The Fly on the Wall Down the Hall Is Driving Me Crazy - page3

Four of us, including my brother, pilfered several six-packs of beer. Dan and I brought most of it because our dad had the biggest supply and would not notice any missing. We met at the eighth hole to conduct this right of passage. I really had no premonition that the ceremony would be so memorable. I just thought we would get together to have some smokes and beer, kind of like the big folks did at the VFW.

While I was drinking about the third beer my brain got very excited. It sent me the message that this was the stuff I had been searching for all my life:

Brain to the rest of Dave: "Did you feel what I just felt, ol' buddy?"

"Yeah, what in the hell was that?"

"That, my dear boy, was the nectar of the gods running through us like a healing stream and taking all of our tensions away."

"Yeah, Brain, that's what it feels like all right. Kind of like I've been washed clean of all that ails me."

"You got it, my friend, and we need it. That is the only stuff in the world that will help us swat that fly off the wall down the hall that's been driving us crazy. May you truly relish this magic nectar all your days."

The sense of relief those beers brought was a revelation. I felt free for the first time in my life. Free of the burden of overload. In control. I suddenly could think clearly, unimpeded by the jagged thoughts and feelings that had always cluttered my mind. I knew this was now! I was in this instant of time, loving this instant of time, never wanting it to go away. Now it was my friend. Where had alcohol been all my life? Welcome, beer. Welcome home, Dave.

Of course, I know now that from that first glorious moment I was on my way to the drinker's hall of shame, but I wouldn't discover that until much later. At the time all I knew was that alcohol would be a part of everything important in my life. From learning to working to socializing to sex, alcohol would enable me to be me deep down, below the turmoil and confusion.

Alcohol was my ticket for  space travel. From the very first beer several transformations occurred: I was reunited with those parts of me that wouldn't have anything to do with me most of the time, those self-sparkles telling me I'm Cool Dave who could talk intelligently to the opposite sex, or Scholastic Dave who had the right pieces after all to those mazes of schoolwork riddles, or Singer Dave who was the artist of the song he was now singing.

All the "nots"; of who I wasn't or couldn't be seemed to vanish and I felt I was strong and vital, able to be whoever I wanted to be. I had discovered that magic stream of esteem that put me back together again. It was my friend, my lover, a special companion. I could always rely upon it for better feelings than I had. I could simply go to the store on weekends and buy some new feelings. Talk about bottled-up feelings! Well, these really were.

During the next few years, I stumbled through the typical "sow your wild oats" experiences, getting into trouble on some occasions but nothing too serious. My tolerance was so high I could drink a lot and usually make it home without too much trouble. I developed friendships in high school based on drinking on the weekends. If people were not interested in alcohol, I was not interested in them. That easy.

Fishing vacations with my father enabled me to further shape my life around alcohol. He didn't know it, but Dan and I put our devious little minds together, and even before we arrived at out campsite, we knew how we would pilfer the alcohol and cigarettes necessary to ensure a comfortable stay. So I learned at thirteen years of age how to make it in the wilds of Canada on mostly alcohol and cigarettes. These jaunts were actually planned by Dad, so it was not unusual for there to be more alcohol available than food. If for some reason we were to be stuck there in that primitive place, starving would come fast. But it would be painless.

Happy experiences were reinforcing my need to use alcohol. They provided me with the masculine sense of who I was. I was a man doing man things, and it felt good. All the benefits I received from using alcohol could be justified by the societal values of that time and place. But even if that were not true, I received the chemical payoff, relief from my sentrylike vigilance. Relieved of duty.
       I was learning a basic lesson. I could live with myself, get along better with myself, as long as I could drink. I could even endure the agony of school during the week if I could look forward to weekends of escape with my tried-and-true friend.
       Upon my just-made-it-by-a-thread graduation, all I wanted to do was get as far away from my  town as possible. A geographic cure seemed the best thing at the time. You would think that after taking all the scholastic guff I had taken in school, I would certainly not press my luck and go on to college. I really didn't want to go but, according to my parents and the parents of my friends, it was the right thing to do.

So here I was a college joe. It was great until playing the "let's pretend Dave can really do this" game began to be overcome by reality. The realization began to sink in that studying was part of this deal. The novelty of this big-time college experience was wearing off fast. And here they were: old buddy alcohol and some more buddies who also believed in drinking. Let's get it on.

Cutting classes eventually became too easy. School was not going to get in the way of my feeling better. If I could have received college credit for billiards, I would have had an advanced degree. The pool hall had all the right ingredients for stress relief: It was kind of dark, alcohol was served, and the people there knew my name--a regular Cheers kind of place.

After a year of this college game I stopped wasting my parents' money and quit. I had bigger dreams anyway. I entered the military. By the time I enlisted, I was an oblivion-motivated beer drinker on a binge drinking schedule. My military experience was and is a blur. The first morning of basic training in San Antonio confirmed my need for alcohol. After having retired at two in the morning, I was awakened at about four when the drill instructor stomped into the barracks, turned on what must have served as interrogation lighting in World Was II, and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Get up, dummies. Your new papa welcomes you."

I had to endure several weeks of this before my exploding nervous system could finally find relief at the nearest bar. For three years, seven months, fourteen days, and seven hours of military duty, I basked in the subcultural acceptance of the drinking man's world. It was not only all right to drink in the service, it was expected. Finally a world that appreciated the dedicated drinking man. If the military expected me to drink, then I was going to do it right. I didn't want to disappoint anyone.

There are many holes in my military memories; probably because my drinking escalated so much that I began to experience blackouts. So my memory, and thus my reality, became even more fragmented than it usually was. I still held a strong belief that alcohol was my friend and my comfort. On many occasions, I drank every moment of my time off and dragged back to duty physically and psychologically spent. I had a series of unpleasant experiences, such as a DUI arrest, losing my car while experiencing a blackout, serious alcohol-related dental problems, and passing out in inappropriate places. (Of course, there is no appropriate place to pass out.) And still, despite the painful consequences, I clung to the soothing comfort alcohol provided. For a while the pleasure of drinking far outweighed the pain.

For a long time, denial and delusion kept me secure in the belief that alcohol was my friend and made my life better. I never considered the possibility that it was causing me problems along with the benefits, at least not long enough to make any serious attempt to quit. I never thought that I might be an alcoholic. Alcoholics were people who couldn't handle their liquor. That wasn't me. Any problems I had because of my drinking I attributed to some other cause or believed were one-time-only occurrences.

Soon after discharge, I met the woman who would become and continues to be my best friend and loving mate, the primary touchstone in my life. Merlene was able, even through the haze of my overload problems and my alcoholism, to see the real me. She recognized that I was at war with the environment, but she saw that I had an eye for its beauty as well.

My first serious attempt to control my drinking came about after a careless accident. I fell asleep with a lit cigarette in my hand following an evening of drinking while visiting my parents. I caught the bed on fire and could have burned down the house if my mother had not smelled the smoke and put out the fire. I was sick from the shame and horror of what I had done and made my first attempt at abstinence. The turmoil I felt was a result of the clash between what my drinking was causing and my need to drink for comfort. The fear of losing my friend and support, alcohol, was strong, but I could no longer convince myself that I could drink with no problem. The resolve to never drink again was strong, almost as strong as the fear of never drinking again. That's when Merlene and I chose to get married. We were both in denial about the seriousness of my problem--I because I needed to believe I was not an alcoholic and could just stop and she because she knew so little about alcoholism that she thought withdrawal was speaking with a southern accent.

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