The Dreaded Act Class

As I sat in night two of my Act class, I looked around wondering who would be back in here?  The likelyhood is pretty high, there are already 5 or 6 repeat offenders, some with their 3rd DUI.   ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Obviously, there is something very messed up going on here.  A girl I've met in class, who is there on her 3rd DUI charge, wearing an ankle bracelet, informed me that the last Act class she took, they weren't even required to stay, they just signed in and left.  Nice.  What a messed up system we have.  No wonder no one gets it..... Those were my thoughts from a few days ago, but now that I'm done, I do have to say, I got something from that class.  I now know that I have a problem.  After I based a judgement on a girl I didn't even know, who had multiple DUI's, I sat back and thought about my own life.  If I hadn't been lucky, I could have been on my fourth DUI by now.  That's how many times I was pulled over, before I got in trouble for it.  See what I mean about not learning my lesson?   The first time was late one night, or early one morning more like it, after being at the bars, and driving through Taco Bell (you know you've done it), I was pulled over by a cop as I drove the back road behind the UM campus.  As the  cop walked up to the window, a friend in the backseat, not so quietly said, "oh shit, breathalyzer!"  Jesus Christ "friend"  shut up!  lol  She knows who she is.....  and has struggled with many of the same alcohol related problems that I've been dealing with, and I'd say we are closer then ever.  The cop ended up letting me off the hook and telling us to walk back to our rooms.  We had lied and told him we lived in the dorms.  Whoops.  I think we ended up walking our one friend back to their room and then returning to the car thirty minutes later, just to get behind the wheel (still drunk) and drive home. I think the second time I was pulled over I was living at my parents house again (I may have been the first time), which means, I was underage....  All three of my prior "pull overs" where I should have been arrested, I wasn't even 21 yet....  This is what happens when you start drinking at the age of 15.  I even had strict parents, which may have made me more defiant, because I wanted to prove to everyone that I was as bad as they made me out to be, and more (because I got away with more...) So, the second time I get pulled over, I was about a half mile from the Pattee Canyon turn off when I saw that lights.  The cop ended up knowing my dad.  So, instead of arresting me, he thinks he's doing me a favor (which, actually, he was enabling me..... teaching me that I can get out of things) he takes me to the gas station and calls my parents.  It was embarrassing, but I can't say in either of these instances did I learn anything from it.  I never remember thinking, "I'll never drink and drive again."  Nope.  Never even crossed my mind. The third time, still underage, it was after bar time and I ran a stop sign.  I had just gotten my tongue pierced and I thought that if I chugged the bottle of mouth wash (alcohol based, I know....) before I rolled down my window.  The cop never even asked if I had been drinking, just gave me a ticket for running the sign and sent me on my drunk little way.  So I guess what I'm getting at.....  I had my chances.  I had many chances to never do this again, but I didn't learn.  I promise you, and myself even more, I've learned my lesson.  This last one was the lesson I needed to straighten myself out.  I obviously have a problem. I'm an alcoholic.  I'm not the kind who wakes up and needs a drink, although I've done it....  Hair of the dog anyone?  Who doesn't like a bloody mary or a mimosa (my all time favorite Vegas "poolside" drink)?  The scariest thing is admitting this to myself.  I am having a terrible time wrapping my head around the fact that I wont ever have another glass of wine on my deck or a beer with Mexican food.  That's an indicator that I have a problem right there.  I associate certain drinks with certain activities.  Beer to me = football, friday night happy hour, mexican food, a reward after a long run, concerts.....  Wine?  hmmm  I guess I would associate that with ladies night, a good meal and a way to wind down after work....  on the deck, of course.  It's hard to imagine not using my stemless wine glasses for what they are made for....  ever again.  But, at the same time, it's not something I want right now.  That's sort of a lie.  I say to myself I don't want it.  I even feel like it's the last thing I want, but that's because I know what the consequences could be if I did drink, but that doesn't mean that I don't think about it.  I do. I think about it ALL THE TIME.  Why is it, when there is something you can't have, you want it even more?   I think I explained what I learned from my Act class best when I wrote an e-mail to Eric on Wednesday night.  I'm just going to include it in the blog because I think it's very relevant... I wanted to tell you about class. For once, I got something out of it.  I learned quite a few things.  There are 4 phases to becoming an alcoholic.....  