Alcoholic thinking is present long before a person picks up a drink. The negative, erratic, or insane thought patterns can even be evident in childhood, and unless healthy coping skills are taught, the person will eventually find their way toward something that will change the way they feel—drugs, alcohol, sex—pick a vice.
I thought back to how alcoholism was evident in my personality long before I began to drink alcoholically. Here are a few of the twisted thought processes I used to have before I found sanity in recovery:
Grandiose: You have visions of being the CEO of some company. Forget that you don’t have a particular career path in mind, nor are you working toward your vision. You just have a feeling that it’s your destiny to be the gal on top of it all. When any level-headed person reminds you that you’ve been in college for a decade and still hadn’t finished your associate’s degree—you lash out and remind them that those are details and they’re just jealous because they lack goals of their own.
Manufacture melancholy. Set the scene: put on some bluesy music, light candles, grab a comfy blanket, open a bottle of wine and take a trip down memory lane. Reminisce, and then ruminate about every lousy relationship you’ve ever had, your shitty childhood, and how the world was so unkind. If the tears aren’t falling yet, drink another bottle of wine—the water will come. Now, cry until you’re exhausted or pass out.
Snag a decent job, but four months into it decide that you cannot handle the micromanaging twit boss of yours who constantly appears out of nowhere. You hate how he hovers. Everywhere you go; to the break room; to the bathroom; to the copy room—there he is…fussing fussing fussing…those frantic little hands…there’s something about him… you snap and decide at that moment that you’ll take an early lunch. You’ve had enough. You pleasantly ask permission to go grab that early lunch—you’re famished! You slip the few personal items from your desk into your purse, and you know—you know to the marrow of your bones that you’re never coming back. You skip to your car. Your first thought is to go buy a bottle of champagne. You show up at your BF’s work. When he sees you sashaying toward him with champagne in your hand—never mind that it’s only eleven fifteen in the morning…you see the color drain from his face. Your first thought is what a party-pooper. Perhaps you’ll need to break up with him and find someone who’s more fun! You tell him to lighten up, it’s time to celebrate! You’re not going back to your job, or that hovering drone of a boss. “I need to be free!” you, say. And, you give zero thought to how you will pay your bills without a paycheck.
On gardening: You dig up half of your back yard because all of a sudden, you’re a native plant specialist. After massacring perfectly good sod, you’ve created a mud pit of epic proportions. You stop digging and lean on the shovel to catch your breath—a real worker-bee, that’s what you are. You crack a beer and drink it down. You crack a second beer and then think about getting back to work, but you never do. You’re exhausted from all that digging. You assess your work and are stunned at how little grass you have left; the thought comes to mind that you didn’t know you even liked to garden. You do nothing else for a week because you’re contemplating the plan for the “master” garden, but after four days of rain, you’re over it. What a mess! You call the landscaper; you need help, but now you’re pissed that he can’t come for three more weeks. What an ass. To hell with him. You think about it for a minute and then blame it all on the lady at the garden center who wasn’t inspiring enough and didn’t help you pick out any plants.
It’s the new year: Time to get healthy. Get in your car and zoom to the health food store: Spend one hundred and twenty bucks on supplements and anything else that you can grab that promises better skin, weight loss, thicker hair, stronger nails, something to detox your body and something natural with “calming” properties. Leave the store with your goodies, and before you even get to your car, stand in the middle of the parking lot (the cars can wait or go around you) and pause to light a cigarette. Get in the car, (still smoking), find and finish off the half-eaten bag of Cheeto’s you left on the passenger seat under your gym bag. Drive home. Unload your cache of wellness; pour a glass of wine and wash down one of each supplement with the wine. Wait five minutes—you don’t feel any healthier and fume that the sh*t you just bought clearly doesn’t live up to what it says it will do. You’ve been had.
All of those whacky thought processes, yes, that was me. I did all of those things, yet at the time, I saw nothing wrong with my thought process or my behavior. I thought I was doing well, but I wasn’t. Just like the women whose voices I included in Raising the Bottom confessed to being as whacky as me, but we all found our way back to rational thoughts and behaviors once we found recovery. I didn’t know that I had the thinking and behavior of an alcoholic until I began to learn about the disease of alcoholism. People still tend to think that alcoholism is only about drinking—when the truth is that alcoholism is far more about my thinking! The Big Book talks about grandiosity and emotional immaturity—those two characteristics were part of my makeup. That is who I was—I was in every sense—insane! It wasn’t until I got into recovery was I able to look at the truth of my thinking and my behavior and realize how abnormal it all was. The good news is that recovery restores us to sanity. If we can’t look back and laugh and also be proud of how far we’ve come…the things I used to do and think…I have no idea who that person is anymore. She doesn’t live with me anymore—and for that, I am grateful. Thank God that recovery gives us the hope that who we were yesterday doesn’t have to be the person that we are today!
Lisa is the author of the multi-award winning book, Raising the Bottom: Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture. After short stints where she trained polo horses, worked as a flight attendant, hairdresser, and bartender, she revamped her life and settled in as a registered nurse. For the past twenty-nine years has worked with hundreds of women to overcome alcoholism, live better lives and become better parents. She was prompted to write Raising the Bottom when she realized after twenty plus years of working in hospitals, that doctors and traditional healthcare offer few solutions to women with addiction issues. You can start reading for free on Amazon. Follow her on Twitter @LBoucherAuthor and Instagram