I Was an Angry Drunk and the Most Responsible Thing Left to Go Cold Turkey.
I couldn’t rein in the beast when alcohol set the rage free.. and it almost cost me a family, a career and who knows how much more?
As with many people, I started drinking because it looked cool. It seemed a thing to do to be rebellious, to make new friends, be less scared of adult life. When I moved to Australia when I was 17, I was desperate not to look like a “fresh-off-the-boat ethnic” and part of building that new life I dreamt of was grabbing a beer.
So, we drank, quite often, quite a lot, through headaches, late afternoon hazes and falling over all over the place. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit that it felt like a lot of Fun.
I am not the most self-aware type of person and so it came as something of a surprise when people close to me started to notice a little pattern.
The pattern was this: In my workday or at home with just the family, I was generally happy, helpful, collaborative and capable of talking my problems out. More often than not though, I would “let things go”, accepting many tiny problems, smoothing life over. When I’d have a drink though, I would pick arguments, bring things up, say mean things. If I’d been drinking a lot, and it…
