What Alcoholism Really Feels Like (From the Inside)
It doesn't feel like "being an alcoholic”
Most people who have not had a close encounter with alcoholism may have a stereotypical view of what it looks like—constant hangovers, terrible physical appearance, showing up drunk at inappropriate places and moments. It's what we see in the movies and what we learn from popular culture. The constant drunkenness, the chaos, the homelessness, losing everything. These can all be present but they are not always the only indicators.
My grandpa was an alcoholic. He became violent when he drank. At his lowest point, he chased my grandmother around the house with a kitchen knife, attempting to kill her, while her four kids were present. She hid in the bedroom with the kids until he gave up. When she came out of the room, he was fast asleep in the hammock, still gripping the knife on his chest. She left the house that day and never went back. He went on to become a stereotypical alcoholic.
That was my picture of what an alcoholic looked like before I became one myself.
So, yes, there are your typical alcoholic behaviors and characteristics. But different people experience addiction in different ways. Especially if there are comorbidities involved, such as depression, anxiety or other illnesses and disorders. There are also different levels of alcoholism, in which people can exhibit specific behaviors according to which level they belong to at the time.
One thing is sure—alcoholism doesn't always look like alcoholism.
I started drinking when I was 17 and though I couldn't have been considered an alcoholic at the time, looking back I realize that my drinking was problematic from the beginning. Throughout my twenties I continued to drink even though with time the consequences became more serious. I led a normal life—I had a job, friends, relationships. It was a full life. Yet alcohol was always there, growing its presence in my life day by day.
Only when I was in my late twenties, suffering through a serious depressive episode, did I realize that my drinking had become pathological. Yet I didn't immediately admit it, not to myself and not to others. I carried that secret within me for years, as it grew heavier and heavier. Why did it take so long for me to realize I was an alcoholic? Because I never knew what it was really like.
Alcoholism shows up in our day-to-day lives in ways we don't even realize, such as:
Counting drinks.
Being excited when plans involved alcohol.
Feeling disappointed when they didn't.
Choosing restaurants based on the drinks menu.
Wondering if there would be enough alcohol.
Hurrying through responsibilities so you could drink.
Feeling irritated when someone suggested leaving the bar early.
Mentally calculating whether you could drive home.
Worrying about running out of alcohol.
Planning tomorrow's drinking while still drinking today.
If you have had one or more of those thoughts constantly, you could be struggling with some level of alcohol abuse.
Alcohol influences your decision-making
One of the situations that many alcoholics suffer the most—especially in the beginning of their disease—is the constant mental negotiation. Part of you knows that what you are feeling and thinking is wrong, yet you are quick to create plausible explanations to your ever-increasing compulsive thoughts about alcohol.
It can start as simple as wondering on a Friday afternoon if you will drink that night. Then the next Friday again. And then the next one. Before you know it, drinking on a Friday night becomes routine and all you have to decide is where and with whom. If there's nowhere to go, you might buy a six-pack and take it home so you can relax with a beer.
Another thought that might start to occur regularly is about how many drinks you'll have that day. “I'll only have two", "Just one glass of wine tonight", “I can't exaggerate today". When you start mentally negotiating the amount of alcohol that you will drink, it's a sign that you are already aware of the negative effects that alcohol has on you. You then begin developing strategies to cope with the results of those effects.
Alcoholics also consider quitting many times once they realize their drinking habits have become problematic. However, the day to quit never comes. “I'll quit on Monday", “I'll quit after New Year's Eve", “I'll quit after my sister's wedding", “I'll quit on dry January". You know you have to quit but your addicted mind keeps creating obstacles that prevent you from doing what you have to do.
The internal conversation is exhausting and can define your entire life. Every event becomes a mental struggle to figure out how alcohol will or will not be involved. The alcoholic mind is always negotiating impossible deals in which alcohol will eventually prevail.
Looking forward to drinking all day
Many people believe that alcoholism occurs during the act of drinking, but most of the time it happens before the first drink. The addictive mind is longing for a relief from its urges and will think about it non-stop until they finally have access to their drug.
If you are a high-functioning alcoholic, it's likely that you spend all day working, acting quite normal. In reality, you are watching the clock, counting the minutes until your day is over so you can have a drink. If you are attending a wedding with a church event, you might squirm through the service anxious to get to the party.
As an alcoholic, drinking becomes as part of your life as your job, kids and partner. It needs attention and care. It takes up mental space and you can't ignore it. You start planning your days, nights, weekends, holidays and vacations around alcohol, even if you don't realize it.
