On Alcoholism

Jul. 8, 2011

By Oliver Miller info

Oliver Miller is a very famous writer and editor.

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Some kids want to grow up to be doctors or lawyers or senators or captains of industry. I wanted to grow up to be an alcoholic. Seriously. In the back of my head, it was my semi-dream. I wasn’t fully cognizant of it, but it was an ambition.

As a young person, I associated alcoholism with adulthood and romance. My father was an alcoholic; this I knew — I knew it even when I was very young. I only ever saw him being drunk one time; I was five, and it was the only time I ever saw him being cranky, and he fell asleep at 9pm, from an excess of drink. After he fell asleep, snoring loudly, I wandered aimlessly around his bachelor apartment (by that point, the drinking had ended his marriage with my mom, and so they were living in separate places).

While I was wandering around the apartment, I found a door, a hidden door, a door that I had never seen before — it was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The door led to a hallway — a hallway leading to a fire escape — and against the wall in the hallway were a bunch of open boxes; box after box after box.

In the boxes were empty bottles of whiskey; ten… twenty… forty. They were all perfectly empty and clean. Only around the edges, the necks of the bottles, was a trace residue of whiskey, now calcified and jewel-like.

I left the magical hallway, and went back inside.

Years later, after my dad had quit drinking, I asked him about this. He said: “There was no hallway going to a fire escape in that apartment.”

“So did I just dream it all?” I said.

“Maybe so,” he said.

Maybe so. Maybe I did. Who knows?

______

Part of the problem was that my dad believed in nostalgia. He believed in nostalgia and Anglophilia. And these two things, I firmly believe — even though I’m probably wrong — are where alcoholism comes from. Because alcoholism comes from a tug towards an imaginary past; a past that has never existed.

As a kid under my dad’s influence, I watched Cary Grant movies, Alfred Hitchcock movies, plus a shitload of PBS — which featured such classics as Upstairs, Downstairs, Jeeves and Wooster, and Brideshead Revisited. These films and TV shows were all about posh English people who who drank all the time and never suffered any consequences.

In retrospect, what I wanted was not so much to be an alcoholic; it was more that I wanted a butler. People in films drank all day and all night and nothing bad ever happened to them! Why? Because they were rich people, and had servants to clean up the mess. You can drink all day and start getting weird at 3pm and start saying silly stuff, as long as your servant — someone dressed in a suit who is named something like “Jeeves” or “Wentworth” or “Billingsworth” — is there to clean up the mess. As long as you don’t have to have a job. As long as you don’t have any other responsibilities.

_____

I have always dreamed of a life lived without responsibility, and that is why I became an alcoholic, eventually. My dad aided me in this, buying me my first flask when I turned eighteen, but it wasn’t really his fault. He didn’t really think that I’d turn out to be an actual alcoholic like him.

____

You can just insert a period of missed years in here; an interregnum, if you will, if that’s not too fancy a word. You can insert an ellipsis here, is what I’m trying to say. Here are some of my memories of that time, and it went on for years:

…I yelled at my girlfriend; I yelled at someone else; I drove drunk in a convertible, and picked up a stray dog; I drove drunk in a convertible and could have killed someone, but I didn’t — I didn’t; I peed on my friend’s door; I locked myself out of my apartment, jumped over a fence to get back in, and broke my leg; I smashed a window; I smashed a chair; I laughed; I saw a landscape — but it didn’t look like a landscape, it looked like a nightmare; I cried; I had sex; I broke my ankle; I felt the endless lure of endless repetition…

…And I almost died. Have you ever woken up in the morning, seeing some random house in front of you, with a random tree, and then you think this to yourself: This is it. I’m going to die. This is the last house — and the last tree — that I will ever see. …Have you? Because I woke up many times, and that was what I thought.

But I made it; I didn’t die.

You want to hear about car crashes and thrown bottles and cursing and bad sex, probably — but what I want to talk about is the fact that I stopped.

I stopped.

I stopped.

