Alcohol Raised Me

I used to believe alcohol entered my life when I took my first drink. The truth is, alcohol had been teaching me long before I ever tasted it.

It was present in the homes I knew, the celebrations I attended, the music I heard, and the adults I watched. Weddings, birthdays, holidays, vacations, and painful moments all seemed to include drinking. Alcohol appeared when people wanted to celebrate, relax, escape, forget, or simply feel comfortable around one another.

By the time I began drinking at twelve years old, it did not feel like I was choosing something dangerous. It felt like I was following a path that had already been cleared for me. I had watched alcohol become part of nearly every emotion, so I began believing that it belonged in my life too.

Alcohol taught me how to hide pain instead of understanding it. It taught me to escape uncomfortable feelings instead of facing them. It gave me temporary confidence while quietly taking away my ability to trust myself. Eventually, I was no longer drinking only because I wanted to, I was drinking because I did not know who I was without it.

But understanding how alcohol raised me does not mean blaming everyone who came before me. Many of them were also following what they had been shown. They carried pain they never learned to name, and they reached for what was available to help them survive.

Today, I can recognize where my patterns came from without allowing those patterns to control where I am going. Alcohol may have helped shape parts of my past, but it does not get to raise the man I am becoming.

My roots explain me. They do not have to imprison me.