How I Became an Alcoholic

My previous post was about how I stopped being an alcoholic, so I figured I should write the companion piece of how I became one. 

My story of alcoholism doesn't start the same way as that of most alcoholics, who start as early as age ten or twelve, pilfering from their parents' liquor cabinet, which was the most common origin story I heard at Alcoholics Anonymous. I never once drank from their liquor stash, even when my seventeen year-old friends were doing it. My parents had been giving me sips of their beer and wine since I was young, and I'd never understood what all the fuss was about. 

I didn't drink that much in college, just a few beers at the occasional party because that's what you're supposed to do. I knew I was a two-beer-queer so I never pushed it. I had a few friends of friends who'd been in the hospital to get their stomachs pumped, and there was no way I wanted that to happen. I mean, ew. To this day I can count on one hand the number of times I've vomited from drinking.

Over the last year of university my drinking rose slowly but steadily, in no small part at my boyfriend's encouragement. He loved for us to frequent his favorite little neighborhood bar to watch baseball games. I hated watching baseball but I loved drinking Corona and people watching, especially drunk people watching. One day he said to me, "You've started drinking more than I do," with a tone of surprise. I clinked his bottle and carried on. 

Since I was now with someone who could afford top shelf drinks, I had also gotten used to my beloved platinum margaritas with a tequila floater on top. Even typing that just now gave my body a little zing of happiness, after seven years sober. 

I can tell you the exact day I knew I had a problem. Not just a drinking problem, but something bigger than me entirely. 

It was my graduation party at my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, and I was tossing back the platinum margaritas with great determination. My boyfriend kept whispering in my ear that maybe I should slow down, but I just ate more food and said that was enough to keep me steady. He looked worried, and I'm sure I looked annoyed. 

It was the fourth platinum margarita with a tequila floater that did me in, as I ended up puking it up all over the floor between my feet right there at the table. My best friend rushed me to the bathroom in case more was on the way; meanwhile my boyfriend paid with a hefty tip in apology even though we weren't done eating. 

I remember leaving the restaurant in a lucid enough state (somehow) to think to myself, Well, fuck, where do I go from here? Because I knew that I was standing at the top of a very long downward spiral. And yet it never occurred to me to try and fight the fall, because I assumed I couldn't. 

It was already clear that I was clinically depressed, as I had been diagnosed three years earlier. An intern year in New York City only made that depression the more clear as I was away from friends and family and the ease of home, trying to make it on my own like Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. This was when I first got a Xanax prescription, although it barely blunted the worst of my depression. It was simply another pill to add to my morning batch of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. 

When I told my mother that my boyfriend and I were moving in together during my final year of college, her response (instead of being "fine, just don't tell your grandmother," as I expected) was, "good, he needs to know what he's getting into." Because I was a problem to be solved, someone who needed pills to hope to pass for normal. And I wasn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. Not that I was that hurt over her answer, because I had known for years that I was a person to be tolerated, someone who would never be happy like others were.

At the time I thought my perfect boyfriend of a year was my saving grace: If anyone could save me from myself, surely he could. 

And yet--my boyfriend was beginning to annoy me in every little way that he did every little thing, from the braying way he laughed to how he wanted his coffee microwaved an extra thirty seconds, but he was hot, made good money, and had an Australian accent, so naturally we moved in together. We even had a dog together. 

We had gone as far as to discuss getting married and moving to Sydney, which was why I was doing my best to ignore that nagging voice in the back of my head that he wasn't right for me. All my friends and family kept telling me how amazing he was, so who was I to think any different? I didn't think I could do any better, and apparently neither did anyone else.

And so I drank, to silence the voice in the back of my head.

Additionally, I had just graduated from Rice University, one of the best architecture programs in the country, and I was feeling the pressure of that tuition bill to succeed. I had twelve years of prep school and another five years of private university hanging over my head. Those made for some damn heavy diplomas.

You have to understand, I came from a highly successful and ambitious family. My cousin has given a TED Talk, another founded an academic journal, both have received lots of awards for things I can't spell let alone understand, my brother has a resume containing SpaceEx and Tesla, my father has numerous patents, everyone are world travelers--I couldn't compete with anyone. My three degrees in architecture and art from a ritzy university were nothing special, but simply what was expected of me to be allowed a seat at the table.

And so I drank, to silence the expectations I doubted I'd ever be able to achieve.

The real trouble was that I no longer wanted to be an architect. I'd felt it in my gut for some time now, and I had no idea what to do. My mother knew I was wavering in my dedication to school so she said, "Just graduate, I don't care what your grades are. Graduate." So I popped Xanax like they were M&Ms and managed to graduate.

Meanwhile I was spending every Saturday and Sunday morning with my boyfriend at my favorite coffee shop, writing on my ancient laptop. Sometimes I wrote about the people at the cafe, making up stories for them. Other times I wrote about things that had happened to me during my intern year in Manhattan, which although depressing had also been full of dating stories I'd shared with my amused friends at the time, not knowing this would be a precursor to a very popular and award-winning dating and sex blog I wrote for years after college. 

Oftentimes, or should I say, most of the time, I wrote about how much I feared the end of the school year and my having to become an architect for real. I could barely deal with architecture in the safely confined design studio of university; how would I deal with multiple bosses, endless meetings, city codes, and contractors who automatically saw me as an adversary because of my position and gender?

And so I drank, to silence my growing dread of facing the architecture profession head-on.

There was a time I loved architecture, really, truly. My freshman year of college was the best year of my life because I was surrounded by people who shared my passion for art and architecture. We went to the local Museum District and gawked over exquisite handrails and clever wall detailing. These were my people. My collection of architecture books from those years prove my love for it was once genuine. But somewhere along the way, I either burned out or got burned. To this day I can't tell you where I went wrong. Maybe things would have been different if I'd never experienced depression. But as it was, I fell deeply out of love with architecture. 

Then there was my newfound love of writing--it made me happy, at least for a couple hours every weekend at that coffee shop. During my twelve-hour days of architecture studio all week I looked forward to those few precious hours I'd have to write. Writing just made me feel better, it was that plain and simple. I could say anything I wanted. I could cry or rage or complain or hope. I could just be. I could imagine a different life, one where I was happy. 

But what did I expect to do with that $250,000 degree? Change the entire course of my life so I could write? Seriously? That was no real-world endeavor, at least not to my family full of engineers, scientists, and medical professionals. 

And so I drank, to silence the new voice in the back of my head telling me to dare to follow my dreams anyway.

I started cutting myself as well, but I'll save that story for another post. 

Over my twenties my drinking expanded from beer and margaritas at Mexican restaurants to box wine (because it felt more dignified and less like being an alcoholic) at home to vodka sodas at clubs until I finally kept a full bar at home, having long ditched the Australian boyfriend for the better support system of white Russians, straight tequila, whiskey, or my poison of choice, the big 1.5 liter bottles of wine.

It seemed like every direction I looked, there was a reason to drink. Sometimes I wonder if I stood a chance at all of avoiding alcoholism, especially once you throw in the addiction gene on both sides of the family. Or maybe that's all just a big excuse for why I failed so miserably at fighting it for so many years. 

By age 25 my love was easily found in a glass, night after night, and always alone except for the voice in the back of my head. 

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If you can relate all too well to my story, feel free to email me vixoen@gmail.com. No judgement, full confidentiality, because I get it.