If you're having a hard day and you become restless, all you can think about is that you can have a drink later. That thought alone gets you through the day. And if for some reason alcohol isn't available, anxiety sets in. You can't think, you can't work, you can't function properly. You become angry, irritative and stressed. Your day is over.
But when that first drink finally comes… oh, man. You feel the relief pour through your whole body. The tension disappears. All your worries melt away. The constant thinking stops. Your stress, your anger, your sadness, your anxiety… all gone with one sip. How can you quit something so gratifying?
The shame of being an alcoholic
Alcoholism runs on both sides of my family. It's no secret to anyone that we have alcoholics amongst us, but nobody talks about it. My grandpa never searched for help and died an active alcoholic. Other alcoholics in my family are still in action and don't seem to be interested in asking for help. As far as I know, I'm the first one to reach out for help.
There's a shame attached to alcohol. Internally, the alcoholic is constantly thinking about their situation. The promises that you will stop that never come to fruition. The unsuccessful attempts at quitting. The breaking of promises to yourself. Addiction makes it hard—almost impossible—for you to maintain your word. How will you get your dopamine hit without your drink?
So you need to keep drinking. Even when you are surrounded by others. When I was still living with my parents in my late teens, I once brought home a bottle of vodka and hid it in my closet. Every day I would take a few sips. One day, my parents confronted me about it, bottle in hand. They had smelled the alcohol in my breath a few times and searched my room for the culprit. I was busted. I was so ashamed that I couldn't look at them for days.
As alcoholics, we hide and lie in order to keep our secrets. No one can know how dependent we are on alcohol. No one can see our weakness. We prefer to betray the ones we love rather than admit we have a problem and ask for help.
We wake up every morning with regret from all the things we did the night before. We wonder why we can't control it. The feeling of guilt only fuels more drinking.
The never-ending cycle
The alcoholic is trapped in a cycle of dependency. Many people genuinely want to stop, but the urges are too strong. They cannot envision their lives without alcohol. They cannot fathom dealing with emotions and problems without alcohol. So they drink again.
One day, you are able to cut off the alcohol for some time. You spend a few weeks without drinking, learning to live a new life free of hangovers and embarrassment. Then life hits you with the death of a loved one or the loss of a job. You're back to square one. You haven't yet learned to deal with these moments without alcohol so you go back to your old habits.
The cycle begins once again.
These situations of failure can generate hopelessness over time. You can start to accept alcoholism as a part of who you are and who you will always be. You stop seeing a light at the end of a tunnel. The feeling is similar to severe depression, where the person cannot imagine ever feeling anything ever again. The alcoholic can only bear feeling anything when they are drinking. The situation seems doomed. They try and try, but the decisions don't stick. Relapse becomes almost normal.
Alcoholism surrounded by loneliness and fear
The alcoholic leads an extremely lonely life. Even when they are surrounded by people. Those who are deeper in their addiction—where their drinking is affecting their families and work—may be seen by others as being weak, selfish, stubborn, lacking character. Non-addicts cannot understand what their alcoholic partners are going through and it's almost impossible to offer support.
The addict constantly feels misunderstood. Especially because they can't put their addiction into words. They cannot express what their addiction makes them feel like. So they have no way of sharing their ordeal. As if the shame wasn't enough, the addict also fears the judgement. There are many out there that believe that addicts can just quit—it's just a matter of making the decision. They don't realize that “lack of control” is the base definition of addiction.
Fearing judgement, alcoholics will find ways to hide their drinking. Just like I hid my vodka bottle in my closet. I also started going out to bars alone, so no one would see how much I was drinking. When I was out with friends, we would say goodbye to go home and I would go to my car, wait til they had all left and then I'd head back to the bar.
On the day-to-day, we pretend everything is fine. We take mints drops to masquerade the smell of booze on our breath. We take Advil to take care of the headache. We fuel up on Gatorade and RedBull to wake us up. We take medication for the stomachache and the diarrhea. Yes. Everything is totally fine.
But who would we talk to about this? Any sane person would take a look at this situation and say that we should just not drink. But it's not that easy. It's not that simple. And so we end up bottling this all up inside and dealing with it internally. Over a beer, if possible.
The fear of sobriety
Most alcoholics have considered sobriety at some point. Some of us have to hit rock bottom before we take the leap. But it can happen at other times in our lives. I tried quitting drinking several times before I really committed to sobriety. Many people do make an effort to quit, but so many things stand in the way. One of the main culprits: fear.
