Hello

Hello.  My name is Howard and I am an alcoholic.  As I like to say in meetings, I was an alcoholic long before I took my first drink.  Burying feelings.  Denying.  Everything that I could do to put myself into a shell and keep myself there.

My first drink was at 13.  I remember sitting on the roof of my friend's house (which seemed like a good idea because, after all, there was a ladder there), thinking that it was a great feeling.  Alcohol gave me the ability to... forget for a while.  I remember when my mother picked me up I spent the entire time looking at the window, hoping she wouldn't notice.  To this day I don't know if she did.

I grew up in a family where talking was not technically encouraged.  Feelings were a burden.  When I got to college I really didn't know how to interact.  The quintessential geek, I really didn't get along.  I had friends (same ones I have to this day), but, I was never really comfortable.  Until I started drinking in my sophomore  year.  Then, we can say, the journey started.  I made up for lost time.  Finding bars that would give me free drinks.  If I drove home drunk once, I drove home a thousand times.  Someone was certainly looking out for me.  In the 20 plus years of my drinking career I never once got a dui or into an accident.  Not for lack of trying, however.

When I got back together with my current (and hopefully very much into the future) wife, I had been drinking for 12 or so years.  Then, I stopped.  I didn't know it then but I certainly do now -- I was living the life of a dry drunk.  For the next number of years (5 or so), I stopped drinking altogether (well, maybe a little wine maintenance every now and again).  Then, slowly, alcohol got it's way back into my life.  While living in Pennsylvania we had our first child.  That was... difficult.  We grew up in the Boston area, and, this is where all our friends and family are.  When it hit the fan we really had no support group.  Oddly, I didn't start drinking with gusto until we moved back to the Boston area.  Then I picked up where I left off, and then some.  Slowly at first, then with increasing frequency, I did with alcohol what I always tried to do -- build that wall that would separate myself from my feelings.  Everything was too painful.  Nothing worked.  We had a second child.  The drinking got a little worse.  I told myself I would never drive drunk with them in the car.  Nothing would stand in the way of this disease.  Again, my higher power had a watchful eye on me.  No harm, no foul.

The worst was when my son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes.  I remember sneaking off late at night to the parking garage across the street from the hospital to drink.  There was no shame.  No barriers.

I know I was slowly coming to the end.  Either I was going to give into the addition completely or something was going to have to give.  By accident or by design, I left the telltale alcohol bag on top of the trash. When my wife came home she saw it and became upset.  She thought my withdrawal was due to the fact I was having an affair, and here was the proof.  When I admitted it was alcohol, she was relieved.  Relieved to finally know.  And, she said she was right.  I was having an affair -- with alcohol.  I will never forget that, because that is where my true journey begins.