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Why Did I Think Alcohol Was Helping Me?
- karenmrubinstein
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
The lies it told. The comfort it offered. The cost it demanded.
The Night I Fell in Love with the Lie
Alcohol never introduced itself as a problem. It showed up with a smile, a promise, a sigh of relief.
I remember the night I fell in love. It was a Thursday—our university’s official kickoff to the weekend. I had just transferred to a huge school, and my new roommates were all seniors—tight-knit best friends who had shared four years together. I was a sophomore who barely knew anyone.
They were excited to hit the campus pub. I was nervous. Anxious. Out of place.
I remember standing in the hallway bathroom we all shared, holding my breath in as giant cans of Aquanet sprayed the air like fog machines. It was the 80s. Our hair was big, our outfits were neon, and I was terrified. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be with these girls, or whether I belonged at all.
Later, we crammed into a crowded table at the bar—beer-soaked floors, deafening music, and those ever-present red Solo cups. Everyone was playing quarters. Every time a coin landed in a cup, the chant came:“Drink, drink, drink!”
And I did.
And then... something amazing happened.
I felt happy. I felt relaxed. I felt free from the anxious, awkward tension that had followed me since childhood. For the first time, I felt comfortable in my own skin.
Alcohol had reached out its hand and invited me to dance.And I danced that night away—wild and free, laughing like I belonged.
What I didn’t know then was that the music would stop long before I ever stopped dancing.
That moment sparked a relationship with alcohol that would span my entire adult life.
Not as a problem……but as a solution.
As a friend.
My best friend.
I believed it—because I wanted to.
Because I needed to.
Like so many women, I was juggling too much, holding in too much, and carrying too much pain under a polished surface. The drink became my escape hatch. It gave me permission to exhale.
To be silly, flirty, relaxed. To disappear, just a little.
This is how high-functioning alcoholism often begins—not in crisis, but in comfort.
As author Dustin Dunbar wrote in "You’re Doing Great! (And Other Lies Alcohol Told Me) "
“Alcohol doesn’t barge in and take over your life. It seduces you into giving it away.”
The Lies That Sound Like Love
Alcohol told me it was self-care.It told me I’d earned it, needed it, couldn’t live without it.
It said, “You’re more confident with me,” when I was too anxious to speak up.
It said, “You’re calmer with me,” when my nerves were shot from holding it together all day.
It said, “You’re more lovable,” when I didn’t believe I was enough on my own.
But here's what it didn’t tell me:
That the “confidence” was false—followed by shame and regret.
That the “calm” was fleeting—followed by insomnia, panic, and fear.
That the “connection” I felt with others was superficial—because I was disconnected from myself.
As Ann Dowsett Johnston writes in Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol: “Alcohol has become the modern woman’s steroid—helping her do more, be more, feel less.”
And that’s what it did for me. It helped me perform, produce, and pretend. It let me bypass the pain—but only for a while. Because underneath it all was the ache I didn’t want to name.
And alcohol? It didn’t care that I was unraveling—as long as I kept showing up for the dance.
When the Comfort Turned to Chaos
People are always amazed when I tell them I’m a recovered alcoholic (not recovering—recovered—as it’s described in the original AA Big Book; I’ll explain more about that in a future post, but yes, it’s intentional)—and that I have five years sober. They assume it was a one-and-done deal getting to this place.
But for me, it was a journey I traveled for most of my adult life—not on a straight path, but more like aimlessly wandering in the woods without a guide or a compass.
No, I didn’t hit a dramatic rock bottom one night. I hit dozens of quiet ones.
Like the tree that falls in the woods with no one around.
I didn’t make a sound.
I hit bottom in my car, parked in a grocery store lot that sat next to my then-favorite liquor store (it opened early on Sundays—thus earning top spot in my rotation of three). I sat there crying, but couldn’t explain why.
I hit bottom at 3 a.m., awake again—body trembling, heart pounding, replaying things I said… or couldn’t remember saying. I’d stumble to my computer, panicked, trying to delete anything I might have written in an angry stupor.
I hit bottom when my husband would cry out in frustration and heartbreak, “This isn’t who you are!”
The thing that once felt like my best friend—my safety net—had become a thief.
It was stealing my health. My clarity. My relationships. My peace.
And still, part of me clung to it—because it had become a part of me.
Until one day, I looked at my reflection and finally saw the truth.
The Moment the Lie Broke
There comes a moment in recovery—not always dramatic, but always defining—when you realize alcohol is no longer your ally.
It’s your captor.
That moment can feel humiliating, heartbreaking, even terrifying.
But it can also be sacred.
Because truth is the beginning of freedom.
For me, the turning point wasn’t a single day. It was a slow awakening.
A voice within me growing louder than the voice of alcohol.
A quiet knowing that I was meant for more than survival.
A decision that I didn’t want to be numb anymore—I wanted to be alive.
But toward the end, I wasn’t alive at all.
I had drifted so far from myself that I planned my own funeral before I ever reached what I now call rock bottom.
Yes—before. That’s how deep it got.
And yet… even then, some part of me still didn’t want to die.
The day I decided to go to detox wasn’t about one final blow.
It was about the slow, terrifying unraveling of my body and mind.
I was disappearing—physically, emotionally, spiritually.
My doctor warned me I could go into DTs (Delirium tremens is a severe form of alcohol withdrawal. It involves sudden and severe mental or nervous system changes.)
I was hallucinating. I couldn’t trust my own brain. I thought I was losing my mind.
But that small voice—the one that still wanted to live—finally rose up louder than the lies.
And that’s the voice I followed.
Johann Hari, in Chasing the Scream, says,
“The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection.”
And that’s what began to heal me:
Connection to truth.
Connection to community.
Connection to the woman I had buried under the lies.
Rewriting the Truth
Sobriety is not just the absence of alcohol.It’s the presence of self.
It’s remembering who you were before the world told you to be quieter, smaller, easier to digest.
Here’s what I’ve learned on this side of the lie:
I didn’t need alcohol to be interesting or lovable.
I needed to believe I was enough.
I wasn’t broken.
I was in pain—and alcohol masked the symptoms while deepening the wound.
I wasn’t too emotional.
was human—and finally learning to feel without fleeing.
Peace doesn’t come in a bottle.
It comes in truth, practice, and presence.
My husband was right when he would hold me and say, “I know who you are.”
And I’m so glad he did—because it took me years to understand what he was seeing beneath all the layers and masks of hurt and lies.
Letting go of alcohol allowed me to grieve the woman I thought I had to be—and to finally step into the woman I actually am.
To the Woman Still Listening to the Lie
If you’ve ever heard those whispers—
“You’re not that bad,”
“You can handle it,”
“You’ll quit when you’re ready”—you’re not alone.
And you’re not weak or broken for believing them.
You were doing what you needed to survive.
But now, you get to do something else.
You get to thrive.
There is life after alcohol—a full, rich, beautiful one.
Not because everything becomes perfect, but because it becomes real.
My favorite line I’ve heard in the past five sober years is:
“Life doesn’t get better. YOU get better at life.”
(Get it?!)
And you finally get to live it—with clarity, with dignity, and with people who see the truth in you even when you can’t see it yet yourself.
There is a way back to yourself
I’ve walked it.
I’ll walk it with you.
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