What's Your F***ing Problem? Alcoholism Edition

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I think timing is getting to me.  I'm approaching a sobriety anniversary this coming week and my son is the same age that I was when I picked up my first drink.

It is hard to imagine that age the age of 11 one's life could take such a rapid turn that everything once possible is erased.  And yet that was what happened to me; although it took me quite a while to see that.

I come from a long line of alcoholism on my maternal and paternal sides of both of my parents--alcoholism raised to the 4th power.  My parents drank socially and had hoped to leave their childhoods behind.  Their children foiled that plan.

My first drink was at a sleepover party at a friend's house.  I knew far less about booze than any of the other girls at the party.  But between proofs and percentages I figured out which two bottles had the highest alcohol content, poured them into a glass, and drank.  I remember the harsh taste, the burn going down my throat, and the warmth that spread through my body.  I remember thinking, "I want to feel like this forever."

And that was it.  The switch had been thrown.  Whereas the world presented many possible paths prior to that party, the only path from then on out was the road that led to more drinking.  I look at my son and think, that's so damn young to throw your life down the drain and not even know you've done it.

I won't go through my drunkalogue for you.  But I will say that the first thing alcohol took from me was the ability to see that it was taking anything from me.  And that along the way I lost friends, lovers, jobs, my health, a full ride to my first choice college, the respect of my family and my dignity.  And that is barely the tip of the iceberg.  I became everything I never wanted to be, everything I despised and abhorred.  By the time I got sober just before my 25th birthday, I was a carwreck of a person and barely felt human.  Over 20 years later I still tear up for that poor wretched young woman and for the 11 year old girl who had no idea where a drink at a party would bring her.

I've seen friends who were sober pick up a drink and die drunk.  I've seen people who were never able to get sober.  My work brings me into contact with people who are both at the beginning and the end of their relationship with alcohol, and those bystanders who have paid the price for another's drinking.  I've actually seen a lot more of that this week and it seems to be hitting me harder than usual.  I hate this disease because of the toll it takes, the lives it breaks, and the havoc it wreaks.  

And yet I cannot help but feel incredibly grateful for my own profound miracle.  I'm one of the lucky few, the 1 in 33 or 35, who get sober.  While I've experienced the living death that is active alcoholism, I have also experienced the grace of sobriety.  And I have no idea why I received this unmerited gift.  I, who didn't want to stop drinking, got sober while thousands of others do not.

Everything that I've been through has made me into the person that I am.  So I really don't regret my drinking years, other than the pain I brought to others, because it brought me to this place.  But oh, if I had it to do over, I would beg my 11 year old self to stay home or to drink soda.  My son knows what I didn't know.  And I continue to pray that he never has to experience it.

So that's my issue this week.  What's yours?