I was a Good Time Charlie. I prided myself as someone who could drink and drug copiously. I was always at the bar or at the party. Previous interests such as reading, writing, music and athletics were largely let go of. All my attention and resources went to using. My friendships were with people who used like me. Fellow bartenders, drug dealers and others constantly on the lookout for a good time. I was so steeped in the culture of addictions I was blinded to all other aspects of life. There was a veil across my eyes. The tightly knit culture of alcohol and drugs shaped my identity until it started to destroy me. Finally, I summoned the courage to leave it for sobriety.
There were lots of other people like me in our neighborhood. In the core group of kids in our small neighborhood, every single one of us had an alcoholic parent. Some had two. Often when we think of culture, we consider ethnicity or other demographic influences. But what did we learn in our alcoholic homes? Drinking, dysfunction, codependency and all kinds of other alcohol-related behaviors were on full display. We were taught it was necessary and good to self-medicate our pain and anguish, that “holding your liquor” was manly. In some houses, including mine, we learned to vent our frustration with violence and verbal abuse. Everything was shame-based.
I grew up in Woods Hole, a small village on Cape Cod. It’s known as the world class home of science. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Marine Biological Laboratory exist there and Woods Hole is the gateway to Martha’s Vineyard by ferry with the Steamship Authority. It’s a summer resort but a tougher place to be in the winter time. Affordable housing is challenging to find and jobs become sparse. The culture there is described as “bohemian” or as one wag phrased it, Woods Hole “is a coastal, sandy Greenwich Village.” When I was coming of age in the 60’s and 70’s, booze and various drugs abounded and profuse use continued into the 1980’s and beyond. We thought the drugging and drinking lifestyle was cool. We wanted to live differently than nine to five regular saps. We prided ourselves on being anti-authoritarian.
For a while it was great fun, laughter, wild times and a life on the edge. I would be lying if I said it was all bad. But my relationship with alcohol and drugs became deeper and more desperate when my father died (from alcoholism) when I was twenty-three and I inherited a fair amount of money. Now I could get use and drink just as much as I wanted to. There was no one around me to suggest a more prudent path. In fact, my drinking and drugging buddies encouraged my worst impulses and I lacked the agency to fend them off. “Let’s get fucked up!” And indeed, we did.
I started to black out when drinking and my impaired behavior was abhorrent. I’d wake up cut, battered and bruised in some strange place with no idea what happened to me or how I ended up there. I often felt deeply ashamed of my aggressive, obnoxious behavior under the influence. Then, I started to freebase cocaine, a drug I loved rapaciously from the very first hit. Once I started to use it, I couldn’t put it down. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, I didn’t want to. My “posse” didn’t want me to either. Once I started free-basing it took me about a year to run through the money. I was destroying myself and my resources but had no idea how to stop. Everything went up in smoke. I wound up denuded in a shit-pile: broke and in debt to the IRS, divorced and worst of all, without dignity and self-respect.
In despair I decided I wanted something different for my life, something better. I came to see that the culture I was immersed in was poisonous for me. I wanted out. So, I disavowed the alcohol and drugs which necessitated I not be around my friends when they were using or drinking which was most of the time. I told them, “I love you guys but I can’t be around you if you’re drinking or free-basing.” The said they understood but looked at me like I had six heads.
Turning away from something as immersive as addictions is no small feat and those still in the culture couldn’t really understand. Some even interpreted it as a betrayal. Some just plain misunderstood, as one guy said, “Once you get straightened out, we can get together and get fucked up again,” like taking a little break would relieve me of my looming, entrenched problems. I found myself very much alone as I transitioned out of addictive culture to….a sober one.
For a while, I was as lonely as I’d ever felt which is saying something. But I wanted to grow up and I wanted to find a way to like and maybe even love myself and I knew this was impossible as an addict/alcoholic. So, I kept my own counsel and sought help. I found a culture where sobriety is celebrated. I attended self-help and group therapy and found like-minded souls there. My new friends understood I needed to protect my emotional, physical and spiritual health. This was a healthy culture.
If you are trying to get or stay sober know that some in your circle may not understand. Don’t be afraid to act in your own best interest, no matter what others may think. There is a recovering community that will support you. Find it.
Know that getting clean and sober is the most worthwhile thing you can do. It will enable you to stabilize your emotions, health and finances. It will bring relationships that matter and that have your best interests at heart. It will allow you to become the person you were meant to be. What could be better than that?
Previously Published on substack
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