Reconciling alcoholism and a “high bottom”
Where is the line between ‘problem drinker’ and ‘alcoholic’?
I hear a lot of stories in AA from people who had what is often called a “low bottom” in their drinking. People in the AA meeting I attend twice a week have lived in residential treatment centers and sober houses. They have been homeless. They have been in jail. They have lost custody of their children. They have almost died. There are people who have had the most severe consequences to their drinking that I could imagine. And no matter what these consequences were, consequences didn’t deter these alcoholics from drinking more.
I stopped drinking before I had any of these consequences. In fact, I suspect I could have kept drinking the way I had been for a while and still not attracted too much consternation about my drinking from family or colleagues, or experienced other adverse consequences. So, why did I stop drinking? And why do I call myself an alcoholic? Why do I go to AA meetings? There was a period of about a year and a half between the time that I realized I needed to stop drinking and the time I started going to AA and warming up to the idea that I actually was an alcoholic. During that time, I read the AA literature, I listened to countless AA speakers on podcasts, and I even started subscribing to the Grapevine, AA’s monthly magazine. On the surface, I approached all of this as “research” to reassure myself that I wasn’t an alcoholic, and that I could resume drinking in a controlled way without any problems.
As I read and listened to AA stories, I pointed out to myself all the differences with my own story. I never did that, I would tell myself. God, these people are real alcoholics! I’m not like them at all. But the truth was I kept listening and reading because I identified with something in every alcoholic’s story that I heard. They described feelings and thought processes that were eerily familiar. I could relate to what they were saying, even if my experiences didn’t match theirs in terms of the severity of consequences I experienced. I found solace in listening to alcoholics share their stories. I felt connection with the people sharing and I laughed knowingly at their jokes, most of which only an alcoholic would find funny.
The more I listened, and thought back on my past, the more I realized that I did have consequences to my drinking. I have left a long trail of damaged and lost relationships, abandoned commitments, and emotional wreckage. These are not the kind of consequences administered by an external authority, and as such they were easier to write off as being someone else’s fault or to ignore altogether. These consequences were the kind I could avoid taking accountability for, the kind I could push to the side and hide from, the kind I could compartmentalize in my head, move away from, and pretend never happened. But they were always there, nagging at me, and encouraging me to bury them deeper by having a few drinks. Facing my past is hard because it means acknowledging the hurtful things I did. It’s also important, because it helps me see that I would have kept doing these things, and the consequences would only have gotten worse, if I hadn’t decided to change.
Another way to approach this is to look at the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for substance use disorder, or to answer the questions that a doctor might ask when making a diagnosis. Questions like, “In the past year… Have you wanted a drink so badly you couldn’t think of anything else?” Or, “Spent a lot of time drinking, being sick from drinking, or getting over other aftereffects?” What strikes me about those questions is that answering yes to only two or three would lead to a diagnosis. If I’m being honest, I would answer yes to quite a few of those questions if I think about them from the perspective of when I was drinking. Of course, they are time bound to the past year. If I answer those questions looking back at the last twelve months, I would answer no to all of them. Does that mean I’m cured?
It wasn’t until over a year after I stopped drinking that I realized alcohol was not my problem. Alcohol was a solution to my problems. Not drinking, while also not going to AA meetings or working the program, led me to isolate. Drinking was the primary tool I had to deal with life. My first thought was, “If alcohol isn’t my problem, then I must not be an alcoholic.” This thought was short lived - I soon realized that this is an awareness many people in AA come to as they work through their sobriety. If alcohol was the problem, all I would need to do is stop drinking and things would be good. Instead, not drinking revealed the true problems that alcohol was helping me avoid. Namely, I didn’t know how to deal with a lot of things that happen in everyday life, especially things that involve other people. AA provides an alternative set of tools to replace the void left by the absence of alcohol. And, frankly, I need those tools.
There is a famous line in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that perfectly captures why I identify so strongly with the program: “[Alcoholics] are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks” (Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, page xxviii). As soon as I read the words “restless, irritable, and discontented” I thought “That’s me! That’s how I feel all the time!” Even when life appears to be going great, my instinct is to focus on what other people have that I lack, what other people are doing that bothers me, what I’d rather be doing instead, or what I wish my circumstances could be like. “Taking a few drinks”, as the Big Book describes it, would indeed bring me a sense of “ease and comfort.” I experienced the most ease and comfort during the times I drank without trying to control it, even though the remorse and regret the next morning would be overwhelming. But that wasn’t most nights. Most nights I limited the amount that I drank, which was annoying and frustrating, but I got enough ease and comfort to get me through the evening.
What I came to realize is that even though I could carry on as I was for a long time without experiencing the more severe consequences of alcoholism, I was dependent on alcohol to cope with my restless, irritable, and discontented personality, and I couldn’t indefinitely avoid the consequences of being an asshole. At some point, my behavior would catch up with me. Or more accurately, at some point my behavior would catch up with me again. My “bottom” may have been high compared to some. But, it was low enough for me to see it, and for me to recognize that it could get much lower. I am grateful for that recognition.