An Introduction To Alcoholism

Vividly remembering and romanticizing your first drunk is a textbook alcoholic characteristic. Although I’m sure most of us can recollect our initial taste of beer or liquor, it’s the nature of an abnormal drinker to view such an event as game-changing in the timeline of life. That immediate effect of alcohol overtakes us, quells the mind’s madness, and strikes us as the solution to our every insecurity, discomfort, and lack of purpose. At least that was the case for me on my first expedition to inebriation.

I was 16, kicking around a soccer ball in the Johnson’s basement, where we would often goof around passing time. The Johnson brothers, one younger than I and one older, were labeled by me as “The Ringleaders of Substance Abuse.” An individual can only have so much influence over another, but it was the Johnson brothers who encouraged every innocent kid in our neighborhood to travel down their path of illicit substances and criminal activity. I say encourage because “coerce” is too strong a term, though I wouldn’t deny its accuracy in context.

The older brother, Jack, was an objectively handsome, captivating young guy. He didn’t garner attention for his intelligence, because there wasn’t much there. What he lacked in smarts he made up for in charisma. Jack was the kind of guy every girl felt the need to comment on. Not a single girl who crossed his path refrained from remarking on his looks. Bright blue eyes, wavy hair, a chiseled jaw, and an engaging smile. There was something cunning about his smirk, and my suspicion of darkness would prove true in subsequent years. As for that time, he was a fella all of us younger guys looked up to.

I didn’t envy his mind, knowing I was much brighter. At the age of 16, however, peers don’t much care for your analytical thinking or dry wit. I was a tiny person, both in height and weight. I had a goofy face, comparable to that of a cartoon lizard, which couldn’t have been assessed unless a girl in my class made that very claim. I was a great athlete despite size, but kids couldn’t keep from commenting on my lack of height and skinny frame. My sense of humor developed as a defense mechanism. I had sarcastic retorts locked and loaded, ready for every insult I could possibly and inevitably receive. My humor certainly reached people, but I was nothing more than a clown. My interactions were solely joke after joke, because that’s the only way I knew how to attract people and the attention I so desperately craved. Nobody believed I was capable of wooing girls. Maybe some gals took a liking to my quirks or humor, but that didn’t mean I could speak to them flirtatiously. The fact is, I had zero concept of “spitting game,” as we used to say. Girls called me “weird” or “funny” with no in between, and unfortunately no teenage girl wants sex for the irreverent sense of humor.

Jack possessed the charm I didn’t, plus an added learning disability. Book smarts aside, he could manipulate guys. He was very well-aware of the cool light in which we viewed him, and he used that to his advantage. Everyone saw in Jack the same external qualities I did — Good-looks. Charm. Unpredictability. Recklessness. We wanted what we had.

His younger brother Red was a grade under me in school. We referred to him as “Red” for his fiery red hair, and didn’t put great thought into nicknames. Red was attractive like Jack, but in more of a childlike way. He too wasn’t the sharpest tack, yet his lack of swiftness created an aura of innocence that Jack didn’t emit, and would prey upon. Red was naive. He followed Jack’s lead through it all. If Jack thought throwing eggs at car windshields was a good idea, Red did as well. Of course, the days of throwing eggs and small fruit at cars were part of a more lighthearted phase of rebellion.

Red was a victim of the same belief we all were: Jack was to be idolized and emulated. It was on that summer day in the Johnson basement when I discovered Red had fallen victim already.

The new school year was approaching, and we had wasted our summer away in laziness, accomplishing nothing of significance. I would soon be a sophomore in high school; Red a freshman, and Jack a junior. Red, the neighborhood kids, and I caught onto the fact that Jack delved into booze and pot, among other things. At the time I was still very against the use of drugs, and I’d go so far as to say fearful of them. I was raised in a household where there was no alcohol. My parents were disturbed by what alcoholism did to their relatives, and they stopped drinking in their 20s. I never saw them take a drink, and therefore viewed it as a “bad thing.” Jack knew where I stood on alcohol and drugs, so he never gave me any insight into his budding substance abuse career. Red, too, kept his own introduction to the booze and pot game under wraps. Wraps unraveled that afternoon.

