I dislike labels.  I am a trained Sociologist by trade and labels for me create distinct boxes or categories.  When I get labelled, I feel like I my movements are constricted, that I don’t have options.  The most common labels I have right now are woman, white, alcoholic.  These binary categories make it easy for other’s to file us away in their memory, but in the long run, they can be dangerous for how we see ourselves and we respond to other actions.

In many AA meetings, and via the tens of therapists I have seen, alcoholics are labeled into different categories.  The main three are functioning alcoholic, maintenance drinker, and binge drinker.  I eschew these labels because I think if you are an alcoholic you fit into all three of these categories.  I also don’t really believe in the label of functioning alcoholic.

In my drinking history, I believe I started out as a binge drinker.  I would go to parties, drink as much as I could; black out or drink more.  I drank dangerous amounts of alcohol and did dangerous things while drunk.  But I never stopped being a binge drinker.  I liked binge drinking.  What’s the point of drinking if you don’t get smashed right. (Yep I know, I’m a recovering alcoholic; that is how I think).  But I also was a maintenance drinker.  Towards the end, I drank every day, all day long, but I also binged.  So I was both.

They say that it is harder for the binge drinker to get sober than the maintenance drinker.  The reasoning for this is because the binge drinker will get loaded like twice or three times a week, while the maintenance drinker drinks everyday.  So the binge drinker is less likely to see their drinking as a problem.

The label I hate the most though is functioning alcoholic.  I was called a functioning alcoholic for years because I still was in grad school or still went to work.  But the truth of the matter, is that I wasn’t functioning at all.  I drank all the time, all my thoughts centered around drinking.  Who was going to go with me? Should I take my car, beg for a ride, or call a taxi?  How late should I stay? Was I going to stick to vodka or drink some beer?

My husband calls one of his friends a functioning alcoholic.  I say to that bullshit. Just because he gets up every morning and goes to work, does not mean he’s functioning.  He is a state employee and spends his yearly vacation (2-3 weeks) completely locked in his apartment with his guns, drinking into oblivion.  He doesn’t go anywhere.  Every night after work, he goes to his apartment, Applebee’s or a strip club and drinks himself till he can’t remember himself or his demons anymore. He picks up hookers, he sleeps behind the strip club sometimes, he’s even shot a hole through he truck door. 

And you know what…my heart hurts from him.  He’s a great guy, his disease has just grabbed him so tightly that he can’t let go.  He was sober for thirty days about 6 months ago and we haven’t heard from him since.  He calls randomly or sends random texts.  I know he hurts, I know he wants a different life, but right now he can’t figure it out.

But he is not functioning.

I didn’t know where to go next.

I literally was unable to do things that “normies” did.  I was becoming increasingly anxious, having on average two panic attacks a day.  I was not living, I was barely surviving.

On my last day of work (unbeknownst to me), I was so shaky with the drinks from the previous night, my anxiety, and my mixture of a morning cocktail and a Klonopin, that I definitely could not get on the 6 subway and head to midtown.  I wandered towards the bus.  The bus seemed calmer to me in my most drunken of states.  I got on and stumbled to a seat.  I was disheveled.  I hadn’t showered because I was afraid of having a panic attack in the shower.  If I did shower, I would make sure that I brought the bottle with me.

I stank of liquor; new and old.  I stank of body odor; old from NYC’s summer humidity and an apartment with broken air conditioning.  I most likely forgot to brush my teeth and I definitely had not indulged in any breakfast.

People were staring at me; but I hardly noticed.  In my delusional state, I thought they were staring because I looked hot.  I looked damn good for being drunk at 7am.  I rode the bus one stop and got off.  I didn’t even make it to 110th Ave.  I was in full panic.  My muscles were tensing up, my breathing was belabored, so I pulled out my water bottle full of vodka, I sat on the sidewalk in the oppressing August heat and drank.

I don’t remember much of anything after that.  I did not pass out, but I definitely blacked out.  The next thing I remember is being in the psych ward of Metropolitan hospital.  I looked around, trying to process what was happening.  Some guy next to me was speaking in Spanglish about detoxing from Heroin.  A really wasted woman who refused to wear pants walked about from room to room.  I remained in my chair.

The psych ward was locked and I started to feel claustrophobic and I noticed the security guard staring me down.  I did not know what was happening, but as I started to come more in focus, I noticed that I was handcuffed to the chair.

I screamed out, a guttaral scream from the depths inside of me.  I had never screamed for my life before.  But as I sat handcuffed to a chair, in a locked psych ward, I knew things would never be the same.  And then I puked to the side of me because I had no where to go.

I didn’t sleep anymore.  I was in state of constantly having to drink to maintain the shakes.  It was scary having to always know that you had to have alcohol around to be able to ward off the demon of your own mind and the demon of withdrawal.  My mind did not work properly.  Gaps of time were becoming a constant.  I would try to remember what I had done the day before, but I was forgetting more and more.

My bedroom in my small NYC apartment was so small I could only fit a bed in it.  Next to the bed were tons of empty bottles of vodka.  I thought I was hiding all the bottles in my room from my roommate.  I would take them out when she was gone.  

I don’t know what was different about that morning.  I did not feel well as per usual.  My fifth of vodka had opened in the middle of the night and poured some its contents onto my bed.   I grabbed the bottle and drank until the anxiety stopped.  I drank and I cried. I drank and hoped it would get better.  I drank and knew that it would not get better. I drank more because everything seemed so hopeless.  I drank because I was afraid that the withdrawals would be too much.  I drank because I didn’t know what else to do.

That morning I called my mom.  She answered and said, “What’s going on?”  I responded, ” I have a drinking problem and I need help.  I really need help and I don’t know what to do.”  I cried a muffled cry into the phone.  It was the first time I had said out loud that I had a drinking problem.  I started to cry even harder and the silence grew louder.

My mom finally said, “Well, I’ve known you’ve had a drinking problem for years.”

That was it.  That was her response.  It was not what I expected at all.  She didn’t say anything else after that.  She was silent again.  

I cried, “Mom I have a problem, I need help.  I’m afraid I am going to die.”

“Well you are an adult.  If you need help you can find it yourself.  There are lots of places that can help you.  But I cannot be that person to help you and neither can your father.  You got yourself into this situation, now you have to get yourself out of it,” she replied.

At that moment my mom reified every belief I held about her and my father.  I knew that I had to be perfect for them to even think about loving me.  I knew that admitting my addiction to her, would bring up feelings about her own problems and addictions. I knew all of this before I called her.

But I had hoped she would embrace me with her words and say, “I will fly out to NYC tonight and help you find the help you need.”  But those words never came out of her mouth.

And that day and night I drank more and more vodka straight.  Crying and watching The Office, wondering how I would make it till tomorrow.