Through my youth at home, my father kept bottles in a closet at work and would have a “Saluki” late afternoon after most everyone had left. Then he would often attend dinner meetings that carried over into drinking sessions, often not getting home until 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. He attempted to control my mom’s drinking by putting marks on the bottle of booze in the kitchen cabinet, and warning her about alcoholism in her family. He kept the bigger supply in a locked basement bar/closet. As a kid, I had no idea how impactful his/their drinking was on our family life and me. I just knew that things were often not on an even keel.
As a young adult, I maintained the family tradition, beginning with a celebratory case of some beer at the football field with hs athlete friends the first warm weekend after senior year basketball season. Then I bartended through my years at ISU and continued to drink heavily for a couple of decades after, subsequently became a bing drinker for almost 20 more years. During college I once crashed in the early evening in the basement storeroom on a pallet of broken down cardboard boxes in the bar where I worked, then woke up in time for a nightcap before driving home. Another time while driving home to the farmhouse where I was livingI leaned against a poorly latched driver side door in the old pick up I was driving and fell out. I landed on my upper back, sprung up feeling immediately sober with the adrenaline, and reacquired the pick up, which had gone perpendicular to the road and ran down through a shallow ditch only to stall on a grassy patch. Luckily there was no fence. If I believed in angels, I would say I have benefited from having a good one on my shoulder at times when I needed all the grace I could receive.
Currently I have a dusty home bar filled with only top shelf liquors and ample stores of wine kept in built-in EuroCave refrigerators. However, I seldom pour/mix a drink, and although we open a bottle or two of wine a week, more often than not I pour the last part of the bottle down the drain after too many days kept in the refrigerator.
I attribute my remaining above ground and improved drinking/drugging habits to a solid marriage of over 30 years to a strong, compassionate, loving, empathetic and patient woman who only drinks in moderation. I’m very aware of my (probably genetic) disposition to drink/drug excessively, but by this late date, I seem to have it under control (with occasional relapses related to eunnui, anxiety or bouts of depression). A brother died a few years ago, too early, significantly IMO as a consequence of lifelong heavy alcohol use. Another sibling quit cold turkey decades ago and seems to be living a healthy and productive life.
I tell this tale to relate that there is hope for recovery, sobriety or a close anpproximation and a good life, even for the most incorrigible among us. Go Cyclones!
