Impulse Driven

Last night while reading "Drinking a Love Story" I came across a line that I knew all too well.
"Active alcoholics have no tolerance for frustration, Zippo. We're totally impulse-driven. If we can't get what we think we need, we think we're going to die." Wow in just a few sentences she explained most of my life. I have this trait that if I think I want or need something I will obsess until I get it. I really couldn't take any form of frustration when I was actively drinking. One of the most famous lines out of my mouth used to be, "I can't handle this, I need a drink". That went for just about everything. If it was crazy at the supermarket, I went home and had a drink. If my kids were wound up and creating chaos, I had a drink. If traffic was bad, if work was demanding, if I had a fight with my husband, etc...you get the picture everything was grounds for a drink. And spending? Don't get me started. I would suddenly need this, or that, or I needed to stop at the grocerys tore for just one thing and it would turn into 50 things I didn't need. I could think of things to just waste money on. See being the "director, producer, and actor" of life requires things to run smoothly and when they didn't I couldn't tolerate any form of frustration so I would medicate and medicate quickly. Just think I wasted almost 25 years of my life this way. It's amazing but when I speak with other alcoholics we almost always say the same thing: it wasn't the big stuff that made us stumble it was all the little things that could topple us. Even knowing we were alcoholics wasn't enough to make us put down the drink. We just couldn't fathom life without our blanket even though this blanket came in the form of a bottle. Think of all the late night trips we made to liquor or gas station store just a few minutes before closing to ensure that we would have our booze handy. God forbid we suffer through something without being half in the bag. My eyes were always glassy, my face swollen and puffy and I would tell myself it's just that my life is too crazy and chaotic not to drink. Little did I know I was the fuel that fired that chaos. So how do you learn to deal with life on life's terms? For me it first started with lowering my expectations. To stop imagining that everything had to be perfect. Then I started to take one day at a time, one issue at a time. This was hard, I wanted to tackle everything at once. I learned to not expect anything and I wouldn't be disappointed. Finally I just let things unfold. I've learned to wait, to let things work out on their own. It's amazing how the old "impulse driven" self begins to fall into the background. Oh it rears it's ugly head once in a while but understanding that it's one of my traits helps me keep in more perspective than I used to. Perhaps not wanting to constantly chase dreams and fill an empty hole with alcohol makes the difference. Being content with what one has makes a difference also. There are times when life will deal up something that needs a quick decision, but being impulse driven can be destructive, it's much better to be spontaneous......