I'm lying on the fold away bed at a friends house because last night I had a few to many and decided it would be better if I didn't drive home.
I do a quick body check to determine if I'm still drunk and a sense of shame and failure washes over me. The sense of post inebriation dread that I'm all too familiar with.
I lie here thinking about how when I woke up yesterday I felt so good.
I could feel the possibility stretching out in front of me.
Yesterday I got up when I woke up, made myself breakfast, wrote and exercised and, for the first time in a couple of months, I had direction and the energy to do something with it.
And now I feel like I've thrown it away.
I could have not had anything to drink last night, could have gone home after the movie and unloaded all the sewing equipment from my car.
I wonder if I'm an alcoholic.
I know I drink too much.
My family has a history of alcoholism and I'm asking the question so that probably means I am right?
I have a couple of friends and family members who have been worried about my drinking for a long time and I resent it.
I resent the fact that they're so sure I am an alcoholic and I'm afraid they might be right.
I also resent them for being the type of people who just don't like drinking much.
I'm sick of hearing the condescension in their voices as they express their concern.
"You shouldn't drink" as if it's just that easy.
I think it would be a much easier conversation with someone who likes a drink as much as I do.
Not being drunk, but the taste, the smell, the complex social history, the joy of combining flavors into something mysterious and wonderful, the whirling romantic hedonism of it all!
I'm in love with the Moulin Rouge inside myself and I don't want to give it up.
Alcohol isn't about getting drunk for me, it's about everything else.
Getting drunk is an unfortunate side effect.
I used to enjoy it, being drunk, but after a while I started to regret the lost days.
Now I'd like to be able to stop at tipsy.
But that's my problem, I'm not very good at stopping.
I've used it as a crutch for such a long time, it's hard to break the habit of just having another drink.
I was incredibly shy as a child.
My discomfort with my self, something I was sure others could see, made it hard to interact socially with other kids. Once I reached puberty that was compounded by having to come to terms with the idea that I would always be a boy.
Fortunately by then I'd already found alcohol.
I think I was ten the first time I got intentionally drunk.
Our neighbors who lived in the old woolen mill down the drive from my house were having a curry night, a big pot luck feast of indian food. There were two families who lived in the mill, and they had friends and their kids staying plus my parents so there was a mess of kids and adults and dogs and music and Wales has a fairly permissive attitude towards giving children alcohol.
In a situation like that it's pretty easy for a kid to ask for a small glass of wine, and then perhaps a bit of cider from another adult and pretty soon all the parents are a bit drunk themselves and stopped paying attention to how many drinks you've had and boom!
I'm lying on the sofa in our living room explaining to my sister, who is seven, that the room is spinning and I can't stand up properly.
She thinks it sounds awful, I think it's amazing.
From that night on I get drunk at every opportunity that presents itself.
I start smoking weed just before my thirteenth birthday, try mushrooms at fourteen (they grow everywhere in wales), I've taken Acid, speed and E by the time I'm fifteen and it's all just so easy.
When I'm high strange new worlds are opened up, and the prospect of being cool becomes a reality.
Drugs are cool.
So I get good at drugs.
I become an expert at rolling joints, and that one skill (and a few pints) allows me to fit in anywhere.
Well, at least amongst those of my peers who are into the drugs scene.
In Southwest Wales in the early '90s, that's pretty much everyone and everywhere.
As good as I got at rolling joints, alcohol is always the premier. In terms of being able to forget just how anxious I felt it has always worked better than anything else and has been the one intoxicant I've never really left behind.
After I started transitioning I found that the fog, the physical pain, the fear and anxiety all started to lift.
I'm more social and less intoxicated.
Well most of the time.
My stomach churns and I don't know if it's the gnawing fear of failure or simply the hangover. I know I can be better than this, do more, accomplish more.
Drugs and alcohol have taken me to some amazing places, moments so magical so full of wonder that I fell in love with them, but none of those places last and the drugs stop taking you there.
I'm still in love with those places, with the ritual, with the glorious hedonism. I don't want to give up being a romantic, in fact I want more of that in my life, but the thing that used to take me there is holding me back.
Am i an alcoholic?
I just want to be able to have one or two drinks a couple of times a week and leave it at that but that is so very hard to do.
If I'm an alcoholic at least half of my friends are too.
Those of us who like drinking don't want to admit we might have a problem because it alienates us from each other to do so. The friends I have who, like my sister, just don't feel the inclination to drink don't appreciate all the things aside from getting drunk that I'll miss if I'm have to go T-total. There may be sympathy there but there's no empathy and the feeling of being judged means that I lie to them and to myself to avoid that judgement.
I don't know if seeking some real help or intervention would work because I'm not convinced I'm an alcoholic.
I don't want to quit drinking, there are too many aspects that I enjoy about it.
I just want to drink less but no one seems to find that idea acceptable because apparently if I can't do that on my own, then I have a problem the only solution to which is that I quit altogether.
Is it impossible to believe that my drinking problem is not built upon a chemical addiction, but rather a habitual pattern founded on years of self medicating for anxiety?
Speaking of which, my hormone levels are low. I know this, and I know that when my estrogen level is back where it should be I'll have more energy, feel less depressed and have better impulse control.
I can moderate my drinking perfectly well when I'm in a good place mentally, I know this because I've done it before, but when I'm feeling depressed I find it all to difficult to stop with just the one.
I can't honestly say whether it's the drinking that holds me back from achieving my goals or whether it's depression and anxiety that hold me back and also make me inclined to drink too much.
How do you ask for help to overcome a drinking too much problem?
Can I just get some help learning to moderate?
If reading that left you feeling thirsty, here's a cocktail recipe I created.
The Tyler Durden
2oz Gin (Tanqueray, Hendrick's or New Amsterdam)
1/3oz Dry Vermouth
1/3oz Monin Rose Syrup
Habanero pepper ganish
Shake the gin and vermouth as for a dry martini and pour into a martini glass
Sink the rose syrup into the glass
Garnish with three paper thin slices of habanero
Afterward
I got up, grabbed my things, drove home, unpacked the sewing stuff from the car, sat down and wrote this. I'm about to exercise and eat breakfast and dammit if I'm not going to achieve the things I had planned today because it's only a few more weeks until I can get my hormone levels re-tested and increase my dosage and I know I'll feel a whole hell of a lot better once that happens. I'm not going to waste the time in between now and then.
Oh, and if you see me out, maybe remind me to drink a glass of water and wait a while before I have another Manhattan?
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