Everything I Like Is: Illegal, Seductive, Addictive, Amoral, Corrosive, Destructive

In my Thanksgiving post I talked about how I've become a lightweight when it comes to alcohol (although last night I was able to hold my liquor quite well so who knows what's going on). My family's alcohol tolerance is legendary, we can all knock back several drinks with no hangovers in sight. But, for a number of reasons, my tolerance has been lowered. And I'm not really upset about that. When I began drinking (around 18), I didn't get what the attraction was. Beer was disgusting and other liquor burned my mouth. The only thing I liked was liqueurs and I drank mostly because those around me were drinking and I wanted to fit in. Of course I became very familiar with alcohol in my twenties and drank purely because of the escapism it provided. The taste no longer mattered, nor did the effects it had on my brain or body. Once I straightened out my act and got off the drug and drink, I began to realize I didn't miss the drinking. Nowadays, I tend to only drink socially and even then I don't drink much. Although I will admit to being prone to whipping out a bottle of Jack on really terrible days. (And go figure, now I actually like the taste of it.) But now that I'm aware of how low my tolerance is I stop at one drink, if that. I'm actually a very happy drunk when I've had too much but I still don't like to be out of control in that way. I also am not a fan of talking to people after they've had too much to drink. It doesn't matter if they also get happy or mean or whatever, I just don't care for being in that situation. And I know a big reason for that is because hearing people out of it reminds me of negative things.
It's hard to believe my surrogate grandmother has been gone five years now. For some reason I've missed her and thought about her a lot more the last month or so. I've talked about her last years before so I'll just go over the cliff notes in this post. I spent my summers at her house while mom was at work and, at the time, she was an amazingly sweet and patient woman. We'd all pile into her Cadillac (she loved those cars) and go cruising and hear her tell stories about her very colorful past. It was awesome. But something changed for her later in life. The grand kids went away and she was left with a tiny, empty house that she shared with her longtime boyfriend, and it wasn't a happy relationship. He cheated on her (the entire relationship, I'm sure, but it became much more obvious later in life) and spent their money on stupid shit and alcohol. Once I got out of college and started working full-time I would send her money to help out. We'd talk every week and I'd make sure SHE was the one using the money for necessities and not giving it to him. A few years later we began to talk less while I was on my own substance-fueled odyssey. And I regret that immensely because it seemed to contribute to her eventual downfall. She began drinking liters of booze a day and smoking like a train. That's all she did was lay in bed depressed all day, smoking and drinking. When I started trying to make a habit out of calling again I sent her some cash and called to make sure she got it. The convo was okay for awhile and then she began slurring her words. I asked if she was okay and she said she was fine so I chalked it up as a one time thing. If only it had been a one time thing. I continued to call for the next few weeks and she became less and less coherent on the other end of the phone. It killed me to hear her that way and I made the decision to stop sending money to help out. I knew it was going towards liquor anyway. And she couldn't put a full sentence together when we talked so I also stopped calling. Months later I got the call that she'd been found unresponsive in her bed, liquor bottles strewn about the house. She was taken to the hospital and kept on life support for a few days but on reality she was dead before the ambulance even arrived. I had the chance to see her before they took her off life support but opted not to go. I didn't want to remember her that way. I wanted to remember her as the awesome woman from my childhood, and most days I do. Thinking about the way her life ended only depresses me. She deserved so much better. She always lived for her family but few of them even went home to see her after she passed away.
Around the same time I was dealing with my grandmother's issues, I was also dealing with one of my best friends since childhood spiraling deeper into addiction. his downfall had begun years earlier when he began drinking too much and then dabbling in various drugs. For a long time he thought I didn't know what was going on and had the sense not to call or text me when he was using. But he began slipping up and calling while completely out of his mind. At first it made me angry to hear him like that, he's such a beautiful human being when he's sober and himself. But then it just made me really sad to hear him slurring his speech and talking about random things that didn't make sense. But I still always answered the calls because I worried about what would happen if I didn't. As long as he was babbling to me, I knew he wasn't doing drugs or out putting himself at risk in any other way. It finally took me scaring the bejesus out of him for him to check into rehab. He got sober and I couldn't be prouder of him now. It was by no means an easy road, he fell off the wagon twice and the possibility of it happening again is still there (and scares the hell out of me). But he's doing amazing right now. He's married and welcomed his first child, a daughter, this week. In a way, he and grandma have worked out to be the yin and the yang. She's a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't pull yourself out of the hole, and he's the success story of what happens when you do. It's a long road to recovery but the alternative is literally a dead end.
I'm certainly not one to judge others over drinking. I spent the majority of my twenties acting out in reckless, and potentially dangerous, ways. I have plenty of self-destructive tendencies and a habit of giving in to those tendencies on the really bad days. Fortunately, I also have amazing willpower and am able to get myself back in check before sh-t really hits the fan. I've always been very aware that alcoholism runs in my family and I'm determined not to become just another statistic. I know it's a minor miracle I came out of my twenties relatively unscathed. )Still fucked up, mind you, but not as messed up or damaged as I could've been.) And I know not everyone has the willpower to pull themselves out of the rabbit hole. Some fortunate souls don't even have to worry about the rabbit hole because addiction isn't a branch on their family tree. My motivation now to not get outta control is that I have a kid and my actions no longer only affect me. And truthfully that's probably the only thing that could've ever reeled me in and made me keep all of my self-destructive tendencies in check. Although my resolve was strengthened after grandma died. She was always so proud of me and so supportive of my interest in film. I felt like I owed it to her to straighten up and be someone she would still be proud of if she were here. I hope I can get to that point eventually.