Reaching the Breakpoint

Drowning, Drinking, and the Hand That Saved Me

Once upon a time, I jumped off a cliff.

I stood petrified on the precipice of upstate New York’s Bluff Island, staring down past my Nikes at the water eighty feet below. Terror sucker-punched the breath clean out of me. I couldn’t imagine jumping, but I did. Beer was waiting for me on the boat.

I plunged so deep into the water that I thought I’d never see the surface again. I was so focused on clearing the rock and staying straight and streamlined that I hadn’t taken a breath since my feet left solid ground.

I descended like a missile into the lake until the water was so dark that I wouldn’t have known which direction to swim if it weren’t for bubbles traveling upward. Panic crushed my chest as my deflated lungs burned in protest. My diaphragm contracted relentlessly, demanding air as I strained toward the light finally filtering in above.

I feared I would reach my breakpoint and involuntarily gasp for air before reaching the surface, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. I was doing my best, but it wouldn’t be enough. I was going to die. I swam harder, but I knew I could not save myself.

Defending against the compulsion to drink was like holding my breath. I could only go so long on willpower and determination before reaching the breakpoint and taking a drink. No human power could stop me. My best effort was never going to be enough. I kept trying, but I knew that alcohol would take me out as surely as if I drowned in it.

Over the years, it was suggested many times that I quit drinking. My response was always the same: “Why don’t you quit breathing and see how that works out for you?” Nobody, including me, understood. But I felt persecuted for something as beyond my control as breathing.

Today, I know that what seemed a mental compulsion was, in truth, a physical imperative that began with my first drink. People assume alcoholics drink to cope with emotional problems and become addicted, but the opposite is true. It starts with physiology, not psychology.

An abnormal physiological reaction to alcohol leads to increasing psychological problems. We don’t understand why we can’t stop, why we’re sacrificing all the things that matter most, and this leads to ever-increasing emotional turmoil. But the effect is not the cause.

We initially drink for the same reasons everybody does, but we metabolize alcohol at half the rate. As a result, a dangerous by-product, acetaldehyde, accumulates and causes what’s known as the “phenomenon of craving,” the demand for more alcohol, to combat the devastating and painful effects of this buildup. We answer with a second drink, compounding the craving for more. And so on, always wanting the next drink more than the last. This abnormality, or allergy, explains why, once there’s alcohol in our systems, we have to have more and can never get enough.

Research has proven that this anomaly is inherent and not caused by drinking. We either have sufficient enzymes in our liver to process alcohol, or we don’t. And if we don’t, the entire cellular machinery of our bodies must adapt or suffer damage. Adaptation incites heavier drinking and improved performance under the influence. Tolerance is immediate, not learned or developed, and triggers increased intake—not vice versa, as one would assume.

Acetaldehyde wreaks havoc to an astounding extent throughout our bodies, not just in the liver and pancreas. It inhibits protein synthesis in the heart, dominates brain amines, and creates “isoquinolines” that act on the brain’s opiate receptors, contributing to addiction.

I always thought I drank my way into alcoholism, but I drank the way I did because of it. Alcohol had me at hello. And at hello, there’s no cause for alarm. We have no foreknowledge that alcohol is a problem for us. We’re alcoholics long before our attitude and behavior become questionable.

Every cell in our bodies depends on alcohol to function by the time it turns on us. We suffer terribly when we try to go without it. Withdrawal from alcohol intensifies the emotional agony that we’re experiencing at this point. And since alcohol is the best medicine for the pain it creates, we continue drinking whether we want to or not. We see no way out. We’ve long since lost our power of choice.

The day I nearly drowned, my brother dove for me, arm outstretched. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the surface. I gasped for air when my mouth broke free—one second later, I would have swallowed water instead. I wasn’t ashamed to need his help. I was just grateful he was there.

Recovery is no different. I could never have saved myself without the outstretched hand of Alcoholics Anonymous, always there, always steady. There is no shame in needing help—only in refusing to reach for it.

Sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is take the hand that’s offered.

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Milam, James R., and Katherine Ketcham, Under the Influence, A Guide to the Myths and Realities of Alcoholism, 1981, Madrona Publishers