My name is Kiefer, and I'm an alcoholic.
I've struggled for years with the ability to control my emotions and my easily excitable temper. At times I had great successes, but what sticks out the most in my mind are my failures to maintain an easy-going and joyful personality, and to enjoy the moment when out with friends without alcohol.
In fact, since I was 22, I can't remember a single time that I went out and did NOT have a drink. Going to the bar every night became routine, like a home away from home. At first it was a lot of fun, catching a buzz off of a few beers, hanging out with some awesome people and rocking along to our favorite songs at karaoke - But that didn't last for very long.
After I turned 26, a few beers a night turned into 6, or 8, or more... pretty soon it was a shot to get things started, chased by a beer, followed by a whiskey and coke. And then the lies began to cover up how much I was drinking when my friends started to constantly ask if I was okay to drive, if I was sober enough to have another drink, if I really needed to have another one. I would always answer with, "Sure! I'm fine, don't worry" but it wasn't the truth. I wasn't fine. I was beyond fine, I was ripped and hammered. It wasn't safe for me to be drinking and taking my friends home in my car night after night. I could've gotten a DUI, slapped with fines, jail time, or worse... got into a car accident and killed someone. It was without a doubt the most reckless and selfish thing that I have EVER done, to get behind the wheel of a car, knowing that I was drunk, and drive myself and others home.
For years people would tell me that I should cut back, or just enjoy the night and not have a drink at all. And I tried to cut back, I tried to quit drinking on more than one occasion... but it was never something that I wanted for myself, so I kept on drinking anyway. I'd order a monster and a couple of shots, drink enough out of the can to make room for the whiskey, and pour it right on in so that my friends thought that I wasn't drinking at all. If one of them caught me? I'd deny it... but they'd always find out, it wasn't hard to do.
I'd work all day and drink every night by the time I turned 30. By the time I was 32 it was nothing for me to put away an entire fifth of cinnamon whiskey in an evening along with 2 or 3 glasses of wine, and pretend it wasn't a problem.
But the reality is that it was a problem.
Drinking soon began to make me depressed, and not enjoy my time out with friends. I'd be mopey, and wanna leave, and even if I drove others I'd always ask them to go home early because I didn't feel like being out because my drinking made me unhappy. Shortly thereafter, it also made me irritable, irrational, and angry for absolutely no reason. It also made me suspicious of everyone around me and incredibly jealous. Which didn't make any sense to me the next day when I was apologizing sincerely from my heart for what I had done, and honestly saying that I wasn't angry about what I had been the night before after all, and wasn't jealous, or truly in a bad mood, and promising not to do it again...
But I did.
Again, and again, and again, and again, and again...
I can't count how many chances I had to turn it around to even give it a number. I cannot express how filled with regret I am for all the times that I had made a promise and broken it when I drank. I can't find the words to say how incredibly awkward, stupid and ashamed I am with myself about how easily I allowed myself to be overtaken by my disease that I'd be angry and shout violently at anyone that hurt my feelings, or upset me in any way.
Friends would come to me over the last 3 years and talk to me about whether or not my drinking was becoming a problem and taking over my life... but I'd always excuse it away, apologize, and change the subject to something else until the next time I upset or hurt somebody with the behavior it caused in me. And it wasn't always when I was drinking, either... Often times, it would manifest itself the next morning when I was hungover, and I'd sleep in late to make brunch for myself and my friend. I'd wait til the headache was gone before I'd get out of bed and start to cook, but even then the effects of the drinking would still be there: I'd get angry if something wasn't done the way that I would have done it, I'd yell about a spill from the coffee carafe on the counter top, and it would usually escalate to the point where my friend would walk away from their plate to go lie in their bed on their phone all day just to get away from the negativity when it could've been a wonderful morning and afternoon spent together, had I just not given in to one more drink, and then just one more drink, or just one more shot too much...
You'd think I would've hit my rock bottom long before I did. But it took my getting arrested for starting a fight one night shortly after leaving the bar, and being processed through the system and thrown into jail to wake me up.
It was then that I realized what I had to lose, and what I have to give up in order to enjoy my life and start over again. Sounds great on paper, right? Well what about the last 3 or 7 years when people began asking some of my best friends if my drinking were getting to be a little too extreme, or a little too out of hand? What about all the times that I'd stormed out of the bar angry as hell for absolutely no reason, yelling at my best friend about something that wasn't even his fault while he calmly said, "You'll hate yourself for this in the morning, you should stop right now" but I'd still keep yelling anyway? What about all the times I fought with my friends and family members just because I couldn't have my own way over something as trivial as which episode of a TV show to watch that would quickly escalate into a full blown argument over absolutely nothing when it wouldn't have even happened if I had decided to be sober and not drink like a fish?
What about the warning signs I had had for years, knowing that alcoholism was a genetic problem that existed within both sides of my family?
Why didn't that make me stop and reassess everything good that I had going for me while I had it long enough to make the decision to just ease off and quit drinking before I threw my life away?
I can't answer those questions myself, and I shouldn't even have to toss them out there. I should've known better, and I shouldn't have hid in denial about just how bad it had gotten. Many people other than the bartenders wouldn't have even been able to TELL you just how much alcohol I had had in a single night or that I could consume on a regular basis, myself included. Many times I didn't stop drinking unless I felt sick, or if it hit me way too hard and it wasn't the hard buzz that I enjoyed and was full on drunk, which I hated, but would drink myself to on more than one occasion.
I have to live with the reality that I have to go to court to face the consequences of my actions 10 days ago. I will have to accept all the requirements laid out for me not only by the court system, but also those that I love, to atone for the wrongs that I have committed just from something that is now so easy for me to say no to...
The sad truth is that once I had one drink? I couldn't say no to another, and another, and another... I wanted more, I always wanted more. It would awaken the monster inside of me and it would take control. I was blind enough to what I was doing to myself to not even see that something that I thought I could control had taken away my willpower, and that I was powerless to it whenever I had that first drink.
So, with that being said... the purpose of my blog is to publicly document and journal my recovery from alcohol addiction, and also any other problems that I'm still struggling with. I've always hid behind them, afraid of telling anyone that something could be wrong with me, that I wasn't like everyone else and that I had a very real problem... But this is a problem I can't hide or wish away, and I never want to forget where I've come from and what I've gone thru and what I created that got me to this point.
I never want to take a single minute for granted again... and that begins my journey.
KCz