I eventually stopped being an alcoholic. It’s hard work, being an alcoholic. Eventually, liquor doesn’t work on you anymore, and you have to drink fantastic amounts — far more than normal people would have to drink — in order to become even minorly drunk. It’s hard work; it’s like having a job, man. You have to be willing to drink until you puke. You have to be willing to drink until you spit up blood. You have to want to have delirium tremens — which, for me, involved seeing spiders when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night. I tried to discuss this with my friend one time, the visions that I was having. “What were they like?” he said. “They were very… spidery,” I said.

In the end, avoiding reality becomes almost as much work as dealing with reality. It’s all hard work, no matter what you do.

_____

And so, it’s true. I dabbled with being an alcoholic for years, and then I finally had to drop it. I just couldn’t handle drinking anymore. Here’s the thing about being an alcoholic — alcoholics all think that they’re special. Of course, normal people all think that they’re special too; that’s just a facet of human nature. But alcoholics all think that they’re special in a way that normal people aren’t, and that even other alcoholics aren’t. They all think that they’re unique; beautiful little butterflies.

But they’re not. Examined closely enough, each snowflake may be different — but that’s not really the way that life works. In life, we all have to see the long view, and that’s exactly what alcoholics are incapable of doing. If you step back, each unique snowflake is just another identical white dot, falling into an identical fucking field of snow.

Alcoholics think that they have a special knowledge; something that will save them. But in the end, that road leads to death. I’m not trying to be preachy or above-it-all; I’m no better. I almost died from my drinking, and it wasn’t my moral superiority that saved me. I was saved because I was a wuss; because I lack commitment — because I wasn’t ready to die quite that much.

I don’t look down on anyone for being an alcoholic. There are plenty of good, even urgent reasons to be one. Life is very hard. Or, to quote The Princess Bride — “Life is pain, princess. Anyone who says different is selling something.” Yes. That’s true. Having blinders on to the world is a good idea, and I don’t blame anyone who wants to live that way. After all, we’ll all die in the end anyway. Being drunk all the time is sad, yes, but it also contains moments of intense joy and happiness; and I refuse to lie about that.

In the end, though, I just couldn’t handle it. But even to this day, I still see them when I walk into a bar, lingering in the corners — alcoholics; holders of my silent and secret destiny. They raise their drinks and share a rueful smile with the world; a smile that says so much more than words can say. TC mark

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  • http://brianmcelmurry.blogspot.com/ Brian McElmurry

    This was really deep and cool. I liked how you broke down the material, the beginning; just the flow of information. Do you still drink in moderation? As you wrote of going into a bar, and such. Loved this!

  • Aelya

    You’re such a champ.

  • Guest

    Wow. Phenomenal. 

  • http://twitter.com/steviekew Stevie Kew

    head-nail-hammer

  • http://maaaaaan.tumblr.com/ wackomet

    Sweet writing. Good job. No Anglophilia necessary though- my dad and his parents were each alcoholics at some point, and Brit-hating Irish as well.

  • http://twitter.com/MissKimball misskimball

    brideshead revisited made me want to fuck jeremy irons
    I’d do him now even though he’s like 70 or something

  • http://www.facebook.com/grc15r Gregory Costa

    I’m heading out for some gin rickeys…but I’ll be thinking about this. 

  • Coloredarrows

    this article renewed my faith in thoughtcatalog. excellent, so well executed and original. you have a great voice.

  • http://www.facebook.com/m.paigekelly Megan Kelly

    As I drink my beer. 

  • anon

    Marry me.

  • bro

    A great piece. Really really really.

  • Anonymous

    my mother was an alcoholic for half of my life, so i’ve spent half of my life being empathetic with the disease that is alcoholism.

    this is a really nice piece. i liked it a lot.

  • Anne

    My brother is a alcoholic, this was so thoughtful. He has been in rehab for half a year, but just relapsed and has to restart his program. It’s a long battle.  Thanks for sharing your story.

  • Mikela

    a wonderful read. thank you for sharing

  • Best Guest

    I am not an alcoholic, I just like to come home at 3 am and fall asleep in my lawn while pissing myself.

