Or the Degradation I Defended…

I never cease to be amazed by the capabilities of the human brain — and by the “ability” of our disease to alter our own beliefs without us even noticing. And alcoholism is officially recognised as a disease, ranking among the top three in terms of mortality.

I will briefly digress to explain why I put the word “ability” in quotation marks. As a techie, I am convinced that a disease cannot be described with epithets such as “insidious”, “relentless” or “cunning”. A disease is merely a collection of symptoms, not some intelligent creature that sets goals and achieves them through deception. A disease simply does not have the brains required to perform even the simplest “if → then” calculation.

But if you analyse the course of this disease, its symptoms and its consequences, it becomes obvious that every one of those epithets is entirely deserved.

I will describe only a few of the most striking moments of my own decline and degradation — and explain how I justified each of them to myself. I did this so that the awareness of my own powerlessness, and of how low I was sinking, would not hurt quite so unbearably.

I remember perfectly well how, when I was young, I was convinced that all the trouble I got into after once again drinking “slightly” too much at a company party or a gathering with friends was caused neither by alcohol nor even by a “lack of willpower”. It was simply a lack of skill — the skill of drinking moderately and in a civilised manner.

And what does a determined person — or simply an ordinary person — do when they want to master a skill? Exactly! They practise. And so, with persistence worthy of a far better cause, I began “training” my body — almost taking notes like some meticulous researcher.

Why not? It all seemed perfectly logical! I understood very well that the more often I played chess, for example, the better I would understand the possible combinations. The more squats I did every day, the stronger my legs would become. The same logic clearly applied here: the more I drank, the better I would become at controlling the process!

I spent decades honing this “skill”. Did I succeed? Definitely not.

I do not remember exactly when or where I first heard my “sentence”: that I must never drink again. But I know for certain that it came from medical professionals. And I remember my first reaction perfectly: “Oh, fuck that!” It was disbelief bordering on angry, stubborn determination to prove them wrong.

And panic, of course… How could that possibly work? New Year’s Eve, birthdays, company parties, International Women’s Day, Defender of the Fatherland Day — was all of that now out of bounds? Forever? “No. That can’t be true!”

For many years, my brain refused to accept the obvious. It did not want to see the facts — not abstract facts, but facts from my own life.