The three of us purposelessly kicked a soccer ball around in sheer boredom, holding meaningless conversation. I can’t recall how, but we ended up on the subject of drinking. My guess is Jack brought it up, with the implication he wanted to get drunk that evening. Though the act of it seemed shameful, I saw it becoming more common all around me. Out of curiosity I asked, “What does being drunk feel like?” The response I received was the trite oversell of a potential problem drinker. “It’s the best feeling,” Jack told me. “You don’t give a shit about anything.”

Red chimed in with, “It’s so fun, Gursky, you have to try it.” I perked up with widened eyes at that remark. Until Red’s passionate endorsement, I hadn’t yet been informed he tried drinking. “You drank before?” I inquired, opening up a bit more to the idea. “Yeah, a couple times,” Red responded.

A new issue arose. For years I stood firmly against the notion of getting drunk. I considered my parents too often to experiment with substances deemed dangerous. If the desire so much as crossed my mind I could almost visualize their disappointed faces. Yet drinking seemed to be normal now as we entered our teenage years. More people than I was aware of were doing it. Now even Red, who was younger and further from popularity than I, had indulged on a few occasions.

After very little internal debate I was sold on trying booze. The mere fact that Red was doing it was my final persuader. I was past due, and ready at last. After all, I wanted acceptance, and every kid who seemingly received it was off to the races. Better late than never to the game. With unassured, shaky confidence I declared, “I wanna try it with you guys.” Red punted the soccer ball against the concrete basement wall in excitement. “Yes Gursky!” He shouted. “We should drink tonight,” he suggested. “We could,” Jack said. “Gursky why don’t you sleep over?”

After a quick phone home to the rents on my Motorola Razr I was permitted to stay over, and the gate of opportunity was opened. My father was a tad skeptical about why I’d want to sleep over at a house just up the street, but what sounded to be skepticism revealed itself in later years as being clued into exactly what was taking place. Ordinarily I would have never slept over at the Johnson house, considering I lived just 4 houses down on the very same street. Tonight, however, we had a dark and careless objective.

Jack dropped upon us a step-by-step plan that sounded as though it was blueprinted prior to any agreement on my drinking debut. He rattled off: “We’re gonna wait for mom to go upstairs. As soon as she does we’re gonna head up and fill a container with some of the alcohol above the fridge. Red, you make a pitcher of Kool-Aide to mix with. Gursky, you grab cups. We gotta be quick, ‘cuz if she comes down and sees us we’re fucked.”

This was your standard badass teen means of acquiring alcohol. If executed properly we’d booze without worry, though if Mrs. Johnson were to catch us in the act she’d most likely laugh it off. As long as Jack wasn’t freebasing crystal meth on the back patio or letting street walkers inject him with dope she couldn’t be disturbed by his actions. We all had something to aspire to.

Red assumed lookout duty, perched atop the basement steps with his ear to the door like an entry-level spy. Jack and I waited eagerly for his signal to take action. Admittedly, the fears and anxieties within me were gradually getting outweighed by excitement. I was at last about to experience intoxication, a sensation my friends spoke highly of and felt no shame over. With luck, I could feel that same sense without nervousness in the comfort of the Johnson’s pale blue, mildewed basement.

Jack and I sat restlessly on the torn old wrap-around couch, focused on nothing but the alcohol we were about to consume; growing more and more impatient with build-up. Red, too, was draining physically and emotionally as he waited on his hands and knees, listening intently. He took it upon himself to leave the basement and speak directly to his mom, in the hopes he could gather information on her goings on. After maybe 2 minutes of the kitchen floor creaking and faint sound of conversation, the basement door cracked open and Red whisper-shouted, “Yo let’s go!”

We sprung off the couch like a girl upstairs was beckoning us to touch her boobs. In full-attack mode we sprinted up the steps, glided through the doorway, and shuffled across the yellow tile kitchen floor. Red frantically threw Kool-Aid powder into a pitcher of water. I tore open cupboards in search of cups like I was looting post-hurricane. Jack pulled bottles, one by one, from the cabinet above the fridge. There was zero discrimination. First a bottle of Kettle One vodka. Then Bacardi Rum, followed by several other rums. One more kind of vodka. A whiskey. He poured them all into one big plastic jug, creating a puke-like green and yellow mixture. Red stirred the Kool-Aid like a madman, while Jack quickly ran each bottle under the faucet for a second. Before running back down to our safe zone, Jack announced, “Give me one second.”

