I Was the Last to Know

It was Tuesday, and somehow already such a long week. I usually waited until the kids were in bed and I curled up with Netflix before starting my evening “wine down,” but not tonight.

I didn’t want to cook dinner; I just wanted to drink.

It was early, though…much too early in the evening to start my daily wine consumption. That said, a long day could count as a special occasion. And honestly, a glass of cabernet felt like just the motivation I needed to get dinner started for the family.

I poured my wine into the biggest glass I owned and thought, “It’s just one glass.”
I wasn’t lying.
I also wasn’t telling the truth.

I used to think denial meant hiding something from other people. But when I look back on how my drinking started, I can’t believe what a master I was at hiding the truth from myself. The tricks were so subtle and so well-practiced that even I believed them. And why wouldn’t I? My drinking wasn’t a problem, not when I could rebrand it and sell it back to myself as perfectly normal.

I wasn’t just a drinker. I was my own hype woman who made drinking at 4 p.m. while I started dinner sound glamorous, convincing myself it was all under control.

It was the beginning of a steady, subtle descent into a life of numbness. Here’s just a sample of the moves I used to keep the illusion going that this was all perfectly normal.

The Half-Bottle Rule

No reasonable person believes a wine bottle holds only four or five glasses. Please. That’s insane. As long as I was only drinking half a bottle, that was basically one glass of wine. And one glass was normal. Responsible, even.

Comparison: My Favorite Tactic

As long as I could point to someone - anyone, even fictional (hello, Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development) -  who drank more than I did, I was fine. If I ever felt a hint of doubt about my drinking, all I had to do was visit a local bar and watch the regulars. If I didn’t fit in, clearly I didn’t have a problem.

Switch to Boxed Wine

Tired of seeing the wine in the bottle drop to the halfway mark? Here’s an easy fix - switch to boxed wine. It was cheaper than buying several bottles, and bonus: I never had to feel guilty about drinking more than half a bottle because I couldn’t see it empty out. Genius.

Open More Than One Bottle

If someone commented on the boxed wine and hinted it might be excessive, I had another move ready: keep two or three different bottles open at the same time and switch between them throughout the night. That way, my half-bottle rule applied to each bottle, and I could still tell myself I was sticking to Rule #1.

Rebranding Is Key

It wasn’t a drinking habit, it was “wine o’clock,” “happy hour,” “mommy juice.” The proof was everywhere: home décor signs, novelty t-shirts, Instagram memes. See? Everyone does this. I wasn’t a problem drinker; I was just a wine enthusiast. It was a personality, not a problem.

Why the Tricks Worked on Me

Because I wanted them to.
They gave me just enough plausible deniability to avoid any awkward conversations, especially the one with myself.

For a long time, the signs were there; they just weren’t for me. They were for other people. I didn’t look like a “problem drinker.” I just had some of the same symptoms: the hangovers, the anxiety, the weight gain, and the slow slide into caring less about things I used to love.

When I thought about alcoholics, I pictured someone else entirely — someone slurring, stumbling, passing out on the couch. Not me. I was still making dinner, still getting the kids to school, still working full time, still holding it together enough to post filtered photos that said, I’m crushing life. (Hashtag cheers, am I right?)

I wish I could say my descent into numbness was short-lived. It wasn’t. It was long. So long. Subtle at first, painfully obvious toward the end. I stopped following Rule #1, and “just one glass” became “just one bottle.” Wine turned into gin and tonics, vodka and Sprites. It used to take me a week to finish a bottle of vodka; eventually, I needed two.

The fun I’d promised myself, the relaxation, the relief — none of it ever showed up. Instead, an MRI showed cirrhosis, and a big fat label on my hospital chart read: Alcohol Use Disorder.

Still, I lay there in the hospital bed convinced they had it wrong. Not me. This was not my life. I was just a “normal drinker.”

But the thing about lying to yourself is that it only works until it doesn’t. And once the truth breaks through, there’s no un-hearing it, no tucking it neatly back into the dark.

It took me far too long to admit it, but I wasn’t the last to know after all. That small, stubborn voice inside me,  the one I’d drowned in cabernet and vodka, had been right the whole time. I had just finally decided to listen.