When I was in the eighth grade, I made the baseball team at Cleveland Middle School just outside Clayton, NC. This was a big deal for me because I was in love with baseball and the son of a bitch that coached the team (God rest his soul) cut me my seventh grade year. The feeling was mutual by the eighth grade, but that coach was a fairly sour dude who never really liked me. I guess I’ve always rubbed some people the wrong way, even as a kid. I’m really just starting to figure that out in the second half of my life.
Anyway, one of the reasons I made the team despite his disliking me was because I was willing to do my coach a favor that year. He had nobody to play catcher, and I volunteered to give it a try. By the end of the season, I was probably in the top three or four in the voting for team MVP and he gave me an award for teamwork and perseverance called the Ram Award for taking a chance on a new position, working my ass off to do it well, and then actually succeeding at it.
But this story is not about my coach or about my proudest season of playing team sports. It’s about my dad. If he could be at a game, basketball, baseball, or otherwise, my dad would never miss one. No matter the dullness of the cliche, he was my biggest fan. I mean, my mom was too, but when you’re a young boy, your dad is the one you most want to please because he’s the one that plays catch with you and pitches to you and takes you to buy that new glove you wanted.
Well one day about the middle of that season, I was catching, of course, but I wasn’t having my best game. I had let a couple of pitches get past me and I let a couple of runners steal bases. In my defense – and my memory is a little shady on the insignificant events of that day – I recall the pitcher being a guy named Josh who had a lot of movement on his pitches, and catching was a tough job when Josh was pitching.
My dad was like most parents of athletes at the middle school level. He was vocal and supportive and he’d call out some advice based on what he was seeing from behind home plate, but mostly he just enjoyed watching his son play. Well on this particular day, I was having none of this unsolicited advice from the crowd.
So in the middle of the damn game, between damn pitches, after I was sick of him giving me his damn take on how damn bad I was playing (and I doubt he ever said one negative thing) I turned my snotty little ass around and told him to shut up. There were somewhere between thirty and seven thousand people in the stands, depending on how much this story still stings me, but I told my dad to shut up in front of all of them.
I was young, but what I remember most about that day was how long and stressful and quiet those next couple of hours were. I remember my teammates even seemed to ignore me. It was awful. I couldn’t look at my dad, I was terrified to look at my coach, and I just wanted to fall into a damn hole and die.
The most profound lesson I received that day – even though I didn’t understand the lesson for decades – was not a lesson of embarrassment or thinking before I spoke or tuning out things I didn’t want to hear. No, it was the earliest lesson I received in recognizing and realizing the profundity and gravity – and quite often the elusiveness – of our own words. It wasn’t just the words I had spoken – far, far from it, in fact – it was the words I hadn’t YET spoken. And it was those words that tortured me.
I understood from an early age that what’s done is done. The past is the past and it’s staying right there. I knew I couldn’t take back what I had said. But the words I hadn’t yet said – that treacherous apology – is probably the earliest horrifying memory of my life.
You know what’s crazy about it now, though? I don’t even remember the apology. I remember the time during which the words I had already spoken and the words I hadn’t yet spoken attacked my brain like a father who caught the molester before the police did. Just like that father, I was slowly and meticulously and almost artfully tortured by my own words. But mostly it was the words I knew I had to say. So simple are the words, “I’m sorry.” But don’t tell that to a man’s pride, no matter his age. You know you MUST say it, but it is absolutely agonizing what happens in your own brain until that happens.
If you sit back and consider some of the most difficult words that can ever pass your lips at any point in your lifetime, some of them can be downright painful to even read, much less actually have to say. Far beyond that of a thirteen year old kid knowing he has to apologize to his daddy for embarrassing him when he only wanted to watch his son play baseball, there are words we must say at various times in our lives that are WAY more difficult than that stupid kid’s apology. Here’s a short list I came up with on the fly. Not all have applied to me, but these are the obvious ones to include here.
- “I want to break up.”
- “I want a divorce.”
- “Will you marry me?”
- “Your (insert family member) is dead.”
- “We lost the baby.”
- “I’m gay.”
- “I plead guilty, your honor.”
