Years ago, I was celebrating someone’s birthday at an upscale restaurant I couldn’t afford. Exposed rafters, linens, heavy flatware. In my 20s, armed with a credit card, I often pretended to be a grown-up with my friends. Looking back, pretending is pretty much all I did in life. We’d been drinking most of the day already and my tongue felt like I’d been holding it to the end of a 9-volt battery. I couldn’t taste any of the expensive food I was supposed to be savoring. I don’t even remember whose birthday it was anymore, but I’m sure I’m still paying that credit card off.
I always gravitated toward people who spent money they don’t have on alcohol they didn’t need. If I have one skill in life, it’s being able to zero in on people just like me. I remember someone pouring themselves another way-too-full glass of red wine and laughing, “I don’t even want to think about how much money I spend on this a year.”
This.
It was such a half-considered, ambiguous word, but it’s always stuck with me. By then, “this” had already gotten me into some trouble, but the worst hadn’t even arrived yet. The DUI, the broken engagement and lost jobs were all still around the corner. It’d be impossible for me to tally up the total cost of alcoholism in my life—financially and otherwise. I could never tell you how much I’ve actually spent on alcohol in the hopes of feeling confident, finding acceptance, being taken seriously, getting women to take interest in me, smoothing over problems and drowning out the noise of reality. That’d be the emptiest math problem ever.
There was no use trying to track my spending—I always knew alcohol was in there somewhere. For example, there’s a liquor store at my local Kroger, so I knew my grocery bill wasn’t mostly short ribs and swordfish. I was something of a professional alcohol launderer in that way—I hid booze spending in plain sight. I even took over the weekly task of buying groceries for my family so I could control it. I’d intentionally not spend $40 somewhere so I could replace it with $40 in Grey Goose. No one would notice. Eventually, that math got greedier. The $40 could be better spent on cheaper vodka and, therefore, more of it.
Spending money on alcohol didn’t really “count” anyway. There was always room for it. Alcohol was oxygen. It was never a conscious expenditure—it was just something I needed. When it came to drinking, numbers weren’t real. It was Monopoly money. Money for a new shirt? No fucking way. Money for a bar tab? Well, that’s just the cost of a good night out. In college, I went from wearing Patagonia pullovers to, almost overnight, being the drunkest guy at the bar in flip-flops and secondhand Gap shorts. Later, with a family, it started to take shape in how I could have a perfect, messy buzz on a Sunday afternoon but my kids couldn’t have new shoes.
Part of the allure of drinking is that I was never thinking about tomorrow, let alone five seconds from now. I was only worried about my next drink. This explains all the financial nonsense I eventually found myself in: thorny back taxes, 1099-MISC forms, ignored tax filings. I’m not much of a planner but if you seat me at a bar I’m suddenly Bobby Fischer, plotting out the next five moves. Maybe we can squeeze in another quick drink before you go. Maybe we can meet up with more friends at a bar across town before our wives start to check their watches. If only I’d been able to apply that thinking to areas that mattered. I don’t how many times I’ve dismissively accepted a $150 dinner tab for a bunch of “friends” saying, “Sure, that’s fine,” “I’ve got it,” and “My pleasure.” As I waved my Discover card around, I silently screamed at myself. I loathed my inability to understand cause, effect and consequence. Inside, I was just a little kid who wanted friends.
Drinking, for me, had largely been about keeping my brain running just fast enough to never notice how sad I am. I remember it creeping in around age 10. My parents never talked about how little money we had, but it was obvious from all our Christmas shopping at K-Mart and Odd Lots that our financial health was a lot like the sputtering, low-buzz fluorescent lights in those stores. We didn’t have less than other people—we were less than other people, I thought. I could feel depression bobbing outside my brain like a black balloon. I decided I had to keep that feeling out—at all costs.
In the same way, I’ve always been a spender. It’s the quickest way to close off some empty valve inside myself. If I see something, I buy it. One time when I was 14 or 15, my parents gave me a starter credit card to help get my credit score off the ground. It didn’t work out the way they intended. My alcoholic brain saw that $200 balance and quickly maxed it out. I bought a Super Nintendo. I took it home, immediately flooded with buyer’s remorse and hid the box under my bed like it was a refugee under the floorboards. I don’t think I played it once before I returned it. I knew I couldn’t afford it even while I was paying for it. I have zero impulse control, which makes me the worst kind of alcoholic. I knew I can’t afford to have a fourth shot on a Tuesday night, but I invented every possible reason I could. I lived every day like tomorrow would suddenly be a snow day, even in June.
Until recently, overdraft fees and not knowing how much I had in my checking account was pretty commonplace. The ATM screen would routinely be the way I discovered I had less than zero to my name. I didn’t care about actual bills. Due dates were sci-fi futures I’d never live long enough to see, let alone have to pay for. When I quit my job, the very first thing I worried about was booze. I’m not even joking. I couldn’t possibly brave my new reality without it. It was the reason I didn’t have a job and yet somehow it would be the one thing that was going to keep me from going insane. I opened a credit card specifically to keep my drinking alive—with a 19.5% interest rate. I’ll never forget when that card arrived—I activated that bastard from a barstool. I even gave the bartender a 50% tip that day just because I felt suddenly rich.
When I finally decided to stop drinking, I had a ridiculous urge to spend my way into sobriety. My alcoholic tendencies were swinging in the other direction. I was going to throw money at the problem: new clothes, cashing out my old 401K, trips. It was a necessity, just like sneaking an extra glass of wine when no one was looking. I had to learn that financial sobriety is vital to my recovery. It’s about being honest with myself and living within my means. Stay within my box, keep my side of the street clean, stop pretending. This is as novel a concept to me as it is ridiculously simple. I have a certain amount of money and that’s it. I have no credit cards throbbing in the back of my wallet, calling out to make the great lies of my life real. (I will, however, admit to missing the surprise of getting books on my doorstep that I ordered from Amazon in a blackout.)
In the end, truth is the only currency that means anything in my bankrupt world. In sobriety, there are no shortcuts or IOUs when it comes to childcare costs, auto repairs, or medical emergencies. I don’t spend recklessly or blindly anymore. My spending habits are still in recovery—wounded, tentative and on installment plans. Being sober means never again putting on a suit I shouldn’t have bought, sitting in a restaurant I can’t afford and surrounding myself with people I won’t know a year from now—just to say I’m there. There’s no absolutely reason for me to be at that table. In a lot of ways, that describes the prison of drinking. Sometimes, when I spend the least, that’s when I have the most pride in myself. Alcohol may have robbed me of some decision-making but, looking back, it helps me appreciate just how much I need to be investing, clear-headed, in today.
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