I had my first drink at 14. By 16, I’d had my first blackout. By 23, I realized I had a serious problem and quit cold turkey for eight months.
But then, that voice came back: “Hey, you can handle it now. Just one or two to feel that rosy, warm camaraderie, right?” It was a lie. I couldn’t handle “just one.” One turned into more, which turned into another blackout, which turned into a crushing weight of guilt the next morning. This vicious cycle didn’t last a few months—it lasted two decades.
Looking back, I finally see what was actually happening.
The “Social Lubricant” That Became a Refuge
Most people try to convince someone with a substance issue that “alcohol is the problem.” But they have it backward.
For me, alcohol wasn’t the problem—it was the perfect solution to how I felt inside. I was constantly anxious, jittery, and uneasy. I had deep social anxiety, and alcohol was my refuge. It was the only thing that made me feel good. It felt like my friend, not my enemy.
The real problem wasn’t the bottle; it was the emotional void I was trying to fill.
The Trap of “Hungover Control”
Beyond the anxiety, I had a deep-seated need to feel in control because my inner worth was so low. I tried to control my environment and my actions just to feel secure—to feel like I was the one in charge.
This led to a bizarre behavioral pattern:
- I’d get drunk to feel better (but it never stopped at just a few).
- I’d black out.
- The next morning, drowning in guilt, I would go into “Over-Control Mode.”
I’d take a cold shower, pretend I wasn’t hungover, and even force myself to exercise while sick—just to prove to myself that “I’ve got this.” I was lying to myself every single day to maintain the illusion that I was still the man in charge.
The Emotional Void: Where the Pattern Begins
Alcohol gave me a break from constant anxiety, even if it only lasted for a few fleeting moments. But those moments were what I craved.
The moral of the story is that substance abuse is almost always emotional. It is an attempt to quell an anxiety or fill a void that often dates back to childhood. We are searching for a sense of significance and “good feeling” that we didn’t get enough of when we were young.
When you tangle up the need for relief with the need for control, you get a psychological cocktail that is incredibly difficult to break. But you can’t break it by just “quitting the drink.” You have to fix the emotion that makes the drink necessary in the first place.
