Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

– Erica Jong

Every so often, somebody writes me an email or a comment for which a simple reply would be inadequate, and which I feel is too important to ignore. It’s not just that they’ve got a serious problem and they’re trying everything they can think of to deal with it. It’s that, on some level, they’re speaking for all of us.

While I imagine that relatively few fans of my writing have had serious problems with alcohol, like the following reader does, many of you will have waded through a similar darkness at some point in your life.

Whether you’re gripped by liquid demons, can’t get laid to save your life, hate your job more than anything else on earth, or feel incredibly isolated from the world and just can’t seem to make friends, the underlying agony has a familiar weight and texture. The causes may be different but the symptoms are the same: depression, despair, hopelessness, and nothing can seem snap you out of it.

Welcome to Rock Bottom. Population: Far too many.

The Question

hi all im 39 and an alcoholic im not proud of it but alcohol has come part of my life i drink 8 cans every night even more on weekends, ive had councelling before but that never worked i lost my driving license through drink ive just completed a drink drive rehab course and i get my license back on my 40th birthday, ive been to my doctors and asked for help he said you need counselling i told him that doesnt work for me he refused to give me antabuse im just waiting for my liver test results to come back i know my liver will be damaged but even my own doctor wont help me,when i try to stop drinking i get so stressed and moody i take it out on everyone, all i want is someone to help me.. its my daughters 3rd birthday today ive been awake since 3 am and ive decided im gonna try again just for her and her sister.. any advice from anyone would be helpful

– kev, in reply to How to Quit Drinking Alcohol

My Thoughts

Again, I hope that even those who have a serious problem that has nothing to do with alcohol will see some relationships here. Misery comes in many flavours, and the same general ideas for digging yourself out of a rut can apply to a wide variety of pain.

@kev:

First, thanks for writing in. It takes balls to own up to your shortcomings. I’m glad you did. You’re obviously serious about looking for help, and even willing to go public with it by asking the 30 sleeps community for insight. And thanks for consenting (via private email) to having me respond to your question by writing it as an article.

I’m not a psychologist and my advice on this is not professionally certified in any way. But I think that unless you happen to stumble upon a particularly passionate, world-class specialist in the kind of torture you’re inflicting on yourself and your family, you’re probably wasting your time. You’ve said yourself that counseling doesn’t work, so we’re fast approaching a dead end. Literally.

I’m also not a doctor, and I don’t know the first thing about the drug Antabuse. But as a general rule, if I seek help from a medical professional and am unsatisfied with their assessment, I shop around for a second opinion.

Darkness and Light

I’ve lived through darkness. Dark fucking darkness. In some cases, it was caused by how I reacted to things going on around me. In other cases, it was 100% self-created misery. It’s through the latter that I think we share common ground. My issue wasn’t alcoholism, but alcoholism is the same kind of problem.

Unpleasant external experiences tend to dissolve into the past and the pain eventually gets forgotten. A totally different algorithm is required for troubles that start on the inside and flow outward. There comes a point with internal conflict where you become the only person that can help yourself. You end up going as low as you can possibly go and have no choice but to sink or swim. At some point, you have to ask yourself:

• Do you want your daughters to grow up surrounded by love or surrounded by misery?
• Do you want to be a source of darkness in your family or a source of light?
• Do you want to be alive or not?

The verbal responses you give to these questions mean absolutely nothing. The real answers come from your actions.

Every swig you take is a very loud NO to love, light, and life.

*Gulp* The buzz I get from this lager is more important to me than my daughters growing up healthy and happy.

*Gulp* I can feel the shadow of evil expanding around me, but damn this beer has a nice finish!

*Gulp* Shit, are my eyes turning yellow? Whoa, cool.

The freedom to live your life exactly how you want includes the freedom to self-destruct. If you want to destroy your life and the world around you, no one can stop you, not even those closest to you. Likewise, if you’re unshakably committed to turning things around and getting healthy no matter what it takes, no one can stop you from being successful there either.

Ifs, Ands, and Buts

Don’t use stress and moodiness as an excuse to keep drinking. The only way you can help yourself is to start by assuming full responsibility for your entire reality. Until you can honestly admit to yourself that every dimension of this problem is something you’re creating, you’re unlikely to make lasting changes.

If you were to go to a psychiatrist and tell them that you get stressed and moody when you don’t drink, they’d give you some pills and usher you out the door. That’s messed up and inhuman.

The solution to stress, moodiness, depression, aggression, anxiety or almost any other negative psychological tendency does not involve trading in one drug for another. It starts by acknowledging that there are some serious flaws in the life you’ve created for yourself, and everyone in your orbit is taking the heat for that. You can change that by gradually installing habits that will have you sleeping better, eating as healthy as humanly possible, spending quality time with people that are important to you and being 100% open in your communication with them, and settling for nothing less, career-wise, than to work on projects that you’re absolutely obsessed with.

Forget pills, I’m writing you a prescription for self-respect.

An important part of breaking one negative pattern is to replace it with another, more positive and productive one. While you’re giving up alcohol, why not cook your family a decent meal tonight too? Go for a walk. Take your daughters out to a movie. Or even just take some time to step back and take stock of your life. Start with what you’re thankful for and gradually work your way towards being brutally sincere about what sucks. And focus most of your energy on the solutions, rather than the problems.

Is this easy? Fuck no. This is war. When it’s you and your family’s lives that could all be seriously affected, degree of difficulty isn’t even a consideration. Every time you hold a beer in your hand, you’ve got a choice to make: Your driver’s license or your beer? Your daughters or your beer? Your life or your beer? Your actions are your answers.

It’s a little new to me to be this honest with someone I don’t really know. But fuck it, I want to help you, and I live for the truth.