakdown that night. I fell apart. All of my pain came rushing out of me. Everything that had happened and led me to that point, all of my emotion surrounding each of those events came pouring out of me. I was so angry. I was so sad. I was scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen with my life next and I was afraid of the worst happening.
I quit drinking immediately. I never had another drink. Not drinking wasn’t the hard part for me. It was being with myself, sober. It was living. The hard part was getting through the day without alcohol to numb with or cheer me up and energize me. It was difficult being alone with myself and my thoughts and nothing to drown them out.
I still smoked cannabis, a pretty good amount at the time. But it didn’t do for me what alcohol did. I still smoke cannabis today, taking sober breaks at times. Cannabis doesn’t make me a different person like alcohol does. Cannabis doesn’t alter my thoughts or make me more impulsive like alcohol does. Cannabis doesn’t ruin my life like alcohol does.
For three years, I have not even had the desire to have an alcoholic drink. I didn’t want to drink while I was still bartending, nor was I ever tempted by the alcohol that the people I lived with would buy and have in the home. I have been to my sister’s house for holidays and get-togethers where alcohol has been available and it does not even cross my mind to want a drink.
It was never about the alcohol, not really. It was about the reasons that caused me to drink. Undiagnosed mental health disorders, unresolved trauma, relentless loneliness, and a sense of unworthiness. It was these and other underlying reasons that were still with me when I took the alcohol away. They were still here, dragging me down and pulling me apart.
Only now, I couldn’t fake it anymore. I couldn’t fake being okay anymore. I no longer had the false crutch of alcohol to hold me up and keep me going despite it all.
Reminiscing on it now almost brings back that heavy sense of pain that I was carrying during the early months of sobriety. While there was a sense of ease from the lack of hangovers and hangxiety days, there was still the obvious heaviness of the dread of awaiting my consequences, but I was feeling like I was dragging around all of this negative, painful energy with my everywhere I went.
Part of me didn’t even know who I was anymore. It was hard to go to work and pretend without my bottle of medicine to help get me through. It was hard to pretend to like people and be charming and funny and just a delight for customers without my crutch.
I lost alcohol when I gave it up. It was more than losing a dangerous substance, it was like losing a friend. I was losing the one thing I turned to in any situation, no matter how hard, alcohol had always been there. I didn’t have any real friends, not really, so now who was I supposed to turn to when I wanted to give up?
I ditched alcohol only a month before quarantining for coronavirus. During that time spent alone in my apartment, sober, I realized that maybe that night happened for a reason. Maybe that night happened to save me. Because alcohol made me more impulsive and exaggerated my feelings. That night that I was arrested on my way home from work may have been a way of saving me from the danger that was myself.
Maybe that night was meant to happen. Maybe I would have gotten here on my own, eventually, if that night didn’t happen. But it’s hard to say. If I hadn’t been put in a position where I felt forced to give up the alcohol, then I don’t know for sure that I would have by now. Maybe.
All I know now is that three years ago I took a shot of shitty well vodka and changed my life for the better. Even if I am taking the most difficult route to get there.
Brittany Netzband 