I braced for the judgment.“Mostly, I drink at night.After work, or when I’m painting.Sometimes I have a couple of shots, but mostly it’s just to help me sleep.”
She typed something into her computer.“How much do you drink in a day on average?”
I twisted the drawstring on my hoodie into a tight spiral.“Maybe three or four drinks?”I lied.“Sometimes more on weekends.”
She typed again, then looked up.“Have you ever gone a day without drinking in the last month?”
I considered lying, but what was the point?“No.”
She nodded.“Have you ever experienced withdrawal symptoms if you try to stop?”
I fidgeted, suddenly aware of every nerve ending in my hands.“It’s just the trauma creeping in.I get antsy and can’t sleep.And my mind keeps racing and going to dark places.”
“That’s a very common experience,” she said soothingly.“Alcohol is a depressant, meaning it slows your brain down.Over time, your brain adapts by speeding up.When you stop drinking, your brain is still working faster than it should because it’s waiting for you to drink, so you get insomnia, tremors, anxiety, sometimes even heart palpitations.”
It sounded clinical when she said it, but fuck.Was she saying what I thought she was saying?I remembered last night when I tried not to drink.Insomnia, tremors, racing thoughts.Then I had a drink, and it all went away, like always.Because that had been my pattern for a while now.The only difference was that before I didn’t bother even trying to cut down.
“Isn’t there a pill for that?”I asked.
She smiled for real this time, just for a second.“There are medications that can help, but we should also talk about behavioral strategies.Are there times you find it harder to avoid drinking?Any triggers?”
I wanted to laugh.“Every time I breathe?”
She made a note.“You mentioned painting helps you manage your urges?”
I nodded.“If I get in the zone, I can lose track of everything else, but sometimes the only way to get started is with a drink.”
“Would you say painting is your primary coping mechanism, besides alcohol?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
She leaned back a little.“That’s actually very positive.The fact that you have another outlet makes it easier to build new habits.What we’re dealing with here is a two-part problem: the physiological dependence, and the psychological triggers.”
She launched into an explanation about how the body rewires itself, how cravings peak and then subside, how every time you resist, you’re literally teaching your brain to stop expecting a reward.It made sense, but it also made me tired just listening.
“So what do I do?”I asked, cutting her off.“If I want to cut back, I mean.What’s the magic bullet?”
She gave me a half-smile.“There are two ways.Gradual reduction or cold turkey.With gradual, you taper down slowly, so your brain readjust over time.With cold turkey, it’s three days of hell and then it starts to get better.”
I shivered.“Three days?”
“The first seventy-two hours are the hardest.That’s when the withdrawal symptoms peak.After that, you might get headaches, if your addiction was really bad, but it’s mostly about resisting the urge.”
I couldn’t imagine three days without a drink.“Anything else?”
“Yes,” she said, as if she’d been waiting for the question.“Exercise helps.If you can go for a run, or even just do some squats or pushups at home, it burns off a lot of that excess energy.It also gives you a different kind of endorphin rush to chase.”
She went on for a while, suggesting apps, meditation, even hypnotherapy, if I wanted to get fancy.I took notes, but most of them were just doodles of spirals and faces.
By the end of the session, I felt raw, as if someone had sanded off my skin, and now every breeze hurt.
She closed with, “Would you like to schedule a follow-up?”
I said yes, because a part of me was scared that nothing she suggested would work.I mean, I was used to my mind being a mess, but a physical addiction?That was real, not just something in my head.
Well, it actually was in my head, because that’s where my brain was, but whatever.It was physical, and I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there.Not anymore.
Oh, hell, Vera had been right.She kept telling me I needed to stop, that I was going down a dangerous path, but I ignored her.How would I admit to her that she had been right all along?
