How it Began....

I know a lot of alcoholics started drinking when they were kids. This was not the case for me.  As a kid, I was a bit of a dork to be honest – I was always afraid of trying drugs or alcohol.   I tried beer once in high school with my big brother, but the experience was uneventful.  I drank two Natty Lights and got buzzed then we went home.  Looking back on it, my drinking experience in college could have taught me something if I had enough context to understand what was happening.   I would drink on weekends with my friends.  We would do shots of vodka and watch silly movies.  The next day, however, my friends would sleep in until 10ish then pop up and feel fine.   I, on the other hand, was sick as a dog having drank the same or less than my friends.  I would lay on my friend’s couch until 2 in the afternoon puking my guts out, while they were up and going to work or the gym and feeling fine.  I remember distinctly them telling me that this was not a normal reaction to alcohol and I should talk to a doctor.  But I blew it off – everyone in the movies got sick after drinking, so it was normal, right?  But the truth I know now is that this was absolutely NOT a normal reaction to alcohol, and my body does not process or react to alcohol the way everyone else’s does.  

Fast forward to my late twenties.  I had gotten married to a man who grew up in Europe, and man did he think he was hot shit.  Designer everything, gourmet food, twice-yearly trips to Europe.  I grew up relatively unwealthy with a single mother, so all this was simply dazzling to me.  I fell victim to my ego, thinking that being hot shit sounded pretty good.  Having grown up feeling like I was never good enough, I jumped at the opportunity to feel like I was better than everyone else by marrying a super fancy guy.   So now my drinking was more like a status symbol.  We drank fine wine, went to nice restaurants and had countless cocktails at happy hours discussing how wonderful we were.   It was during one of these discussions that we decided I should go to law school.  What better way to show the world how much better I was than to go to law school and be an elite New York City lawyer?  Thus the plan was hatched. 

I actually enjoyed law school.  It was very interesting, and research and writing have always been enjoyable for me.  Plus, it was an ego boost being part of a special sector of society (at least we all thought so).   But it was also during law school that I started to notice my drinking was getting excessive.  We went from happy hours once a week to happy hours every day.  We lived downtown right across from an upscale restaurant with a bar, and I loved being there with all of the high-powered executives after work, knowing that I would soon be one of them.  It was a kind of intoxication in itself, and combined with the literal intoxication of alcohol, my ability to think reasonably and humbly was completely eclipsed.   And it was here that my body learned that managing the stress of the legal profession became much easier with alcohol-fueled fantasy. 

From fantasy to reality, we moved to New York City in 2010.  I got my first law firm job in midtown Manhattan, in one of the iconic named buildings.  I was on top of the world.  I had most definitely arrived, and for a while I was living a dream.  I enjoyed strutting in my fancy suits past all the tourists in Times Square every morning.  My ego told me they all wished they were me, and to some extent that was probably true.  Shiny, beautiful illusions are an easy sell for most people, and I fell victim to my own illusion as well.  I would get emails on a regular basis from my law school’s career center, asking if students could contact me to try to achieve what I had achieved.  My ego was growing to astronomical proportions, and I was only just a newbie lawyer. 

In the firm, the reality of life was absolute hell.  If you look past the façade of most big-city law firms, common decency is not welcome beyond the reception desk.  The partners in charge communicated almost exclusively with raised voices and obscenities.  The work I enjoyed in law school lost its luster quickly under the extreme timelines created by the firm.  One of the tricks my bosses had was to sit on a motion until the day before it was due.   Then it was plopped on my desk guaranteeing that I would have to work on it all night in order to meet the deadline.   This was absolutely intentional - boot camp to break down new lawyers. And then, with 30 minutes left to get the motion filed with the court, they would insist on going through it with me, word-by-word while I stood next to their desks like a butler.  A butler being forced to absorb nothing but criticism while the clock ticked down to the deadline.  And then they would spew obscenities at me for a tight deadline that could have been met three weeks ago had they not sat on it and artificially truncated the timeline.  And then once everything was filed, prolific praise and rewards. This occurred over and over again, like an abusive relationship, a toxic work environment occasionally interspersed with lavish praise and perks.

Looking back on everything now, I absolutely take responsibility for the situation I put myself in.  I have learned in my middle age that I am significantly more sensitive than the average person, but I didn’t realize this back then.   I thought that bottling everything up inside and not showing emotion was the same thing as not having those emotions.  I thought pretending to be tough was the same thing as being tough.  This proved to be an almost fatal misunderstanding.   In all reality, an overly sensitive little farm girl had absolutely no business being in the NYC legal world.  But I was so desperate to prove that I had value and was good enough that when the opportunity presented itself, I convinced myself that I was someone else.  But you can only pretend to be someone else for so long before the illusion implodes. 

Every day after work, I would walk home through midtown and either meet my then-husband at a bar or have some drinks as soon as I walked in the door of our luxury apartment. I was in an absolutely shitty mood until I had alcohol in my system. Once I had my first drink, I was able to revert my brain back to the fantasy world where I was living the dream that I always wanted. Eventually I discovered that if I bought a small bottle of vodka on my lunch break and kept it in my purse, I could duck into the bathroom as soon as I left my desk for the day and chug a few shots. This made the walk home an absolute pleasure, because I could immediately forget about the misery of the day and just enjoy being in New York City. The glamor, luxury, and excitement were just amazing. I felt like I was on vacation every day on my walk home. I loved it when tourists would start at me in my suit and designer bag and think "ooh! a real New Yorker!" It made everything OK. Then one particularly brutal day, I said the inevitable "fuck it" that ruins all addicts and I chugged a few shots mid-afternoon while I was still working. From then on, I was never sober at work again. In the beginning, it actually made me a better lawyer. I had the thick skin needed to thrive in a toxic environment, and I was actually able to enjoy it. As long as I didn't exceed a pint a day (starting on my walk to work in the morning), I was able to function extremely well. But addicts always need more and more and more. If a little makes life easier, then more will make it a breeze, right?