The Time I Almost Died
Twelve years ago today I quit drinking. I had started as a teenager and went on to become a prolific, high-functioning alcoholic. I made drinking a part of my identity, which made not drinking quite difficult. Countless times over the years I tried to quit and could never make it more than a couple months. I grinded out a career while spending my nights and weekends lost in the sauce. On the outside I had a good job and a wonderful family. On the inside I hated myself for being a drunk. I knew I was slowly killing myself and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been warned.
In the spring of 2007 I was in my early thirties and still drinking like a fish. My career was soaring, which is a great way to keep people off your back when you’re an alcoholic. Abby was about eighteen months old and Liz was pregnant with Wyatt. One weekend we spent a beautiful spring Sunday working together in the yard. I planted vegetables in my garden and probably knocked the foam off a few beers. By evening the work in the yard had caught up to me and I felt exhausted. I made a single gin martini before crashing early around 8 PM. One drink and in bed by eight was unusual for me, but I chalked it up to a long day in the sun.
That night I woke up to a horrible burning feeling in my stomach. I headed to the bathroom and that’s the last thing I remember before the lights went out. Eventually I remember being surrounded by the darkness of an endless void. I had no idea where I was but slowly I remembered having gone to the bathroom. At that point I became aware something had happened to me but I didn’t understand where I was physically. It then occurred to me that I might be dead but why is there nothing but darkness? No light. No tunnel. No old friends waiting for me. I knew my wife and daughter were only a few feet away from me in another room. The panic started to wash over me as I felt myself falling away from them. If it was a dream, I needed to wake up. The only thing I could do in the darkness was scream, so that’s what I did. It felt like slow motion as I did all I could to make sound. Thankfully back in the physical realm my screams manifested as moans loud enough to wake-up Liz. She found me on the floor in the bathroom in rough shape. Somehow she brought me back to consciousness at which point I think I asked her to please call 911.
The ambulance ride from Hebron to Hartford Hospital is mostly a blur. I fell in and out of consciousness, which continued once I made it to the ER. Eventually I woke up in the ICU under the care of a very angry gastroenterologist. The human body contains around twelve pints of blood. I had lost seven through internal bleeding and came very close to death. Multiple blood transfusions were necessary and I spent the next few days learning about the long term cost of a good time. An endoscopy revealed an ulcer at the base of my esophagus, likely brought on by years of having a giant penis. The GI doctor also suggested my drinking problem along with having the stomach of a sixty year old alcoholic could have been factors. Over the next few days I healed and listened to a constant stream of physicians tell me about my substance abuse problem. I brushed it all off of course because I still wasn’t willing to admit I had a problem.
Eventually I healed and quickly went back to my old ways. I had a terrifying, near-death experience that I dragged my family through simultaneously. That still wasn’t enough for me to realize that I had to change. It would take another five years of wrestling with addiction before I was finally able to break free on December 22, 2012. Booze left a mark on my life that I can’t never fix or change. In order to heal I’ve had to accept that whatever happened, happened. Sharing my story has helped ease the shame. I now know that I’m not defective. I’m just human and I’m glad I’m alive today. Happy December 22nd. :)
#addiction