How Did I Become This Person?

“What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.” Franz Kafka  (The Metamorphosis) 

I wonder what I have become.  What have I morphed into?  No one aspires to grow up to be an alcoholic.  When I began drinking lovely gin and tonics in college and then more recently delicious Pinot Noir or Craft Beer in beautiful glasses I could not see that I was becoming an ugly insect.  

Alcoholism is a progressive disease.  I never understood this.  Like a good alcoholic I did quite a bit of research which led me to this conclusion. It is a progressive disease. I started out more of a binge drinker.  I didn’t drink every day, but when I did drink I was like the child with cookies.  I always started with two drinks.  As I was drinking my first drink I was already planning my second drink. It was always ready on deck.  After the second one I was on my way and there was no way to gauge how many I was going to have after that. Progressively I could not get through the day without planning that bottle of wine each night.  Actually, I graduated to two bottles a night rapidly over a five month period before I made it back on October 31, 2015.  I had become someone I did not know existed inside of me.  

Recovery teaches me that the first drink is the one that gets me drunk because after that first drink I have no control over my drinking.  Then, why did I continue taking that first drink?  Because I’m an alcoholic and I have a disease that tells me I can drink like normal people.  Today I will choose again not to take that first drink.