Nobody Witnessed My Rock Bottom

I spent years, almost a decade, listening to people tell me I didn't have a drinking problem. That their drinking was worse. That I was just a lightweight. You're being too hard on yourself.

Not only did I feel gaslit, I felt an immense pressure and guilt. Like I had to explain myself. Justify why I didn't want to drink anymore.

But I was also gaslighting myself. My reasons for drinking seemed justified. My kids are older, I deserve to have a good time now. I can meet friends for happy hour. Go get drinks on a date. Sit on my sofa after a long day and relax with a glass of red and a good book.

On the outside, everything appeared normal. Nothing that looked like what we picture when we hear rock bottom.

And I often wonder how many women fall into this — an uncategorized, internal rock bottom. The kind that shows up as disconnection rather than catastrophe.

Don't get me wrong. I had moments that still carry some emotional residue. Being catty with other women. Picking fights with my partner. Drinking wine at lunch and then picking my kids up from school.

But what I'm talking about is something slower. The erosion of who I was. The voice I couldn't quiet down after a second glass of wine. The consistent feeling like shit in the morning, making promises to skip wine with dinner that evening, only to pour one anyway and then criticize myself for doing so.

This plus the hormonal hell-scape many of us find ourselves in in our late thirties and into our forties. Without any knowledge of perimenopause, I just assumed this was how I was wired.

So when I tried to tell the people around me that alcohol wasn't working, it didn't land. It couldn't. Eventually I had to make a choice nobody else could make for me. Nobody else was going to tell me. They'd already told me I was fine.

The night before my last drink was like most nights, but not. A friend invited me to join them for a glass of rosé. Which turned into two. This turned into us going next door for sushi, which arrived with sake and another glass of wine. I don't recall drinking the wine after the sake.

What I will never forget is lying awake from around 2am to 6am thinking I might be having a heart attack and that maybe I should call the paramedics. And the stream of thoughts, more like an interrogation, reeling through my mind as I struggled to fall asleep.

Why did you say that earlier? You don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows you're a fraud. How do you think you're going to work after a night like this?

And on and on and on it went.

When it finally ended, I thought: we're done here. That day I chose something different. I chose me.

Nobody witnessed my rock bottom. It didn't look like anything from the outside. I went to dinner with a friend, had some sushi, came home. And then I was alone at 4am convinced I was dying while a voice in my head took me apart piece by piece. Nobody saw that part. Nobody ever does.

I think that's the rock bottom nobody talks about. The one that doesn't cost you your job or your marriage or your reputation. The one where you get up the next morning, make breakfast, and go to work anyway. Where your bills are paid and your kids are fed and from the outside everything looks completely fine. Somehow we've decided those women don't qualify. That if your life is still technically intact you don't have permission to say this isn't working.

So most of them don't. They just keep going.

Today the conversation is very different. There isn't one. I am no longer gaslighting myself. I am no longer looking outside of myself to affirm or validate my decision. I'm so solid in where I stand that I don't need to explain it to anyone.

I've found a new joy in the space between me and the person whose face can't hide their disappointment. The face that reads: oh, one of those.

I just let their projection sit between us in silence. I don't care. I'm willing to lose that person to save myself.