In My Dreams (Sometimes) I’m Still Drinking

Or eating chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies

I am much obliged to Tim Ebl for this piece on how, after all these years, he still dreams about smoking. It brought up such memories!

While I never smoked cigarettes, I wadded up 18 years of my life and tossed them into a bottle of vodka. However, I haven’t picked up a self-prescribed mood-changing substance for (dear God, is this even possible?) 27 years and yet every so often the tiger I caged all those years ago will twitch its tail and I’ll dream about drinking or drugging.

The dreams follow a similar pattern. I suddenly am lifting a glass to my lips, the booze is right there and I think something along the lines of “Well, it’s just one drink” or “I don’t have to tell anyone”. Or I’m bizarrely aware that there is a pill in my mouth and, oh yes indeed, I do swallow it. In the dream, I’m thinking that I can deal with this tomorrow but tonight I’m on the fun train and I may as well ride it to the end of the line (which never worked out so well in my conscious life).

There is often a grating sense of remorse in these dreams. I want to spit out the pill but I’ve already swallowed it. I go to set the drink down but my mouth is filled with booze.

Curiously, I never actually taste the booze in my mouth. I get none of that welcome burn and I never experience my desperately sought-after buzz. I may drink in my dreams but I never get the big payoff. I just feel miserable and angry with myself. There’s never a question as to whether I’ll go back to my friends and fess up. Of course I will! But, dear all-that’s-holy-and-good-to-eat, I really don’t want to. I will. But, oh come on, do I really have to? Sometimes as these thoughts chase each other around my lizard brain stem I’ll just defiantly drain the glass, but more often the dream ends with me holding the brim of the glass to my mouth.

Then there’s sugar

My body, mind, and entire psyche respond to sugar in exactly the same way they responded to booze or a nice fat line of heroin. We of the addictive persuasion won’t be surprised to learn that when our brains are scanned in an MRI machine and a technician simply says the word “Marguerita”, all our pleasure points light up and strobe as if our brain is at a rave.

Just the word!

That’s pretty powerful. And for many of us, sugar has the same effect. I discovered this for myself years ago when I decided to eliminate sugar from my diet. Yes, my body was cranky with me for several weeks or maybe longer. In some ways, it was tougher than giving up the booze and drugs. No one’s supervisor at work gets bent out of shape if they turn down that boilermaker, but turn down chocolate cake at the office Christmas party? Yeah, it was that.

But then the dreams started. And, hoooooooo, they were doozies! One, in particular, remains vividly stamped into my memory.

Maybe other addicts didn’t do this, but I always went through people’s medicine cabinets (thought so). In the dream, I was in someone else’s bathroom and I opened their medicine cabinet. It was full of bright pink bunny-shaped peeps, all smiling crazily at me. I was filled with horror but didn’t reach for them. I could resist. I knew I had the strength to simply close the cabinet and go pee. Then I realized that my mouth was full of marshmallow and chocolate!

Full disclosure, after nearly two years of living sugar-free, I fell off the wagon and am back to fighting that particular battle daily. Some days are better than others.

Aren’t our brains a hoot?

I was extremely fortunate in that when I finally collapsed and asked for help, my life-long obsession to drink and drug evaporated. That doesn’t mean the tiger ain’t still right there in the cage, ready to pounce at any indication that the door might be ajar even a tiny bit. It also doesn’t mean I’m fixed and can just go on my merry way.

After all, if my alcoholism were cured that would mean I could drink every day, right?

There are daily actions required to maintain my current state of equanimity and sanity. They’ve just become part of how I live my life; I don’t give them a lot of conscious thought. But clearly, at the level of my subconscious, the party never ended.

But let’s be real here, it wasn’t such a great party after all.

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