An Alcoholic Life

by Regina C.

Alcohol, booze, moonshine, liquid courage, in society these words usually bring to mind thoughts of a good time. They are often associated with bars, night clubs, parties, and fun nights with friends and strangers. On the surface it can seem like innocent fun, a couple of drinks after a day's work to unwind and relieve stress. For some people what starts as innocent fun can take a turn down a dark road.

Without realizing it, drinking to unwind after work can turn into drinking to celebrate a work success. Then you can start drinking to drown sorrows after a work defeat. Any emotion can be turned into an excuse to have a drink, or five. Life can turn into a blur of forgotten nights and hungover mornings.

This is what Pete Hamill's life became, after he was first introduced to the drink. Alcohol became a scapegoat for his problems. Instead of trying to fix relationships and solve problems he turned to drink.  He was cowardly. If he had problems with his father, he drank. If he disappointed his mother he drank. When he flunked out of school, he drank. Drinking became his buffer between the world and himself.

Drinking split his personality. He called the two halves of himself the Good Boy and the Bad Boy. He tried to be the Good Boy as often as he could, but more often found himself playing the role of the Bad Boy. His life soon became only these roles. He was never himself, only the Good or the Bad.

His life grew to have no meaning. His relationships were rocky, his health shot, his jobs constantly changing, and his sense of self gone, all because of drinking. The smartest decision he ever made in his life was to put down his glass.

He cut alcohol out of his life cold turkey,and he began to face his problems. Nothing was fixed right away, for drinking didn't cause his problems, it only hid them from him and made everything seem okay. But slowly but surely after he quit, he began to make his way slowly out of the rabbit hole he had tumbled down.

Reading this memoir taught me more things than I thought it would. It taught me that no matter what you can't run from your problems, and though you may start off on the wrong path you can find your way back to where you went astray.