I was thinking, today, of a couple of drinking occasions.
On the first occasion, I wanted to be back at home by 9.00 p.m. to watch my episode of the last season of Thirtysomething. Watching Thirtysomething was the happiest hour of the week. It was the time I connected most; it was certainly the most interesting and thought-provoking hour of the week. It was 8.30 p.m. I was in town. I needed to scoot home pronto to hit the start. I had been drinking. It was with great sorrow that I realised I had to stay in town in the bars to really finish the job properly. I had a miserable night. I could have gone home, but I couldn't go home. I had to drink and rove and hunt for heaven-knows-what. Craving. Whatever I found, whatever I drank, whatever I did, wherever I went, whoever I was with, none of these satisfied the craving. The craving was amplified until a click happened in my head, and I could stop, usually when I was lying on my bed at 2.00 a.m., unable to close my eyes because the ensuing head-spinning would make me vomit.
On another occasion, all week I was looking forward to watching Juliet Stevenson in Ibsen's A Doll's House on the television. I planned watch it, drinking. I gathered the bottles, and started to watch. Twenty minutes in, I realised I had to go out drinking, wildly, roving and hunting for heaven-knows what. I remember leaving the house, miserable that I was condemned to go drinking, to go and do the job properly. I needed not just the drug of alcohol but excitement and promise. I was gutted that evening that I was missing the one thing I had been looking forward to all week.
I was not drinking because I was enjoying it, because it was providing relief. I was drinking even though it was creating huge sadness and disappointment in me. It is nonsense to suggest that there is any reason to it. I drink because has no place in Step One or AA.
That's alcoholism: drinking against your will.