There are phases 1, 2 and 3, where each higher number phase = making more high risk choices, but most people can keep themselves in phase 1 or 2, where they can control their consumption of alcohol.  Phase 4 is where you can't control when you are going to lose control.....  There is way more to it, and I'll have the book with me tomorrow (we have to leave it at the end of class, but we get to take it tomorrow).  If you are a phase 4 drinker, the only way to avoid "incidents".....  you guessed it, abstinence....  and guess where this girl falls.......  Phase 4 :(  There was this list of 12 yes or no questions that we had to answer (again, I don't have the book....  but), I had answered yes to all but 2 of the questions, and I glanced over at the dude next to me, he had answered no to most of them.  Fuck.   Can I really be an alcoholic?   Could this really be happening to me at age thirty?  Do I really have to quit for the rest of my life??  My brain cant quite wrap itself around this concept, so for now we are going with the one year goal, (one month down...) and maybe by then I wont think about it, but I do right now.  I think about having a glass of wine, how nice it would be to just sit on the deck, it's not going to harm anyone if I'm at home, right?  Just that thought alone is a sign that I have a problem.  A phase 1 person can take it or leave it....  a phase 4 person looks forward to that drink, and gets upset when they can't have that.  I can't tell you how many times I'd be at a bar and forgotten my ID, and when they wouldn't serve me I'd get pissed off....  It shouldn't fucking matter....  I shouldn't care if I had a drink or not.  I shouldn't feel the need for it. I have beer in my fridge.  Just to prove to myself I don't need it.  A phase 1 2 or 3 person doesn't feel the need to prove anything to anyone.....  but a phase 4 person.... yep.  Just when I thought this class was a complete joke, I started to get it.  Wow.  After we figured out what phase we were at we had to answer a few questions.  How does it make you feel?  I feel sad.  I feel frustrated with this situation that I put MYSELF in.  I feel pathetic.  I feel like a failure to my family.  I feel a tiny little bit lost....  But all that being said, I feel hopeful.  I feel as if life can only get better from here on out, right?  I mean there is a reason that I'm figuring this out at a young age, and hopefully I wont be back in that class in my 60s.....  like a few folks in there. We watched some videos that interviewed real people who had killed friends, strangers, whoever, in drunk driving accidents and we had to talk about it afterwards.  I was SHOCKED by the amount of people in the class who had been in accidents more than once.  WHAT?  Are you kidding me?  There is proof right there that it could happen again, and that's what scares me the most.  There is a girl in my class who's (as she said) "love of her life" got in a drunk driving accident and died of hypothermia.  I think everyone there knows of people who have died in alcohol related crashes, and did any of us learn from that, NOPE.  More proof, that you have to learn from your own mistakes....  and some people don't learn.  It's sad, really. The truth will set me free.  I know in my heart that this is all true about myself, but it's painful...  The good news is.  I'd say 99.9% of the friends I have, I can socialize with outside of drinking, and would support me for not drinking.  The counselor was talking about how allot of alcoholics, when they sober up, have to get a whole new set of friends, so I feel blessed that I'm not THAT bad off.  Drunk Kristal just can't come out anymore.  She may seem fun in the beginning, but she's got a dark side so she wont be making it to the party,  sorry.  I doubt anyone will even notice she's gone.  You know why?  Because sober Kristal is pretty rad herself, and she's finding herself again.... That's another thing.  Something called State Dependency, when we drink, we learn certain things and then we only are good at these skills when we are drinking.  For instance, I'm pretty good at pool, when I'm drunk.  Sober....  nope.  I suck.  I was discussing this with Sam, she's un beatable at beer pong, when she's drunk, but not as good when she's sober.  When I asked her if she learned to play when she was drunk, she was like, "probably".  Allot of men learn to pick up women, when they are drunk, but when they are sober they are super shy and don't know how to talk to girls..... There's more that I learned about myself and even things that relate to the demise of my marriage, SO MUCH MORE, but unfortunately only those closest to me will be forced to listen to those things....  As for now, I'm glad that's done and over with.  I did learn quite a bit and I don't ever plan on being back there.  Tomorrow is a new day for me, a new beginning as I run my first race since my car accident.... Just barely one month later.  No matter the end result, I feel blessed that I am healthy and able to run the Blue Mountain 30k!  The greatest thing is, I can't remember a race I've ever ran where I haven't drank ANY alcohol for a full month before.  I'm the girl who can run a half marathon hungover....  Can you believe I used to be proud of that fact? Wish me luck! K