- “I’m dying.”
- “Mom, for the next two years, I’m going to war.”
- “Santa Claus isn’t real.”
- “Honey, I have some bad news. I have AIDS. And I got it from your mother.”
Okay, so it got a little weird there at the end, but you get the idea. Aside from asking your bride-to-be for her hand in marriage (more on that later,) there are those moments in life when you know you have to open your mouth and say something to another human being that will either crush them or destroy you – maybe both – and you would rather remove your skin with a veggie peeler than to have to say it.
Our earliest examples of this – for many of us anyway – go back to that first or second or maybe even third really serious boyfriend or girlfriend. It was that moment that we knew we had to break their heart and tell them we wanted to break up. Sometimes we would negotiate and haggle and barter with ourselves in our own brains for days or maybe even weeks with the anguish that this caused us. I can still remember some of those feelings. They were awful.
I mean, it shows I have always had a big heart and a softer side, but I am still the reason I repeat the following phrase almost weekly in my classroom and quite often to my teenage daughter: “Remember this, ladies. Teenage boys are horrible creatures. Just horrible. Do not trust a single word that comes out of their mouths. Even the ones who everybody thinks are the good boys. They’re all terrible, horrible creatures.”
But eventually we said it, right? We wouldn’t have married somebody ten relationships removed from those first girlfriends or boyfriends if we hadn’t. But when we said it, it was always accompanied by “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m the one that’s messed up.” And even though that was true, it was not true for that particular moment of our lives nor did the person we dump even care that we were messed up. We said those self-rationalizing things to lessen the blow caused by the gravity of what we put ourselves through preparing to deliver the breakup speech.
And even though it doesn’t really need repeating at this point in this article, it needs repeating just in case there are teenage girls reading this. Teenage boys are just walking, talking, conniving pieces of shit. Remember that.
Anyway, we somehow lived through those breakups and we trekked through life dreading that next horrible thing we had to say, and for a lot of guys, that thing is, “Will you marry me?” Ninety-nine percent of the time, we know she’s going to say yes, but it is still a nightmare to actually say it out loud. And it’s not the fear of what she might say, it’s the fear of losing that tiniest of slivers of freedom we have left. When those words exit our lips, it’s over. Or that’s what we think anyway.
There are probably tons of other unimportant times in a young person’s life prior to that first marital biggie when they must say something about which they will lose weeks worth of sleep and spend their days with stress headaches and maybe even run the thermometer under hot water to convince mommy that they’re sick just so they don’t have to say it today. And then when they finally say this thing that has tortured their trivial, adolescent brain for weeks, it goes something like this: “Mom, I don’t want to go to the family reunion. Aunt Gertrude grinds on me when she hugs.”
But the important stuff – the REALLY hard stuff – is reserved for adulthood. We get to ask for divorces and tell our kids that their parent is dying or tell our spouse we have cancer or – God forbid – tell our spouse we cheated. We get to suck up our pride and tell our boss we screwed up or announce to the world that we are, in fact, gay. These are all big boy words. They’re heavy. They can REALLY cause some anguish before they finally leave our lips.
But none of them come remotely close to the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say in my life, and I venture to guess that when I look back on my life one day when I’m old and ornery, it will always be the hardest thing I ever had to say.
The hardest thing I’ve ever had to say in my life was, “My name is Denton, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Now this admittance is not coming from a slouch who was never faced with some difficult words. I was a very sweet but still horrible teenage boy and had to suffer the anguish of breaking up with girls that deserved much better than me. I have asked two women to marry me. I have stood in front of a crowd of better than five hundred people with my two year old daughter climbing all over the pews and delivered my first wife’s eulogy. I’ve had to admit a shitload of lies to my wife. I’ve had to tell my daughter all about who her dad really is and was. I’ve had some deep, heavy shit pass these lips.
But none of them compared to the anguish and torment that came with admitting I was an alcoholic. And you may ask why and say that makes no sense based on all the other heavy shit I’ve had to say. But here’s the thing about admitting you’re an addict of any kind:
You can’t ever take it back. Ever. And it changes everything. Literally everything.