  • Anon#2

    One of your best pieces, out of all i’ve read. Good job!
    And marry me instead. 

  • TO

    You are a very good writer. I thought the part about the hallway that didn’t exist was pretty powerful.

  • anus

    Goddamn that secret hallway bit! Please keep writing more like this and not about Rebecca Black 2.0…thats like Ryan O’Connell or Brandon Scott Gorrell material.

  • Ana

    if life is pain why do you want to live?
    seriously…

  • Anonymous

    Just an FYI, minor point, bachelors haave never been married. After divorce, no longer true. Just divorced person.

  • dont be a twat

    apartments never get married, you pedant

  • Johnny Hogglewogglepogsenton

    I liked the part about how alcoholics think they’re special. That seems really true.

  • Guest

    I always wonder if I am an alcoholic.  Every time I drink in college I black-out and wake up in a drunken-stupor. Maybe its a pacing issue, something else, or am I an alcoholic? 

  • dip

    This underplays the seriousness of alcohol addiction. Well written tho

  • http://staugustinian.wordpress.com/ STaugustine

    “But in the end, that road leads to death.”

    As all roads do

  • Anonymous

    Nice. Very nice.

  • http://www.speakupbaby.com Jamie

    really love this. great story.

  • http://twitter.com/jdunnMPLS jeffrey dunn

    holy shit.  great story.

  • Squid

    Very insightful piece of writing.  Not even my psychoanalyst woula have come up with the concept of nostalgia and Anglophilia

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Timberman/922794 Steven Timberman

    Definitely want to read more of this. Beautiful writing, Oliver.

    I’ve had my bouts of over-drinking (usually to stop me from over-thinking), and actually tried to spend 24 hours without drinking. I made it, but jesus, far more difficult than I thought. 

    And when people try to tell me to stop drinking so much, I have to laugh. Because I’ve got entire months of my memory missing, like a corrupted file. Loved that italicized paragraph of yours; that’s how my own drunken recollections usually end up feeling like. 

    I also like how you started talking about your father – we pick up so much from our parents. My Dad is hilariously far away from even being considered an alcoholic, but I’m fairly sure he hasn’t gone a single day in twenty years without having a glass of wine at dinner. I now get that, entirely. Its a psychological ritual, a way to tell your mind to relax and unwind.

  • Nigger69

    cb is a HATER drinking is the tits and it summons dubstep

  • HowardP

    24 semicolons.

  • Amanda

    Your writing is beautiful and blunt; honesty is hard to come by.

  • http://www.facebook.com/earthtonichole EarthToNichole

    …I read this as I was day drinking alone and Googling alcohol treatment centers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/earthtonichole EarthToNichole

    …I read this as I was day drinking alone and Googling alcohol treatment centers.

  • http://twitter.com/godworm Nicholas Cox

    “alcoholism comes from a tug towards an imaginary past; a past that never existed.”

    So true. In fact, I often wonder if this isn’t where nearly ALL destructive behaviors come from, from codependency right down to National Socialism.

    It’s so hard for us to accept that time really doesn’t run backwards.

  • Danielle

    i really loved this.

  • Patytrig

    Beautiful notes on alcoholism derived from an interesting point of view, elaborating on the relationship once had with alcohol… and lovely writing. And it was refreshing to read a quotation from The Princess Bride; it’s been so long since I last read it.

  • Abby

    This is very well-written, though a lot of the generalizations you make about alcoholics are far from true.  Most alcoholics do not consciously work toward this point, and you ignore the psychological self-consciousness and -loathing that push people to drink to excess in the first place.  Most alcoholics would not define themselves as alcoholics; many are below the poverty level and do not drink to fulfill some bygone Hemingway-esque fantasy life.  Most alcoholics are blind to the changes it causes in their lives and find increasingly unsound justifications for their actions.  It’s not a luxurious problem brought about by over-imagination, as this makes it out to be.

