Drinking: A Love Story

by Caroline Knapp

That’s where the truly secretive nature of the high-functioning alcoholic exists, in those deep corners. It’s not so much that people like me hide the truth about our drinking from others (which most of us do, and quite effectively); it’s that we hide from others (and often from ourselves) the truth about our real selves, about who we really are when we sit in our offices dashing off memos and producing papers and preparing presentations, about what is really churning beneath the surface.

But then the wine came, one glass and then a second glass. And somewhere during that second drink, the switch was flipped. The wine gave me a melting feeling, a warm light sensation in my head, and I felt like safety itself had arrived in that glass, poured out from the bottle and allowed to spill out between us. I don’t remember what we talked about that night, but I do know that the discomfort was diminished, replaced by something that felt like a kind of love.

You can’t make the distinction between getting through painful feelings and getting away from them.

the bottle of wine after that, served a very specific purpose: it kept me from that piercing consciousness of self, kept me from the task of learning to tolerate my own company.

I was grieving without really grieving, holding myself together during the days and then yielding to the unrestrained, liquid version of strong emotion after dark.