Fear comes in many forms. An alcoholic who is heavily active in drinking may become terrified of the thought of never drinking again. Imagine that you need alcohol every day in order to function. The thought of never having access to it again could be enough to cause psychological withdrawal symptoms.
I had a friend in college who got hooked on crack-cocaine. His family sent him to a recovery clinic in another state, to get him away from his friends. He ran away on the first day and was only found five days later. When they asked him why he ran away, he said that he became desperate with the thought of not using.
There are other fears tied to the idea of quitting alcohol. Some people use alcohol to become more extroverted and social. They create an entire social circle based around their use of alcohol. If you remove the alcohol, what happens to the relationships?
With alcohol, I was the girl who danced on top of the countertops at the bar. Without alcohol, I could barely maintain a conversation with a stranger. When I quit drinking, I went back to being an introvert and immediately lost all my drinking buddies. Though this choice made sense to me, it terrified me in the beginning. The idea that I would no longer be around those people, that I would lose those friendships… It made me put off quitting for years.
The idea of full sobriety can be daunting. Will you never go to parties again? No more raves? No more music festivals? No more staying up til 3 am? What will you drink when you go to an event? How do you deal with being sober in a world so surrounded by alcohol?
Life without alcohol seems almost impossible for an addict. They may fear sobriety more than alcoholism.
The physical pain of sobriety
For those who have never dealt with addiction, depression or anxiety, quitting may seem simple. You imagine that the addict makes the choice and that's it. But there are consequences—cravings, withdrawal, anxiety, depression. There is a physical price to pay for sobriety. Of course, it's temporary. But for the addict it may feel overwhelming.
Imagine you have to pee but there's no bathroom around. Your bladder starts to fill up and you start feeling the pressure to go to the bathroom. It increases and increases to the point where it's unbearable. It may even reach a point where you can pee yourself due to the incapacity to hold it in any longer. That is what cravings feel like. It's a pressure to alleviate a feeling. The first thing the addict feels when they drink is relief, because they are finally satisfying their craving.
Dealing with cravings is one of the hardest parts of sobriety. Recovering alcoholics have to create strategies and tactics to deal with cravings as they are working through their steps. The cravings will come. How will you deal with them? Not having a plan is a recipe for failure. Cravings are the main reason early recovering addicts relapse.
Depending on the level of alcoholism the person endured before they quit, they may experience withdrawal symptoms. I won't get into the medical details here, but hospitalization may be necessary for some. Recovery clinics may be another option for those who may suffer withdrawal.
Many people are unable to get through the withdrawal phase. It's so hard and it hurts so much that they just can't stand their ground. Withdrawal does go away after a while, but enduring it is one of the hardest things an addict can do.
Aside from cravings and withdrawal, there are other physical sensations that you will experience. Your sleep patterns will change. You may sleep a lot during the first few weeks, or you may be unable to sleep at all. You may gain or lose weight fast. You may start feeling anxiety or worsening panic attacks. Even blackouts can occur.
Having a medical doctor supporting your recovery is important so that you can deal with these issues in the best way possible.
“Hello, I'm an alcoholic in recovery”
You made it. You quit drinking. You are now a recovering alcoholic. There's a whole plethora of new problems you will have to deal with. From rebuilding your career to repairing your relationships. You will have to learn how to live a life free of alcohol.
You may or may not want to share that you are an alcoholic in recovery, but feel assured that the issue will come up in very unexpected moments. When you start going out again, people will wonder why you are drinking water at a bar, why you're not having champagne at the New Year's Eve party, why you're not doing shots at the wedding.
You will have to deal with people bringing up your past mistakes all the time. "Remember when you passed out at that party?”. Some will do this for the rest of your life. Family especially has a tendency to do this. You will learn to deal with it.
You will be the one leaving early from the office Christmas party. You'll be the designated driver for your friend group. You will lose many friends. You will make new ones.
Becoming sober is starting a new life. Except that this time you are in control.
When you are sober you stop negotiating. You stop obsessing. You stop planning your day around alcohol. You stop thinking about alcohol. There will be more space in your life for the important things. There will be hope.
Alcoholism is a disease masqueraded as a character defect. The more people understand what it really feels like, the more empathy they will have for the addict. The more they will be able to help them.
And as for the addict—understanding what you are going through and accepting it is the only way to change your life. You can start right now.
