There is not a human being on the planet who makes the choice to become an alcoholic.

Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Not ever.

For years, I tried with all my might to be the type of drinker society told me I had the choice to be. The respectable and honourable social drinker. The easy-going, fun gal who can simultaneously drink with the boys and drink like a lady. The drinker that patriarchy and misogyny and heterosexism and capitalism has convinced us we all can be. Just make the choice, they say! Just drink responsibly, they declare!

For so long, I believed them. I believed that I too, could drink like a fucking lady. If only I just tried hard enough. If only I became a good enough person with the right morals and values.

If only…if only…if…only…

When I repeatedly failed to make the “right” choice and found myself blacked-out, passed-out, not knowing where I was or who I was with, I concluded that I, as a human, was just deeply flawed.

My own internalized stigma would be backed by those around me time and again throughout my life. Take, for example, a study that interviewed students who don’t drink on a large campus similar to mine. These students reported being labeled by their peers as “losers, freaks, pussies, and nerds.” Guess what, these messages get deeply internalized by people like me for a very, very long time. I believed I was so bad that my family should be ashamed of me and that I had nothing to offer this world.

That I was a loser and a freak.

There will always be those people out there in the world who will self-righteously announce to me that if I just had more will power, I could drink socially. That I just need to find the right values, the right religion, the strength, the rationale, the willingness – and then ­I will be able to control my drinking.

A miracle, these people! What sound advice! Why the fuck hadn’t I thought of that!?

Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Not ever.

Since societal messaging had long convinced me and everyone else that the one and only problem in this situation was me and all my troubling flaws, it took years of important work deprogramming myself.  Through my more than a decade-long journey of recovery, authentic relationships with others on a similar journey, and lots of reading and therapy, I have finally come to recognize three important facts:

Recovery is a superpower.

Recovery is counter-culture.

Recovery takes guts.

And with this gutsy, counter-cultural superpower comes having a voice that deserves to be heard. That my experiences navigating a tremendously difficult environment did not mean that the environment was hard because I didn’t have what it took. The environment was hard because somewhere along the way somebody decided it’s normal to expose students struggling with alcohol addiction to endure an environment that is willfully drowning us in a sea of alcohol.

This is not to pass the buck entirely. As mentioned, I have and continue to prioritize working on myself. Yet the spotlight has been shone on me and my problems, and on my friends and their problems for far too long.

It is time that we shift this gaze.

Let me share an all-too-common experience.

Last year my cohort received an email from one of our professors about an upcoming event hosted by our faculty. It was a lecture about social justice being offered by a well-known expert in our field of study. Our professor indicated that we were strongly encouraged to attend – which was code for, “you better be there.”

At the time, it did not even occur to me that this lecture event would be drowning in a sea alcohol. Afterall, there was no indication of food and drinks on the flyer or anywhere else for that matter.

Then again, I realized in hindsight, of course there was no indication; the default in our culture, especially our campus culture, is that alcohol will always be on the guest list!

The fact is that societal privileging of the social drinker demands that alcohol will be there.

If you don’t know what it is like for a student in recovery from alcohol addiction to attend an all-too-common university-sanctioned event amidst these circumstances, let me paint a picture for you.

As I walked through the entryway doors with thoughts of what was sure to be a captivating lecture at the front of my mind, I was immediately overtaken by an all too familiar smell of my past – a smell that automatically, without asking my permission, triggers feelings of fear, sickness, and gut-wrenching shame. As I looked around, in a bit of an internal panic to understand what was happening, I saw that immediately following the entryway was a hallway with its walls on either side of me lined with alcohol, and the space between those walls filled with groups of people socializing while consuming that alcohol.

Right about now a lot of you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? Just don’t drink.” Congratulations! This is a clear indicator you likely do not struggle with alcohol! For those of you who, like me, are starting to get sweaty and anxious just imagining this scenario – trust me, I feel you. Now let me tell you how this went down.

The initial smile on my face fell, and any notion of how to be socially appropriate in this situation disappeared. These were immediately replaced by the all-consuming notion to fight, flee, or freeze. This was not a choice to respond this way. Rather, it was my brain and body’s natural response to what had been registered as a dangerous situation. One that I had encountered and will encounter time and again in a culture that renders me, in this scenario, the “problematic other” or the “exception to the rule,” who should simply shut-up and put-up with the “norm.”

What was probably a 25-meter hallway looked to me, in that moment, as if it went on for miles. I immediately searched for an exit, a respite, “maybe I can sneak into the bathroom to just fucking breathe and regroup for a minute. Or maybe I can just go find a seat in the lecture hall and wait there until the talk starts.” Unfortunately, the event had been set up by folks who clearly had no awareness that perhaps some people would not find pleasure in the option of one booze-filled gauntlet being the only path to access the bathrooms and the lecture hall.

Funny thing is, I am part of a profession and a faculty that is training students to work with people who experience(d) addiction for a living. This experience is not the exception, however. This, my friends, is the absolute norm.

So, what did I do, you ask? Well, I bee-lined it through the crowd – confusing and angering my fellow professors and colleagues by saying not one word as I ploughed my way through, holding my breath (the smell of alcohol is now a quick way to ensure I will vomit), eyes fixated on the empty chairs in the lecture hall, as if they were the only life-preservers that could keep me afloat after swimming furiously through this booze filled sea.

Having made it, and securely fastening myself to my life-preserver, I mean chair, I breathed a few sighs of relief. Only to realize seconds later that I was all alone, with several pairs of perplexed eyes focused in my direction. I wanted to melt into the floor. People were waving me over, urging me to come join their good time, “you won’t be such a good-time gal when I vomit on your perfectly wrapped scarf will you Professor Smith,” I muttered under my breath. 

Luckily a friend of mine who had observed all of this picked up on what was happening – she was one of the few people I felt safe enough to confide in about my recovery. She came over, two Diet Coke’s in hand, motioning one in my direction while reminding me to breath. She realized, before I did, that I had been holding my breath and the color had drained from my face – drowning in a sea of alcohol.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “You’ll never guess which of our professors gave me a hard time over there for not having a glass of wine! I never noticed this stuff before you clued me in to how big of an issue this is!”

Needless to say, I don’t remember one thing about the talk. I do remember the couple of people in positions of power over me who later took the opportunity to let me know it was rude of me to not be more social at that event.

Drowning. That’s how this feels if you’ve never felt it before. Next time you’re in a situation like this one, will you offer a life preserver?