Sunday afternoon I went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for dinner. My brother is a talented cook; his wife does all the clean-up, and all I have to do is show up and eat. It’s a great deal for me, and it’s one I accept whenever they offer it, which they do on a regular basis. On this particular occasion they served spaghetti with all the trimmings, including a bottle of wine. When we sat down to eat, my sister-in-law began to pour herself a glass of wine, hesitated noticeably, looked at me with an “I’ve been so thoughtless” expression, and then asked, “Would it bother you if we had wine with our dinner?”
I was relatively new to recovery, and this was not something I expected. My sister-in-law hadn’t been thinking about drinking; she doesn’t have to. She isn’t alcoholic, and neither is my brother. They drink when they want, and stop when they think they have had enough, if not before. They are social drinkers. They planned to have wine with their dinner. They invited me without thinking about how my recovery would affect them. My sister-in-law began to pour herself a glass of wine—a perfectly normal thing for her to do—and suddenly realized it might not be a good idea because I was there.
I felt I had to answer her question, so I said “no” without thinking. I continued, saying, “It doesn’t bother me if you drink. It only bothers me if I drink.” Now, as I mentioned, I answered without thinking. I had practiced not drinking for a relatively short time, yet the results had far-reaching effects. My subconscious thought process began to take in the new knowledge that I didn’t drink because it bothered me to drink. This was a major shift in my thinking, and, in this case, it happened very naturally— so naturally, in fact, that I didn’t even notice what had happened until later that evening. My sister-in-law and I exchanged a couple of quick comments concerning alcohol, and then we went about having dinner. She poured herself and my brother some wine, I drank my soda, and we had a pleasant, unremarkable evening—unremarkable, that is, except for the lesson I was to learn from the event. Those two little sentences exchanged at dinner with my sister-in-law radically changed my view of what is normal and what is not when it comes to people.
People come in all shapes, sizes, looks, styles, colors, and types. I don’t understand people—probably most people. I do my best to be an understanding person, but I simply cannot understand why people do some of the things they do. Almost every day, I see people do things that baffle me. They pull out in front of me in traffic, treat their children in ways I could interpret as insane, and cross the street without looking because a sign says the pedestrians have the right-of-way. I don’t get it. But I don’t have to understand them for them to be normal. And it is not my place to understand everything. I must simply accept those things I don’t understand or would not do, those I believe I am unable to do, or those I simply choose not to do as being quite normal for other people.
Some people drink alcoholic beverages or use other drugs recreationally. I used to, but I no longer partake in these practices. The reason I quit has to do with the direction my life was headed. Using had consequences that became so intensely negative that I had to quit. Using in any way, even ways that did not result in my becoming completely loaded, became unacceptable to me; I realized it was abuse. It was when I discovered my new definition of abuse that I realized I might have a problem. My point is that many people don’t have the problem that I have. While this fact may not be a revelation to you, it may come as a surprise to you to realize that you may think of those people, of them, as being normal because they can drink. If you do, I beg of you to change your thinking in this matter. Maybe you don’t think of social use of alcohol or other drugs as “the norm.” However, many people do, and to their own detriment. After all, if that is the norm, how can I ever possibly fit in, or be normal, myself? This idea is as dangerous to my personal growth as playing with dynamite, yet I see evidence that some people believe this mythological notion.
I cannot count the number of times I have heard others say something that sounds like “I went to a party last weekend with a bunch of normal people.” When I hear this sentiment shared it makes my skin crawl, because I used to say the same thing; I used to call other people normal without thinking about what I was implying about myself. I used to say this without thinking. In early recovery, I had heard enough other people say it that it seemed acceptable. I no longer feel that way. I no longer consider it acceptable to regard other people as normal (or more normal than I regard myself ) simply because they can consume alcohol without suffering horrible consequences.
During my using years I thought of myself as an alcoholic, and I felt that I wasn’t normal. In fact, that was true; I was far from normal. Drinking and using as I did was about as far from normal as a person can get. It was certainly as far from normal as I ever care to be. I never want to be in that place again. However, I don’t drink anymore—not that not drinking makes me somehow normal. Not drinking gives me a chance to become normal again—assuming I was ever normal to begin with—and I think I was normal at some point. (One may have to go all the way back to the cradle to pinpoint one’s normal, but it can be found.)
We conformed to a standard, adhered to a pattern, did the usual or expected at some point in our lives. How hard is it to be a normal baby? What do we really expect of an infant? They cry, someone feeds them, they sleep, and they need to be changed and held. I did those things when I was an infant. I must have been normal back then, even if I lost my sense of normalcy shortly out of the crib! The point is that I did lose my sense of normalcy somewhere along the line. I drank like a drunk. My life became unmanageable. I was able to admit I had a problem and sought help. When I sought help, it was there waiting. I stopped drinking. At this point in my recovery, it would be easy to say I am still far from normal, and I might agree with this statement on some level. Still, calling other people normal because they can drink annoys me so deeply.
Calling other people normal—and considering myself not-so-normal—started driving me out of my sense of serenity, because I can’t drink and have a normal life. When I drink, I suffer badly, and all too often so do the people around me. Drinking simply is not part of a normal life for me. In fact, drinking doesn’t make anybody normal. In fact, there is no one thing (outside of general bodily functions) that anyone does that makes them more normal than anybody else. Eating, drinking (nonalcoholic beverages), sleeping, etc.—these are normal to everyone. Very little else is considered normal to everyone. My normal now includes not drinking. Other people’s normal includes drinking. I now believe we can celebrate the differences. I can learn from them and grow with them. But first, I have to get over the hang-ups I have with the fact that some people can drink alcohol without suffering terrible side effects, while I have terrible side effects if I consume it. It’s not my job to understand why I have side effects. I only have to accept the truth and move on with my life.
I refuse to take certain medications because they have very bad side effects—the side effects are worse than the illnesses they are supposed to cure. I don’t think twice about this. When I have a cold, I take a certain kind of cold medication. I take it because, through trial and error, I have found it to be effective for me. I quit taking the ones that did not work for me or made me feel worse. Why? I quit because it made sense for me to do so. I decided that I didn’t like the negative side effects I got from taking the medication, so I quit taking it. I didn’t have to understand why it made me feel poorly; I simply accepted that it did and moved on.
Although it was a form of self-delusion, I used this same approach with certain types of alcohol during my using years. I quit drinking tequila because (I thought) it almost killed me. Even though I drank for many more years, I never drank tequila again. Peppermint schnapps also made the list of alcohols I never drank.
Then, one day, I discovered that it wasn’t the tequila, schnapps, whiskey, pot, wine, coke, or beer that was killing me. It was the addict in me that was causing all the undesirable side effects. Using these various substances made me miserable. I could start using, but I could not stop. When it came to drinking, my brakes—my ability to stop—failed on a regular basis. Eventually, I made the decision to quit drinking altogether. Like all the other medications I have on my “do not take” list, alcohol
