Coming out as a gay man was a mixed blessing as far as my drinking went. Once I became a bit more comfortable with my sexuality, I began to go out to gay bars. That fueled both my alcohol abuse and my sexual addiction. In the beginning, I would limit myself to three beers. That would certainly change over time!
I drove drunk for the first time when I was nineteen. That behavior persisted for the next fourteen years. I always thought that I could handle it. Fortunately I never experienced any serious repercussions for myself or any others; however, I came close to having a bad accident on two occasions and I was once stopped by the police.
I failed the sobriety tests, but I was released from jail after a low breathalizer test score. I'd only had a few beers. The truth of the matter was that I was high as a kite! There were no tests for marijuana use in those days.
Even though I had become familiar with the experience of passing out, I didn't realize that I had black outs until after the eve of my wedding. My best man was mixing potent gin and tonics which was my drink of choice at that time. I wasn't about to complain. They were absolutely delicious!
The last thing I remembered was that I had been swinging from the shower rod in the hotel bathroom on the ninght of my bachelor party. I fell into a tub filled with ice water and beer. When I got back from my honeymoon, I found out what had happened after my last memory. I had come out to my sister, one of my ushers (a college roommate), and a childhood girlfriend. Talk about comedy and insanity! The underlying truth is that it was a very sad situation. Even so, it helps to be able to laugh about these things. All of this will be part of my coming out story, to be told in a future article.
I didn't always drink every day, though I would almost always have a beer. By the time, I was twenty-five, it would invariably be three or more beers per day. After injuring my back, I began to take prescription painkillers. When I told the doctor that they worked best when I drank them with a six pack of beer, he suggested I try to stop drinking for six weeks. Apparently that was his idea of a test as to whether or not I had an alcohol problem.
It didn't turn out to be a problem. I stopped for those six weeks. Of course, it helped that he doubled the dosage of the painkillers so that I wouldn't fee the need to drink as well. This would become the start of yet another addiction.
Alcoholism and sexual addiction went hand in hand during the years I spent more and more time in the bars. Happy hour had become a regular routine. It had also become regular for me to pick up someone with whom to have a sexual tryst at the same time. Happy hours became longer and longer as the years progressed. In the meantime, weekends were also often given over to nights out at the bars.
Fortunately I did have some sober friends so I had other social outlets as well. On those occasions I would moderate my drinking. Of course, that may have served to fuel my denial that I didn't have a problem. It would take many years of alcohol abuse before I was able to overcome that denial. I would become one of the lucky ones. I would achieve sobriety at a young age – thirty-three. That would be the beginning of my journey into recovery from addiction. There would be much craziness to come before I reached that part of my life's journey.
Author Davis Aujourd'hui
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