He jogged over to his dad’s office room. Red and I knew what was going down, thanks to the distant sound of small bottles clanking. Jack entered the kitchen with a big grin, cradling 5 small bottles of Maker’s Mark whiskey. He even let out a slight maniacal murmur to complement his act. As a group we marched back downstairs, returning to home base with Kool-Aid, cups, and a whole batch of mixed liquor. Thehow was about to begin.

We set our arsenal on the blue carpeted floor, just in front of the wrap-around couch. The 3 of us sat Indian-style around the booze and juice. Jack cracked open each Maker’s Mark bottle and emptied them all into the container. He made quite a repulsive concoction, with enough alcohol percentage to get a group of 20 kids drunk. Jack and Red prepared their mixed drinks, which were detectably strong even for someone who hadn’t previously seen a drink prepared. Jack then poured one up for me. He informed, “I’m making this strong as shit so you should be good after just this.”

Before sipping I watched the guys drink from their cups. They chugged in gulps, and appeared brighter than before. Their smiles widened. Their faces lit up. They laughed more when they spoke. It required some effort, but I blocked my parents’ perception from my mind. I erased a vision of their disappointed faces from the forefront of my thoughts. Nobody else seemed to care what their parents would think, so why should I? I eliminated the pride, picked up my drink, and took a fairly big sip. The taste was atrocious, like a dead rodent covered in pine needles, but I received an immediate warmth and tingle throughout my entire body. My taste buds came to life, despite the drink tasting like sap, nail polish remover, and ass. My racing thoughts slowed just a bit. The taste wasn’t enjoyable, and I’d go so far as to say horrific, yet I felt compelled to drink more. I received a bit of mental ease merely from a sip. By choice, but almost not by choice, I kept drinking.

Within 2 minutes my cup was gone. Jack and Red were just finishing theirs as well. “Do you feel anything, Gursky?” Jack asked. “No,” I told him. I truly didn’t. My head was more at ease. I felt a bit warm. But I wasn’t experiencing anything like what one would describe as “drunk.” I still felt like me, but with a compulsion to keep drinking. “You’ve gotta feel something,” Red insisted. “I’ve drank before, and I feel drunk already.”

They both seemed puzzled as to how I wasn’t feeling drunk. It confused me too, I suppose. I drank enough to get even some seasoned drinkers “tipsy.” I wanted to feel it, but I didn’t. Jack poured me up another, and I sipped through that with ease. “You’re gonna get hammered after this one,” he claimed. I didn’t. This almost frustrated Jack and Red, who were now blasting early 2000s rap music off their dad’s laptop, rapping along drunkenly, and throwing in some dance moves. “I don’t know how it’s possible for you to not be drunk,” Red said. Trying another was the only shot at discovery.

After cup 3, which was 75% booze, 25% Kool-Aid, I received my psychic change and reached my spiritual experience. All at once the hilarious, drunken daze hit me. I smoothly laid back, flat against the carpet. Staring up at ceiling tiles I began laughing uncontrollably. What I was laughing about I wasn’t sure, but it was hysterical. Within a matter of seconds life’s troubles floated away. I completely forgot about the self-hatred I had for myself, which I forever masked with arrogance. I ceased hyper-focusing on what my parents may think of me. Suddenly I didn’t give a shit about anything but myself in the moment, and how funny anything and everything was. Overwhelmed with high emotions I said to myself, “This is it. This is what my life was missing.”

The boys were convinced I’d achieved drunkenness. “I feel it,” I shouted through my laughter. “This is the funniest shit ever.” Jack and Red laughed too. We spoke and laughed, though I can’t recall what it was about or why. I wasn’t yet aware of what a blackout was, but I was about the spend the majority of my evening and early morning in the midst of one.