  • Abby

    This is very well-written, though a lot of the generalizations you make about alcoholics are far from true.  Most alcoholics do not consciously work toward this point, and you ignore the psychological self-consciousness and -loathing that push people to drink to excess in the first place.  Most alcoholics would not define themselves as alcoholics; many are below the poverty level and do not drink to fulfill some bygone Hemingway-esque fantasy life.  Most alcoholics are blind to the changes it causes in their lives and find increasingly unsound justifications for their actions.  It’s not a luxurious problem brought about by over-imagination, as this makes it out to be.

  • http://twitter.com/taylafederer Tayla Dam

    i love you

  • OliverFAN

    So good Oliver

  • Anonymous

    You can’t decide one day to quit your alcoholism, that’s not how it works.  You may be recovering alcoholic, but you’re still that, an alcoholic.  

  • Björn

    Very well-written. Kudos.

  • Oliver Miller

    Yes, true.  I didn’t put that in the article because it would have messed up the flow of the article, but yes, I will always be a recovering alcoholic — that’s how it works.

  • Oliver Miller

    I love me some motherfucking semicolons; it’s true.

  • Oliver Miller

    My rule of thumb is that if you worry all the time about being an alcoholic, then, well, of course I’m in no way qualified to give an answer, but try going to an A.A. meeting and see how it makes you feel.  If you turn out not to be an alcoholic after all, then groovy, and you’ve only wasted an hour — plus A.A. meetings are entertaining anyway; like gossipy group-therapy sessions.  So just go to a meeting and see how you feel afterward.  That’s my simple rule of thumb.

  • Oliver Miller

    Uh-oh.

  • Oliver Miller

    People really need to send pics, etc. with these “Marry me!”-slash-”I love you!” offers.  My email address is in my TC bio.  Pics and a self-description will really help me with this decision-making process.

  • Oliver Miller

    Good to know that I’m not alone in my love for all 49 hours of “Brideshead Revisited.”

  • Oliver Miller

    See my comment further down on the page.

  • Guest

    lamers.

  • kurt vonnegut

    Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.

  • Anonymous

    Nice. Good to see your work on TC again. I feel like there was an article about being homeless and then you disappeared.

  • Fed

    your writing reminds me of nick flynn, you know him? it’s cool

  • kk

    You really can’t blame them, a man who thinks and writes well is the holy grail.

  • kk

    Every time I drink, there’s this evaluative thought process going on in the back of my mind: “Why am I drinking? Could I say no to it if I wanted to?” If I lean toward “yes”, the next question is automatically, “Is my supposed budding alcoholism causing denial?” And then, “Is this how my dad feels when he drinks? Will my family think I’m taking after my dad? Do my friends know?”

    I wish I didn’t have to think about it.

  • Guest

    SHUUDD THE FUUUGGGG UUUPP

  • Cockyrocky

    your writing reminds me of my cock. you know him? he’s bored.

  • http://twitter.com/hbic09 Eria

    i love this.

  • http://staugustinian.wordpress.com/ STaugustine

    KV against semi-colons / VN against music = endearing (but unimportant) idiosyncrasies of literary geniuses

  • http://staugustinian.wordpress.com/ STaugustine

    Cool “time capsule” comment from 1958!

  • http://twitter.com/kelvin_lee Kelvin Lee

    Spectacular, what TC does best. “If you step back, each unique snowflake is just another identical white dot, falling into an identical fucking field of snow.”

  • http://twitter.com/kelvin_lee Kelvin Lee

    Spectacular, what TC does best. “If you step back, each unique snowflake is just another identical white dot, falling into an identical fucking field of snow.”

  • Oliver Miller

     But I hate Kurt Vonnegut, so that works.

  • http://twitter.com/FeHaciente Fernanda Cortes

    You’re such a good writter Oliver. Thanks for sharing

  • http://twitter.com/kyleangeletti Kyle Angeletti

    Well told, Oliver. Honest. 

  • http://twitter.com/nolan3391 Nolan Young

    Very well written. Kudos. 

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