I knew I was an alcoholic probably by my late twenties. I admitted it when I was thirty-nine. I finally said the words out loud that had ravaged my brain for a decade. That cannot compare to anything else I have ever said in my life. Any of the other heavy shit I’ve mentioned ravaged my brain for days, weeks, maybe months. Not a decade.
But once it’s out there, you’re done. If you admit you are an addict, you cannot go back on those words. You can’t say, “Well, I mean, I sometimes drink a little too much, but I’m not like those people at AA or those drunks living under the bridge or like Uncle Mel when he shows up at Christmas and steals all the liquor.”
It doesn’t matter what KIND of alcoholic you are – be it homeless panhandler, fully functioning, or Uncle Mel – an alcoholic is a person who is powerless over alcohol. They are a person who does NOT get drunk with the fifteenth drink, they are already drunk by the first drink because they will NEVER stop with that first drink. The drink that makes them blackout is simply inevitable once the first one happens.
If you’re an alcoholic, you already know it. The question is, when are you going to say it out loud for others to hear? That’s when you can stop being defined by your addiction. There’s always a “but,” though, right? When you admit your alcoholism, you absolutely are on your way to the day when you do not define yourself by your addiction, but you can’t think that clearly when you haven’t admitted it yet. You’re in the stage of, “Oh my god, I can’t do this. I can’t do forever. Just can’t say the word or my wife will be right and my life will be over. I can’t say I will NEVER drink again. I shouldn’t have to admit this now. What if I learn to drink in moderation one day?”
It’s nothing more than lengthy internal bullshit, and you know it. Sometimes it’s a decade of bullshit.
So what happens when you say it? Well for starters, if you say it and you mean it, as soon as you go back to the bottle, you’ve gone past addict territory and into junkie territory. That’s what I tell myself, at least. If this shit owns me that thoroughly – if I am not strong enough to say no to something that almost ruined my life – I might as well label myself a junkie and just live out my days drunk and miserable and let my family find happiness without me.
I’ve heard of a few people who admitted they were alcoholics, stayed sober for months or years, and then decided they could drink in moderation all of a sudden. They swear they can actually drink one or two beers and just stop. And maybe they can. But if I’m being honest, and you can bet your ass that’s why I write about this like I do, I think they’re lying. I think they drink more than they say, I think they hide alcohol from their spouse, and I think it’s only a matter of time before they go full on addict again. For most of us, wherever we were when we quit drinking, as soon as we start back up, we will be back to that low, rock bottom place within days or weeks.
Alcoholics cannot do moderation. The obsession after one or two drinks is just far too strong. I do not believe that somebody who was in the depths of hell because of alcohol can ever have a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship with it ever again. I just don’t think I’m wrong about that.
And it’s for all these reasons that it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say in my life. And you know what? It still isn’t easy to say. It’s still a little embarrassing. It’s still – sixteen months later – a difficult thing to wrap my head around, especially that concept of forever.
I will never regret breaking my anonymity and telling the world about my alcoholism because I truly believe this is my calling. I’m supposed to talk about it. Eventually God will put somebody in my path that needs exactly what I have said and it will be a small catalyst in saving their life. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I still see people occasionally that I really only see on Facebook and think, “I wonder what they think about me when they see me. Do they see an alcoholic or do they see someone they have come to admire?”
These questions, and these continued insecurities, are exactly the type of questions a practicing alcoholic does not have to consider. They are choosing the easy way out. It is MUCH easier staying in addiction than it is facing a world that no longer includes it or allows it.
I truly hope somebody reads this one day who is in that decade long anguish of knowing they are an alcoholic but refusing to admit it. I hope they have just enough strength left to walk into one – just one – AA meeting and admit they are an addict. I hope the recovery and the withdrawals and the mind games and learning to live sober from that night forward suck so badly that they think the only way out is back in. I hope they think I am asking them to ruin their lives by admitting this, and I absolutely am. I’m asking them to ruin the thing they THINK is life.
And with that, I hope they understand that they are free to still ruin their own lives outside of addiction, but at least they can do it in a much more responsible way. And I don’t even necessarily understand what that sentence means, but it makes sense to me.
