I discovered the powerful effects of alcohol my freshman year of high school. I knew it existed, as my parents drank frequently in moderation. Similarly, my immediate family has always been big drinkers. I remember being curious about this substance so I would sometimes ask for a sip of my dad’s beer or my mom’s chardonnay which they would allow, only to be disappointed by the taste. You would have thought after the first time I would have stopped asking to “try” it given that I didn’t like it, but continuing a behavior despite adverse consequences is the reason I am writing this essay in the first place.

I drank my way through high school and the first year of college. Those first several years I absolutely loved it. I honestly lived for it. One of my good friends was diagnosed with epilepsy and the medication she was prescribed prohibited her from drinking. I remember the shattering devastation and panicky fear I felt for her now that she couldn’t drink; what was she supposed to do with her life?

I relished the “fuck you” aspect to my parents that drinking gave me; I was resentful of them being too strict when I was growing up, among other things. But more importantly, any discomfort, worry, or insecurity I had dissolved after that first sip. At this stage, my drinking was relatively harmless. I did get in deep shit my freshman year after my mom found a water bottle full of vodka in my sock drawer. However, it’s not like I was showing up wasted to class or carrying a flask in my North Face backpack. I also continued to excel at sports so there was no reason to suspect anything.

After transferring to my dream school my sophomore year of college, I expected my life to unfold perfectly. It didn’t. I was met with a lot of resistance. I felt extremely out of control, on both a conscious and subconscious level.

Towards the end of college something shifted with my substance use. The rolling blackouts and crippling hangovers were nothing new, but something felt different. I started to feel more and more permeable when I was drinking. Like I had big secrets to keep and I could not keep them. I became increasingly uncomfortable in social situations; I had to work harder and harder to suppress the feelings of otherness that had begun to creep up, these same ones that I experienced in my childhood.

I began taking unprescribed prescription amphetamines freshman year in college. My usage got progressively worse each school year and what had started as an appetite suppressant and study aid had turned into a daily ritual as normal as taking out my retainer when I woke up.

By senior year, I was doing just short of anything to get my hands on pills. I often traded my prescribed Ativan or Klonipin for any type of amphetamine. I had never stolen anything in my life and am vehemently against it, but I began stealing from my roommates who had them prescribed. I also made a point to check the medicine cabinet and sock drawer whenever I was at someone’s house, in case they had any Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin, Focalin, Ativan, Klonipin, Vicodin, or Percocet.

I could have gotten a prescription but that would have made things too easy. Back then I told myself I was just addicted to the thrill of the chase, not the actual substance. I continued drinking as well but found it dreadfully boring on its own. Drugs, however, excited me like nothing else. I did not understand why other people were not as enamored by them as I was. Then again, I thought they were created especially for me. Drugs were proof of a power greater than myself. How else could such a glorious substance exist — one that elevated my mood, let me stay out later, suppressed my appetite, and had no calories — if not for a divine being watching over me?

By second semester senior year, my life became defined by my three physical states: strung out, asleep, or hungover. Sober was not one of them. Within the state of strung out there were two sub-states. The first one meant that I was super chatty and interested in what people had to say; I was both engaged and engaging.

The second instance happened after my frequent all nighters in the library. My extreme procrastination was justified by my belief that an all nighter was equivalent to having one more day to get my work done. I’ll never forget the feeling of walking out of the library in the morning. My brain felt like I had just fried it in a microwave and I was met by the blinding sun that shed light on the enormous amount of shame I felt knowing this was all self-induced.

Since I took uppers, that meant I needed downers and benzos as well. During the day I was paranoid of not having enough energy, but at night I was paranoid of not being able to sleep. Anytime I laid my head down for slumber, I was bordering on comatose. If I ran out of Ativan or Klonipin, drinking NyQuil out of a straw was not beneath me.

I managed to dodge the hangover bullet in high school, I’m assuming because of my youth, but by college my time had come. As for the hangovers themselves, I cannot describe them on my own. The only way to explain the piercing shame and gut-wrenching anxiety I experienced is to employ the help of J.K. Rowling. My hangovers were like getting too close to a Dementor:

“[E]very happy memory will be sucked out of you. [It] will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” — Remus Lupin

I tried to stop using amphetamines a couple times. I thought little of these failures since I figured I would stop this “habit” once I got out of college. I told myself I just needed the drugs to get me through my 6 classes I had to take to graduate.

