Journey into the Bottle

Its a very common problem that many people simply do not understand.  Why do people become dependent on alcohol, lose control of their lives, often coming face to face with death, and then, in spite of everything that would shout out "Stop!", find themselves quite incapable of stopping.  

My views on alcoholism, or as I prefer to call it, a chemical dependency on alcohol, are rooted in my own personal experience.  As opposed to some, who from the first drink on were out of control, I drank moderately, and sporadically for most of my adult life.  Specifically, I could have a beer or two at times when it seemed appropriate, and then not have any for significant periods of time.  Football season was a time I liked a beer.  Beer and pizza was good.  But then as the weather turned cold, I had no interest in a cold one.  It might be months before I'd have another.

I might drink heavily when I was away at the pastor's conference.  And then nothing.  I could take it or leave it.  This was my story from the first drink I took when I was 18, through about my 45th birthday.  

And then things changed.  

Two things, actually, impacted my journey into the bottle.  First, I was prescribed Ativan as part of my medication in treatment of my depression and anxiety.  Ativan (lorazipam) is a drug that works in your brain in a similar way as alcohol, same receptors, so I am told.  It is highly addictive.  I decided to go off of Ativan and did so, virtually cold turkey.  Almost to the day, without realizing what I was doing, I substituted a couple of drinks a day for the Ativan I was taking.  This is classic "cross addiction".  I simply changed substances.

The second major contributing factor in my drinking, was that I began to drink for effect.  I needed it to sleep, to ease my tension and anxiety, and to relax from a day's work and stress.

The net result is that I went from an average of one or two drinks per week, to consuming 6 to 7 fluid ounces of Scotch a night, and this change happened almost immediately.  It didn't happen over the course of years, or months, but within days.  

There are three stages of addiction.  

When one first introduces alcohol into your system the body reacts negatively to it as a foreign substance.  Intoxication is the result.  This negative reaction of the body is found to be repulsive by some, and enjoyable by others.  My wife has never been able to tolerate even the smallest amount of intoxication.  I rather enjoyed the "buzz".  But whether one finds intoxication to be repulsive or enjoyable, it is the body's profoundly negative reaction to alcohol in the system.

When alcohol is consumed regularly, in sufficient quantities, the body does its best to adapt.  This is called "habituation" or building up a tolerance to alcohol..  The body re-regulates itself to adjust to the presence of alcohol, with the net result that alcohol begins to lose its intoxicating properties.  For those who desire the effect of intoxication, they must drink more to achieve the same results.  And the body continues to adapt, and more is still needed.  An advanced alcoholic can consume an incredible amount of alcohol, and still function normally.  If you have to ride in a car with a driver that has been drinking, pick the alcoholic.  

The third phase of alcoholism is that it becomes necessary to maintain a level of alcohol in the system to feel "normal".  I used to joke that it took two Scotch doubles just to feel sober.  It was no joke.  It actually did.  At this point in an alcoholic's life intoxication is no longer the problem.  The problem is detoxification.  The body has so adjusted to a constant presence of alcohol in the system that it now reacts negatively to the lack of alcohol.  Case in point:  As my drinking reached significant levels, I began to worry about my congregation smelling liquor on me Sunday morning, and so I decided not to drink on Saturday nights.  The result, which I did not recognize, was that Sunday mornings I began to shake uncontrollably, enough that I could not pour the wine during communion distribution anymore.  I thought to myself that this had nothing to do with drinking, because I hadn't had anything to drink.  My body, however, was detoxing.  It was having an adverse reaction to the lack of alcohol.  At this point, the addiction to alcohol is at its strongest.  One MUST drink to avoid the negative effects of detoxification.  Its a simple matter of pain avoidance.

But there are limits.  An alcoholic desires to feel that pleasant buzz, but now doesn't.  And so they drink more.  The "buzz" is gone.  On my last night drinking, I consumed over a fifth of Scotch, plus took Ativan, to calm my nerves and hopefully, experience the 'positive' feeling of intoxication.  It eluded me.  I nearly drank myself to death in the attempt.  

I believe that this cycle of intoxication, habituation, and detoxification is a pattern that anyone will experience given the consumption of enough alcohol on a regular basis.  No one is immune.  Some  people may be more prone to alcoholism than others, for a variety of reasons.  But I believe that no one is immune.  No, not even one.  Be aware of that the next time you think to yourself that you can really 'handle your booze'.  That may be a sign that you've just advanced to the second stage of alcoholism, and what I can tell you from personal experience is that it does not get better from there.