There is a truth that you can only have if you've known an alcoholic.
The truth is the effect of alcohol on your life.
It is different from the truth you have if you realise you are an alcoholic. It is different from the truth that you are a binge drinker. It is different from the that when you drink wine/gin/vodka/(insert beverage here) you cry and become melancholy.
It is the truth that even if its not a problem, it could become a problem, and you know what a problem looks like.
That problem is misery. It's forgetting conversations, it's repeating yourself, it's explaining again. It's not understanding. It's also finding things hilarious, amusing, loving the glow you sit in.
Alcohol is a lubricant. It helps loosen you up in social situations, at parties. It helps loosen you up and let go of frustration, exhaustion, tension created by work, family, life. It lubricates your escape from reality. Helps you slide out of yourself into an understanding of the universe free of common angst.
It helps you celebrate and cope. Cope with anger, upset, grief, disappointment, betrayal.
As the daughter of an alcoholic, I am hyper aware of my drinking. That doesn't mean I don't drink or that I don't enjoy drinking. But I am aware when I drank for 5 days straight, most of it at home, on my own. I know it's not right. I know it's not right when going one night without a drink is a struggle. I know that I've started something that might be difficult to stop. I know the longer this goes on the harder it'll be to resist. I know I'm damaging my body with drinking at all let alone so consistently. I know that I will be able to sleep without a drink, I know that I can find other ways to cure my boredom, but I know I haven't bothered to try. Throwing up booze is only mildly more unpleasant than throwing up most other things.
I sit on a train drinking a gin and tonic and every mouthful hurts. The pain itself in my abdomen is nauseating, adding to the nausea I was trying to drink away.
I am the Girl on the Train.
But I am strong and I can stop. I want to stop. I will stop. That's the truth of being a daughter of an alcoholic: at the first sign of rouble, alcohol is not the answer. I have to face up to the trouble, then I won't have to drink to solve it. The truth is knowing the answer can be found sober.
I'm just not ready.
