Dedicated to.. | Chapter 4: The Bottle — Drowning in Misery
A Collection of Short Stories on the Flower That Grew From Concrete
The bottle is my favorite pastime.
Today marks the three hundred and thirty-third day that I’ve been sober.
It hasn’t quite yet been a full year of sobriety, but nonetheless, I’m proud of making it this far. However, every day is still a battle. The night tremors continue, the mood swings are persistent, and I’ve been on the verge of relapse more times than I can count.
I was hesitant not to be stereotyped or viewed as an alcoholic, but it was probably already too late for that, so I’ve been attending AA meetings for the past couple of months now with my therapist’s consistent recommendation.
I also believed that I didn’t fit into the demographic of the categorical Alcoholic Anonymous attendee. You know, the stereotypical middle-aged person who has just lost their jobs, is facing homelessness, has a disrupted family life, or is socially isolated from their relationships.
I’d soon learn that many who attended AA were just like me. In their twenties, or even younger, they still had jobs, still had families that cared for them, and lacked a criminal record.
There is a bit of everyone.
As Americans, we might have our ideological differences outside of the anonymity of the meeting walls, but we shared a commonality: our conditional relationship with booze and the milestone of our last drink.
Each session begins with a moment of reflection on a chosen prompt, followed by an open forum discussion.
For the first months in AA, I didn’t say anything in the meetings.
Fly on the wall.
I’m usually quiet and known to be timid, and in this open forum setting, it would take a lot to break that shell.
Being vulnerable in front of other people? You couldn’t see me doing it. Yet alone, in front of just one person, was a hefty task. To demonstrate, it usually takes my therapist until the end of the session to really get it out of me.
Then one evening, I spoke.
I didn’t intend to speak in the meeting that evening, it kind of just happened.
That evening, the topic of the prompt was forgiveness. Not on forgiveness of others but on forgiving ourselves — as forgiveness is done in the interest of self:
Could you forgive yourself? Do you believe you are worthy of forgiveness? Could you release the resentment you bear in yourself? Could you make amends with yourself first before seeking amends from those close to you?
After the timed reflection and thinking about my closest friend’s death the week before, I wept uncontrollably. It was too late to ask for their forgiveness because they were gone.
Holding back tears, tissues in hand, I began to tell my story.
“My name is Trey, and I’m an alcoholic….”
For a long time, I’ve had a hard time forgiving myself.
After that evening, I was no longer a prisoner, no longer crushed by the burden of my past. I took the first step to console my past mistakes for a better future.
I reconnected with parts of myself that had been covered with guilt, shame, remorse, and self-loathing.
All it took was a moment of open vulnerability.
My relationship with the bottle was one way — most of my relationships had been that way.
Conditional.
There was an inter-dependency that I relied on.
I found friendship through the bottle. It would also be the end to many. It was the lost relationships that always hit the hardest. My exes couldn’t handle my drinking, but the bottle also healed the wounds they left behind — it was my relapse, my vice.
So I always returned to the bottle.
The bottle fueled my benders.
It helped me cope with the loneliness.
The feelings of anguish had kept me warm, and the whiskey coat always helped as well.
It was always there, always on time, and always got rid of the pain.
I was hurting inside, and I found love inside the bottle — or call it lust.
DEDICATED TO..
is a collection of flash fiction short stories on the stages of life we grow through, the battle of youthfulness, and the transition into adulthood.