But in all things we trek through in this life, the view forward is like taking a panoramic picture with the lens cap on. As soon as we turn around and look back, the pictures – and their are millions of them in rapid fire succession – are all crystal clear and come with extremely detailed captions. When an alcoholic is faced with saying these words they can NEVER take back, the future they see is not only as black as that panoramic, it is also filled with a promise of depression and anxiety and poor self-esteem and an unwillingness to escape the reclusion. And yes, sixteen months later, I still see all of those pictures. They’re ugly as hell, but I’m keeping them forever. I need to remember how much this sucked.
Attempting to look at a future without addiction was the most challenging encumbrance of my life. By a LONG shot. I heard those eight words every day – multiple times a day – for ten years. Ten YEARS. Imagine trying to talk yourself into saying something twenty to thirty THOUSAND times. It sure makes that saying about insanity seem pretty accurate. You know the one: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I was probably borderline insane by the time I actually said it. In many ways, I still am.
If you’re an alcoholic or other addict, saying those words will ruin the life you are choosing to live, but it is most definitely not ruining your life. An addict cannot and will not see it that way, but they will also probably agree with me, because their dream – since the moment they admitted it to themselves – has always been to live in sobriety. But addiction is such a f**ked up existence that they prefer to maintain their status quo, even when they are one hundred percent confident that life outside of addiction is better. Now THAT’S insanity. It’s such a tragic way to live.
Remember all those “tough as hell” things at the front of this article that we are sometimes forced to have to say? Those things that are so difficult to say that they cause personal anguish? Consider a few that an alcoholic might be forced to say one day:
- “Honey, we’re broke. I’m sorry.”
- “I’ll take the manslaughter plea deal.”
- “Yes, mom and dad, I stole from you in order to maintain my addiction.”
- “I have irreversible liver disease and have only months to live.”
- “Yes, I was drunk at work. Will you please let me resign?”
- “What should I write in my suicide note?”
You think some of those are exaggerations? Nope. Research the name Chandler Michael Kania. Or Amy Winehouse. Or David Foster Wallace. Or Hank Williams.
Or don’t research them. The stories suck and they will depress you. Instead, think about how freaking easy it is to just say those eight little words. My name is Denton, and I’m an alcoholic. It was the hardest eight words I’ve ever spoken, and they caused some pretty excruciating mental agony before AND after they were spoken, but I don’t have to really consider ever having to say the things in that last list ever again. That’s pretty cool. Happiness and hope eventually render the “forever” aspect of that admittance nothing more than a little bit of daily personal maintenance.
And when that happens, look at all the things that you might get to say:
- “You mean you trust me enough to make me a daddy?”
- “Of course, I’ll take the promotion.”
- “We can actually afford to go on a vacation.”
- “I’m going back to school.”
- “The doctor says I’m as healthy as a man twenty years younger.”
- “Saw a shooting star tonight. I wished for a dream, not a beer.”
Just say it. It’s going to absolutely suck for a little while, but dammit, it’s better to have life suck for a little while than to have life suck until there’s none left. Addiction does not enhance or sustain life. It takes it away, it drains it, it makes it shorter and less enjoyable.
If you’re an alcoholic, you already know it. Just say it. If you need to practice on somebody, even if you don’t plan on doing anything about it for a while, say it to me. I won’t judge. I mean, how could I? You’re just like me. Send me a message and I’ll send you my phone number so you can try it out on somebody.
If you have read the majority of my website, I have said several times that I will never try to talk a person into admitting their addiction if they don’t want to quit. I don’t enjoy wasting my time or my energy on pointless efforts. I sincerely hope you enjoy your addiction. It would be better than suffering addiction and hating every minute of it, right? Why would I wish that on somebody? If you choose alcoholism, I choose to wish happiness upon you even if your choice is not one I would make any longer myself. I believe in big boys and girls wearing big boy and girl pants. Besides, you’ll need all the pants you can get when you break into your ex-wife’s house to see if she kept your box of winter clothes because sleeping in a tent behind Walmart starts getting cold in late Fall.
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