The Value of Addiction

January 14th is the date I celebrate 2 years sober from alcohol. Drinking is something I definitely don't miss partaking in, but I also wouldn't trade my time as a drunk for anything. I didn't have my first drink until I was 17, previously I'd sworn to never even touch it due to how it controlled our household growing up. The remedy for scenarios good, bad, somber, celebratory, and any adjective in-between. This isn't a slight at my parents, they were great parents, but they had their booze fueled tirades that built my severe hatred for alcohol and what it turned people into. Each parent had an alter ego, a drunk version that was completely different from the normal, around often enough to where I saw them as and treated them as different people. I loathed this personality switch; I could never grasp the reasoning behind why someone would want to become a different person and how that was seen as fun. One day this mindset apparently took a hiatus and curiosity killed the cat. The very second that first sip went down I completely understood why it was the remedy for every state of mind; euphoria.

If you're not an alcoholic that may not sound out of the ordinary but it's a moment I remember vividly. I felt like I found the missing piece of my puzzle, emphatically declaring the completion of who I really was and ultimately, who I would become. Some drunks, like me, are lucky enough to be born with alcoholism genetically pre-programmed. Multiple generations of booze bags spilt across the family tree, each one advancing the trade further than the last, eventually thrusting the family debauchery on to me. Liquor used in such abundance that it became a transferable gene; almost as if I was built from blueprints stating, "The previous models indulged at exceedingly high amounts for so long that the love for liquor must be a survival trait." The alcoholism gene had finally encoded its magnum opus, choosing me to be its star. To stake claim to the award of best host I took a DNA test; the results came back with an astounding 95% likelihood that I possess the gene for excessive alcohol consumption. I may be the undisputed winner of the award, but all the credit goes to my family. I proudly showcase the award as a way to honor the decades of dedication they gave to the craft. Being a drunk is in my blood, it's who I am, it's who I was before the bottle, and it's who I will always be.

My 7 years of hard work pursuing the lucrative career of full-time drunk isn't the longest run you'll find nor the most successful in fucking things up, but I gave it everything I had. See, when you're deep in the weeds of addiction nothing matters except for that next drink, pill, line, or whatever brain tickler a person prefers and there are casualties when someone tries to get in the way of that fix. I neglected every meaningful aspect of my life at the mercy of the forbidden nectar, a necessity trumping even food, water, and shelter. Liquor was my sun, the center of a fractured universe in which I, a planet, orbited; obeying its every demand like they were the laws of planetary motion. The first thing I thought of every morning and ultimately the thing every day ended with, binging until I was granted the right to sleep. I wasn't one of the drunks that could get up and proceed with their day after a night of consumption. My hangovers rendered me useless, bedridden from immense anxiety, lack of sleep, and poor physical health. This presents various problems when it comes to fulfilling responsibilities, maintaining relationships, enjoying hobbies, or perusing aspirations, so full-time connoisseur became the solution. Combating the dreaded hangover with a pre-made concoction placed by my bed before falling asleep, rewarding every morning with the ability to function and push the narrative of "he's alright" to the outside world.

I probably don't need to spell it out for you, but I was far from alright. I was constantly hammered while working at a Nordic ski resort in Colorado whose owners had graciously granted me the opportunity to live there for free and get paid to work. Already on thin ice from a couple instances of "getting sick" and missing work the problem was resolved by those morning cocktails. I was there every day to use the skid steer to plow the parking lot or maneuver other heavy equipment like snow guns and snowcat parts, jovially outfit customers with boots, skis, and poles while answering any questions they may have, and provide maintenance on trails and equipment all through a blind view of my surroundings due to a BAC that would've been in the running for a gold medal at the Boozer Olympics.

I was routinely conversing with friends and family hammered, lying through my teeth to the people that cared about me and neglecting these relationships in order to cover up my fatal attraction. Having become really good at hiding how trashed I was at times that it would've been deemed unacceptable I spoke glowingly about how I was doing when in reality I was screaming for help internally. No conversation or hangout was left unsupervised by the almighty liquid which often chose to speak its mind unfiltered, and force action untethered to the feelings and boundaries of those surrounding me. Knowing that I had become a loose cannon I opted to do most of my drinking the healthy way, completely alone to not alarm anyone with my behaviors as I spiraled out of control.

I was partaking in every activity I once loved sober hammered, slowly losing interest in them altogether. I moved out to Colorado in an attempt to immerse myself in my love of downhill skiing with the hope that it'd subdue my affinity for getting belligerent. It turns out that liquor is quite adaptable to change, apparently, I forgot that liquids are known to take the shape of the container they're in, missing the fact that I was a container that liquor was permanently stored in. For 4 months I lived a mere 5-minute shuttle from one of the best ski resorts in the world, to which I was gifted a free season pass from the Nordic center. To take full advantage of my love for skiing and yet another act of kindness from my bosses I skied a whopping total of... 4 times. Each iteration having just as much time spent in a chalet bar ordering double captain cokes as time spent on the mountain doing something I claimed to love. Add skiing to the list of forgotten hobbies along with golf, reading, and watching sports; liquor found out I enjoyed other things, oozed in and said, "you only like those things when I'm involved anyway" so I quit them to focus on strengthening our relationship.