But my drinking and using were the reason I had to take more than a full course load in the first place. I had dropped or withdrawn at least one class per semester throughout college due to laziness, entitlement, procrastination and apathy, that by senior year it finally bit me in the ass. Contrary to what I believed, an amphetamine addiction was not conducive to academic achievement. Deep down I knew that what I was doing made no sense, that it was actually causing more harm than good. But of course I wouldn’t let that stop me.

Long story short, unbeknownst to everyone but my professors and me, I almost failed out of school. In addition to a series of other regrettable events resulting from my conduct, I still did not recognize my behavior as a problem.

I spent three months in London for an internship the fall after I graduated from college. It was only after consuming an amount of Ambien, Klonipin, NyQuil and alcohol that would have put a small child into a persistent vegetative state on the flight over and trading my addiction for straight-up alcoholism since I ran out of amphetamines a few weeks into the trip that I began to think that I might have a slightly unhealthy relationship with substances.

I could never just enjoy a glass of wine or a beer, I was always worrying about how and when I would get my next one. Countless times I would tell myself that I was only having one drink, only to black out and wake up still drunk with my clothes soaked in my own urine. To this day, the one thing I regret most about getting sober is that I did so before I could pitch “True Life: I’m a Chronic Bedwetter” to MTV.

As for drugs, well, I was starting to understand that I had an actual problem with those as well.

The burning of the bridges started in college and I had been on the scenic route to loneliness ever since. My best friend was fed up with my increasingly selfish ways. And while I had been giving my family’s patience a run for its money since I learned to talk, it is safe to say I truly tested it during this time.

I had long ceased getting that initial head loopiness with my first couple drinks that would wash away the insecurities and reassure me that everything was going to be alright. In other words, my primary reason for drinking was gone. But there was no way I was going down without a fight. For several months I performed the dance that so many alcoholics before me had done — switching from one type of alcohol to another hoping to find one (or a combination) that still worked. Much to my dismay, it did not matter if it was beer, champagne, or vodka, nothing could overpower my mind chatter. In fact, it started getting louder. It got to the point where I would feel totally sober in a drunk body.

Alcohol and drugs come with plenty of warning labels. However, they leave out the worst consequence of all and that is: If you abuse them, they will stop working.

Towards the end, the idea of drinking or going out made me incredibly anxious. I pre-emptively began to dread the next day; I knew that when I took that drink, I couldn’t not take that drink. And if I did take that drink, two things would happen: I would want more and I would want drugs. For many people, weed is their gateway drug, but mine was alcohol. Not to mention, there would be hell to pay the next day. Regretting something that has not even happened yet should have been a red flag. Time after time I told myself that “maybe not this time.” And time after time, the same fucking thing happened.

Several months after returning to the States I finally hit my bottom and decided to get sober. Correction: I hit my first bottom. As for what actually happened, I find it incredibly dull and unimportant. To be honest, I am somewhat embarrassed by how boring it was. Alcohol, drugs, and sex were involved but it was not nearly as “Wolf of Wall Street”-esque as I had hoped if I could have planned my own goodbye party to partying.

But what was important was that for whatever reason, on that night and the subsequent days after, I experienced the “incomprehensible demoralization” that propels many addicts and alcoholics into sobriety. The only other way to remotely express what it felt like is a non-translatable Czech word from Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting — litost. It refers to a “state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.” The magic wand comprised of drugs and alcohol stopped working and the cost officially outweighed the benefit.

Just like any other abusive relationship, one rarely leaves because something better comes along. One leaves because even though one is unsure of whether or not something better exists, the current situation has become unbearable. In other words, you do not wake up after the best party of your life and decide to check out an AA meeting.

The final months of my active addiction were not significant in any way. In fact, the same could be said for my entire drinking and drugging career. Other than my erratic behavior, destroyed relationships, one night stands, embarrassing phone calls and texts, and chronic bed wetting, there were no serious consequences. I certainly put myself in questionable situations, but I was fortunate to get out of them unscathed. I am what is referred to as a “high bottom.”

I learned through experience that it is not just the quantity of one’s drinking and using that makes you an alcoholic, it is the quality.

An alcoholic is someone who cannot control their drinking. Period.

A misconception about alcoholics and addicts is that they all love alcohol and drugs, or enjoy them in some capacity, but the opposite was true for me. I could not live without them but I also could not live with them, nor could I stop once I started. What had started out as fun for me in high school transformed into fun with problems, and finally it was just problems.