People get sober in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they just quit on their own. Sometimes they go to rehab. They show up in 12-step rooms, ashrams, churches and their parents’ basements. There is no one right way—something we’ve aimed to show in our collection of How I Got Sober stories. While we initially published these as either first person essays by our contributors or as interviews with anonymous sober folks, we eventually began to realize that there were other stories to tell: yours. This is our reader spotlight and this, more specifically, is Anthony.
(We’ve broken Anthony’s story into three parts; check back next week for part three and read part one here.)
Click here to see all of our How I Got Sober stories
Do you remember the first time you thought you might have a problem?
This is a tough question. I think there was an annoying little bug in the back of my head, that told me “something isn’t right here” but I definitely chose to ignore it.
Just before I graduated college, I got a call from my mother that my Dad had lost a lot of money in a Ponzi scheme around 1999. He tried to kill himself but the cops arrived in time to stop him. I drank a lot over that, but there was a sense of “fuck you” towards him.
After I graduated, I made a trip overseas to London to get a job as a bartender. I learned to drink hard, and to extremes. My girlfriend came with me and although she drank as well, there was a growing frustration in her with the amount I was drinking. There were nights I threatened to throw myself out the window, with her pleading with me to stop. That darkness that had started as a teenager grew deeper inside, and just like before, I wanted someone to see how broken I was.
My girlfriend revealed to me that she was a lesbian, and at that point we had been together for four years. I drank for many years over that, and added that to the reasons why I was unfit to have anyone truly love me. I spent the next three years in love with the bottle. I would have no relationships to speak of, and I was celibate for at least two full years. I now see how deluded I truly was.
I moved back to Connecticut with my parents to save up to move to New York. My father started to see that I was getting out of control and would confront me, but given our history, I wasn’t hearing any of it. Eventually I bought a one way ticket to LA.
In Los Angeles, I couch surfed for a while. My depression increased as I grew homesick and disillusioned with the size and magnitude of the city. So I drank harder, smoked more weed and made some friends who got me into harder drugs. Sometimes when I couldn’t pay the rent, I’d get good and liquored up, and offer myself to older gay men for sexual favors so the bills could get paid. I signed up for a VISA card and ran up credit at liquor stores, and ignored the bills for years.
One day, my parents called me and told me they were contacted by a credit collection service. I panicked, then cried. I felt sunk. I didn’t want them knowing anything bad about my life: my inability to pay bills, my drug and drinking use, any of it. This was a wake up call that I needed to be more discreet about my life. They bailed me out and I made damn sure that would never happen again.
Around this time, I was also becoming used to the idea that I was attracted to transgendered MTF (male to female) women. I had a lot of shame around this and it was yet another thing to hide from my friends and family. I drank hard over this, and became more and more reclusive as this “phase” began to take a foothold in my life. I started having sex with transgender prostitutes, and avoided having a girlfriend for over three years.
Eventually I moved out of the apartment into a house of six people in Echo Park. I got my own room in the house, and would spend days on end with the door locked shut, only coming out to get food and use the toilet. Sometimes I would forgo the toilet and pee in bottles. There would be times I would go out to bars with my housemates, but I’d often have blow outs of violent aggression towards them, and they stopped inviting me out. Some refused to speak to me because of my Jekyll and Hyde type personality. I started only hanging out with people I could drink hard and do hard drugs with; who knew I was an asshole and accepted me because they didn’t have to live with me.
One day I got very ill with an intense fever that made me think I might die. I broke out in a staph infection and my doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. He ran a series of tests, but I wasn’t honest with him about my drinking, drugging and sexual behaviors. Frustrated and scared, I took matters into my own hands and took an HIV take-home test I bought at the local drug store. I pricked my finger, and mailed it in. Two days later, I found out over the phone that I was HIV+. My world crumbled. I was shocked, destroyed. I made a stand that I was going to stop drinking and drugging. That the time to quit was here. But in two months, I was drunk again. The HIV wasn’t enough for me to stop.
A few months later, I connected with a girl on a dating site for HIV+ people. I ended up being with her for two years. In the first year of our relationship, I drank a lot. At first it was fun, and we mixed it up with other couples. After a while, however, I started going heavier and heavier, making a scene at a wedding party. She encouraged me to stop drinking, and to go to therapy. My girlfriend had a long history of substance abuse in her family, and had noticed similar signs in me. I put her through hell, and I started to see that. Eventually my girlfriend told me she needed a break. I took that as license to be free to drink at will. I never called her again.
How did you rationalize your drinking?
I usually rationalized my drinking as a way to be more creative. I also played victim towards friends and family. I used my father’s abuse towards me as a child to rationalize why I needed to drink so much. When people said I had a problem, I liked it. I like being damaged, and broken. I thought it made me a better artist and creative person. I wanted people to pity me, and I felt as if everyone else had a manual to life and I didn’t. The booze and drugs and this shit life I’m forcing myself to go through, would help me to one day write amazing stories like Bukowski, Thompson, Burroughs…so many other greats before me.
Check back next week for part three.
Click here to see all of our How I Got Sober stories.
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