Maybe the most tragic, I was developing an acceptance for giving up on my dreams, hammered. Once a kid with aspirations of working in the sports world, a kid that felt like he had a great understanding of what it takes to work in that world professionally, and a kid that would do anything just to get his foot in the door was now directionless and without drive. Having lofty expectations for myself that I'd need to strive to accomplish was a severe conflict of interests with my illustrious drinking career where business was booming plus, I was a natural, the Wayne Gretzky of soaks. I became totally content in my pursuit of nothing, begrudgingly working odd jobs in order to keep the happy pops readily available as my sole ambition. Watching my friends accomplish goals they'd set in their professional lives rang empty, labeled as an unobtainable feat for myself but that was alright because "I'm happy with where I'm at".

This pace was unsustainable, quickly becoming an actualized version of the term "sink or swim", the ultimate choice of red pill or blue pill; save myself or drink myself to death. A relationship that I held on to for way too long ended for good on my birthday, December 3rd, accelerating my race to the bottom. The feelings associated with losing someone I loved compounded with my already declining self-esteem to create a pain that even liquor was no match for. Unable to shake the pain and using straight pulls from a bottle as a Band-Aid left me void of any emotions, an eerily serene state that enabled me to make peace with the idea of drinking myself to death. That plan was being realized at an exorbitant pace, polishing off 7 1.75Ls of vodka on my own volition from December 3rd until January 13th, the day I finally snapped and broke down to my boss while engulfed in a blackout. I was tired of it all: every moment my brain demanded a drink, every aspect of my life falling apart, every day spent physically ill, every emotion buried deep down, everything. That day I chose the red pill and elected to swim, refusing to let booze dictate when my story was going to end, a verdict I will never take for granted because it's quite literally given me everything.

Breaking that cycle and deciding to save yourself from yourself is terrifying; flooded with sober emotions after years of burying them behind a vice, needing to repair the relationships you neglected in favor of a fix, and having to do so when you don't even know who you are anymore. Addicts spend years running their own tests on the theory of classical conditioning except in this variation they're playing both the role of Pavlov and his dog, dosing themselves whenever their brain rings the bell. This consistent response creates new pathways in the brain, attributing that substance with normalcy and thus becoming standard operating procedure. Without this baseline for operation the addict truly doesn't know who they are until they retrain their brain into establishing happiness in sobriety as the new baseline, a process that takes months. This is why relapse is so prevalent, attempting to reinvent yourself when your brain is actively trying to get you to fail, not seeing the benefits of the change in a seemingly impossible feat. That's why the community aspect of recovery is the most important. Surrounding yourself with people that validate the hard work and support the journey is what makes sobriety possible. An addict left to their own devices is going to remain an addict, sabotaged by their own neurology, whereas an addict shown the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is justified in their pursuit, with promises of a better life.

The communal idea of "it takes a village" has never been lost on me. After the 3-day hangover from hell subsided, I immediately began to reflect on who I had become and what was going to be needed for me to stay sober. The best thing the drunk version of me ever did was to somehow surround myself with high quality friends that genuinely cared about the person I was and not the liquified facade I portrayed for years. These people knew the Cole before the bottle, their definition of who I was had roots firmly planted in the "before", entrusting that their allegiance would be untilled by the "after". I unabashedly confessed my story to these friends and my family, detailing my struggles and releasing all the pent-up emotion that drove me to the point where I can earnestly say the thought of death brought me peace. What I received was an outpouring of support, belief, and excitement that I can wholeheartedly say guided me into believing sobriety was the right path. Through all my unfiltered honesty and complete vulnerability, I found that people were willing to discuss the darkness of their own lives with me. I could relate to them, completely stripped of any judgment because I laid it all on the line, no detail too personal or embarrassing to share. The process of recovery, the things I've learned about myself and what hinders me, and most importantly, my fight out of the deep waters of addiction has made the people I love find solace in me and that's a responsibility I'll never take lightly. I know how low life can go, I've been intimate with the bottom, the eye of the storm where everything suddenly gets quiet as you come to terms with your fate. It's the most horrifying and outrageously fragile state a person could ever get to, I luckily made it out and have since vowed that I'll never let someone I love sink to those depths. I treat the saying "I'll always be there for you" as a rule, nothing remedial will ever prohibit me from being there for the ones I love in times of success or hardship. Every relationship I have has been made 10x stronger than I could've possibly imagined through this unwavering support, and it has immeasurably changed my life for the better. I'm dedicated to this way of life because without their unwavering support of me I most likely wouldn't be here today.

Everyone has their own shortcomings, events in life that weigh heavily on their mental health with no perceived outlet to let it out. Through the lows of my addiction, I was given the ability to relate with almost any head space, I'm able to be that outlet for people, and hopefully make their lives even marginally better because of it. This is the reason I'm glad I'm an alcoholic, being so has made me who I am today and has taught me just how valuable real relationships are in this twisted game of life. Take stock in others and they'll take stock in you, equipping you with a trampoline base that catches you when you fall and propels you to levels higher than you could've ever imagined.