Next I remember after that initial drunk wave crashing into me, I was raising my head from the floor to witness one of life’s most horrific acts. To shed some insight into the period in which this took place, Chingy’s “Right Thurr” blared through the IBM laptop speakers. It was a hit at that time, we would all be ashamed to admit. Chingy’s smash one-hit wonder played as the soundtrack to Jack’s one-man freak show. I looked over to see him sitting on the couch without pants or briefs. His shirt was still on, but his pants somehow made their way elsewhere. He sat pulling on his flaccid penis like a Gumby doll — stretching on it while laughing to himself. When he saw I noticed him he went into hysterics. I laughed simply to mask the terror. I came out of a blackout to witness him tugging on his soft cock like Silly Putty. Red’s location was unknown at the time, but I desperately wished he had been there to save me from being exposed to that trauma on my own.

Again the blackout ensued. Time was immeasurable, and the night’s play-out only came in glimpses. This time when I regained awareness I was mid-sprint, running pacers between the basement’s concrete walls. Jack and Red stood where the carpet meets the hard floor about 10-feet from me, overseeing and encouraging like a head and assistant coach. “What am I doing?” I grumbled.

“Just keep running,” Jack demanded. “It makes you sober.” Of course that’s a bullshit myth, but we believed it was fact back then. I continued sprinting wall-to-wall, half-conscious, nauseous, and not getting any less inebriated. I overheard a brief whispering exchange between Jack and Red, which they thought I couldn’t:

“How is he still drunk?” Red asked Jack. “He drank A LOT,” Jack replied. Red followed up with “I didn’t know this was possible, it’s been like 7 hours. Should we talk him to the hospital?” Jack answered simply, “No. He’ll be fine.”

Those were the kind of fellas I surrounded myself with — guys who prioritized not getting in trouble above my life. That little discussion didn’t register as disheartening with me at the time, of course, and I blacked out again directly following it. My next period of consciousness hit upon awakening.

I slowly, stiffly rose from the carpet floor like a decayed corpse being pried from the boarded floor of an attic. My entire body trembled. My vision was blurred, and sights seemed to spin. Before I could gain slight composure or formulate a thought I was hit with the most urgent need to puke. I could feel the bile rising from my stomach, telling me there was absolutely no time to make it anywhere. The nearest container or place of storage was my school backpack setting beside me. I grabbed it, tore the zipper open, and before I could lower my head into the pouch a geyser of greenish-yellow liquid yak fired out of my mouth. Not a chunk of food found its way into this ralph. It was purely booze, as indicated by the nauseating smell of polish and pine. Roughly a quarter of the backpack was filled with my bodily fluid, and luckily most of it found its way in.

The vomiting my brains out was bad enough, but I also happened to ruin my backpack, which wasn’t an ordinary one. That bookbag had sentimental value, as it was part of a running bit in school. This was a decade ago, and the High School Musical movie series was new and popular among preteen girls and older sex criminals. I wasn’t a fan, but I came across a High School Musical backpack one day and it struck me as the perfect tool for irony. It was a salmon-pink shade with black sides, with Zac Efron’s enormous face screen printed onto it. Written over his face in glittered lettering was “I (Heart) Troy,” with a nice big heart to express how deep that love was. I thought I was a riot for buying and wearing it.

Sadly it was no longer. The I Heart Troy backpack was soiled with my liquored yak. It was the morning after my very first night of drinking, and I had already destroyed something that I treasured; a piece of life that had meaning to me. Consider me on-the-nose, but this was foreshadowing at its finest.

The entire evening set the track record, and issued sign of events to come. Worst fact of all is, the overt alcohol poisoning and deathly sick next morning didn’t deter me in the least bit. After some breakfast and water I remarked to the guys, “We should drink again soon,” because recollection of the senseless laughter and absence of worry held more weight than the just-passed nausea and destruction of my own beloved property.

My disease required merely one evening to show itself and begin development. I found my solution that night — an answer to my drastically anxious thinking and lack of contentment with self. I felt that first feeling and didn’t want to stop. The chase was on. I suffered early, immediate consequences and didn’t foresee this substance posing a problem, nor did I recognize my reaction as abnormal. I didn’t know it then; I couldn’t admit it until almost a decade later, but after night one of drinking the fact became evident: I’m an alcoholic.