I have this terrible habit when I sit in an AA meeting.  When someone is talking about when they used to drink, I instantaneously imagine them at their worst.  Did they drink in bars?  Drink at home straight from the bottle?  Did they try to hide it?  Did they throw things and get into fights?  Or did they sip white wine and cry while watching romantic comedies?  I’m not sure why I have this gut reaction.  Perhaps I’m a bad person- a carnivore for human suffering.  Or maybe I just wonder if they were worse than me.

After the booze-fueled party that was college, I lost my grip on what was considered normal drinking.  Suddenly, waking up with mysterious bruises wasn’t as funny when there wasn’t anybody to tell the story to.  I was, however, still under the impression for the years that followed that I was more likeable when I was drunk; funnier, more sociable.  At the very least, I was more entertaining by default.  My boyfriend was watching Smallville last week, and mentioned a cameo by a then famous singer, Christina Milian.

“Remember that dance you used to do to her song?” he smirked.

A hazy memory came back to me, and I grimaced as I asked, “Have you ever seen me do that sober?”

After a moment’s pause, he shot me a sideways glance and muttered “No.”

Moments like these make me cringe now.  I’m sometimes reminded of little things I said or did while under the influence that now seem embarrassing, sometimes degrading, and often hurtful.  Scrolling back through my old Facebook messages is akin to a slow, painful torture.  Each 2 and 3 a.m. rambling message followed by the knowing, patient response in the morning from the person I sent them to- they make my skin crawl.  I often wonder if I should delete these messages, but although it feels like a punch to the gut, it’s a stark reminder of the kind of person I am now growing out of.

Moments that have been documented, one I am able to physically look back on, are some of the more tame mementos of my drinking days.  The worst things I did exist only in my own memory, and for that I am grateful.  I am very lucky that I wasn’t given more time to slowly chip away at my own life and those around me.  I hear common words in AA meetings that I never had to experience: divorce, DUI, fired.  Let me make a couple things very clear:  I am not smarter for having gotten sober earlier.  I am also not any less of an alcoholic because I didn’t wreck my car.  I am one thing, and one thing only.  Lucky.

Despite the cringe-worthy moments, alcohol still made me feel like a different person, a better person.  I believe that’s the basis for the allure of alcohol: the ability to numb out inhibitions, to feel carefree and more open.  It’s the great unifier of life in your twenties.  In college and beyond, drinking to excess is a badge of honor.  The more ridiculous the drunk story, the more laughs you get.  Being wasted and blacking out is itself an excuse for just about anything you can think of.  For alcoholics, though, at some point it becomes less fun.  It becomes sad.  It becomes a problem you need help for.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that imagines others’ past lives in AA meetings.  I wonder who has looked at me, still quite young, and pictured what I could have been like at my worst.  Maybe that’s the point.  We don’t have to look around and wonder who had it bad- we already know.  You can look around the room, listen to other sober people speaking honestly about their most horrible moments, and know without a doubt that you are all thinking the same thing.

“Me too.”