Title Correction: Why I Try Not To Drink Any More
Before anyone goes all Yoda “do or do not, there is no try” on me, allow me to say this:
Sometimes people have birthdays. It’s a mark of respect to the birthday human to drink with them. Because of this belief,* other people’s birthdays are my downfall. At this point, this is pretty much the only exception. (I’m trying to remember if I drank on my birthday. Oh, yup. I did. Because I am also a human who deserves respect.) (Oh, there was also a little drinking after a family reunion. And during a dinner with friends to thank us for watching their cats. Fine, birthdays are usually the only exception.)
*Like all beliefs, this may or may not be true and may or may not serve me.
All this to say, I celebrated a friend’s birthday on Wednesday and OH HOW IT WAS CELEBRATED. Thursday Amber paid for Wednesday Amber’s choices. It also prompted me toward this topic again, especially in the wake of some effort spent lately trying to understand why I react the way I do in certain situations.
Weird thing about drinking that I’ve noticed for myself: If I am going to drink, it’s far better to do so during the first half of my cycle than the second. Obviously, for my brain and general health never drinking is the best option, more on that in a minute, but in terms of mood and The Regretting of Life Choices, drinking in the follicular and ovulation stages are far better than drinking in the luteal or, heaven forfend, the PMS stage. (PMS is not an official stage, as it turns out. But wow, do I feel it when I drink then.)
Anyway.
To the Reasons I Don’t Do My Best Not To Drink Any More
We have a history of alcoholism in my family. Pretty much all Gen Xers do, right? Because our parents grew up in the 1950s, when drinking was the coping mechanism of choice / the actual only coping mechanism. So many of our parents were raised by alcoholics or, if we don’t want to call them alcoholics, then “people who celebrated the end of the work day with a cocktail or two or seven.”
People raised by alcoholics will have trauma. This is fact.
When you’re raised by an alcoholic, one of two things will probably happen:
You will follow the behavior demonstrated to you as a child, and become an alcoholic.
You will observe the behavior demonstrated to you as a child, decide you want absolutely no part of that nonsense, and do your utmost NOT to become an alcoholic.
Both of my parents chose Door Number Two. Let’s give them a round of applause, because choosing Door Number Two in those days was basically down to sheer willpower.
Here’s where it gets weird, and this is the part that seems to be less well understood as of yet.
If people have untreated trauma, they will pass it down to their children.
As far as I can tell, this is the only explanation for me and how I am.
According to the mental health professionals at Kaiser, I have cPTSD.
There is no real reason for me to have PTSD, aside from the fact that I have a super sensitive nervous system. I had a nice childhood - well-loved, secure, opportunities like piano lessons (which I did not appreciate) and the college of my choice (which I did). I was also lucky to never experience violence or accidents or war, or any of the other things the traditional trauma model recognizes.
Privilege plus luck does not equal PTSD. Except when it does.
I’ve also lived a life. Breakups, sudden moves, a miscarriage, getting fired from jobs, financial instability. As we’re coming to understand trauma, or at least what I call subtle trauma, these things contribute. But my symptoms seem to pre-date any of these experiences I had as an adult. It’s even possible that they contributed.
To be clear, this is not to blame my parents or my childhood for anything or to avoid taking responsibility. It’s to illustrate that things are considerably less clear cut than most of us have been led to believe, especially when it comes to family systems and what we inherit from our parents and previous generations.
I have a great deal of respect for my parents, I believe they did an extraordinary job with what they had and made big leaps within one generation. My father especially took a truly traumatic and often terrible childhood and turned it around as best he could for his children and for his younger siblings. Sure, a therapist could (and did) say a lot of things about him, but I think he and my mother both did a great job, all things considered.
Here’s the thing:
Untreated trauma gets passed on to the next generation. I believe I have PTSD because my parents did, because they grew up with alcoholic fathers, and had to muscle through because the late twentieth century didn’t have the tools that we do in the early twenty-first. I suspect they didn’t know they had trauma. Even if they suspected, they wouldn’t have had the tools to treat it.
We have the tools now, but they’re often hard to come by. Mental health coverage within most insurance plans is sketchy at best. Going private is often much more effective (oh, the things I would spend lots of money on), but is inaccessible to all but the top few. By all measurements, I’m in a tip top percentage of lucky humans and a lot of what I need is currently inaccessible to me. This is why I end up in the etheric healing realms. BECAUSE THEY ARE FREE. (Ha!) But that’s a rant for another day.
Because I have a family history of alcoholism, my genes are constantly trying to lure me in that direction. This is where my extra sensitive nervous system is a help and a hindrance. It’s a help because I know when I’m starting to go a bit too far down the alcohol path. It’s a visceral feeling and an intuitive knowing. It’s a hindrance because when your nervous system is overwhelmed or totally shot, you veer in the direction of numbing - sugar, television, alcohol, drugs. (I have never allowed myself to go anywhere near drugs for this very reason. I cannot be trusted. Or at least my delicate peony nervous system can’t be.)
Why I Do my best to drink as little as possible:
Alcohol does bad things to your brain.
Alcohol screws with your gut, which is your second brain.
Both of those facts mean that alcohol can really affect your mood and life.
And…alcoholics in a family can seriously mess with that family, down through every generation until it’s dealt with.
I’m the generation that has to deal with it, and frankly it’s a pain in my ass.
Healing PTSD is a thing. Being vigilant about any kind of alcohol consumption is a thing. Learning how to feel what I learned early to repress is a thing. Learning how to soothe myself and not make any lasting decisions while in an activation loop is a thing. Learning how to not react the way I really want to react is a thing. Learning how to heal things that aren’t mine but have been passed down through my family line, from my parents’ generation to many generations before that, is a thing.
THERE ARE JUST SO MANY THINGS.
When I have a drink, even just one, my mood and thought patterns and decision-making ability will be adversely affected for at least three days. My partner and I are more likely to fight, and that fight is more likely to not go well.
(This is a little less likely to happen in the first half of my cycle and almost certain to happen in the second half of my cycle, which I find fascinating.)
Essentially, alcohol fucks with my health - mental, physical, and emotional - and it does my life zero favors. Except when I’m dancing in the back of a car in San Francisco on the way to a birthday dinner in that sweet moment of buzz hours before the repercussions begin. That’s the moment people drink for and, yes, it is fun.
Alcohol is a coping mechanism, pure and simple, in a world where coping is far more available than real healing.
If I have any mission in life, helping the shift from coping to healing is probably it. But I’m still trying to get my own house in order, healing my own shit and doing the healing for my family that has apparently been assigned to me and trying not to make too many messes in the meantime. Maybe the only way I can help the world in this is by helping myself.
If you’ve been wondering why you seem to have a lot of trauma and you’re not sure why, you aren’t alone. If you’ve been noticing that alcohol fucks with your week or your life, that you’re not alone.
If you’re keeping an eagle eye on your substances because things go way south when you don’t, fist bump. If you’re healing things from your family, fist bump. If you’re healing your own things, fist bump.
If you’re excited for the moment when coping shifts to healing shifts to thriving… me too, friend.
xo - Amber