For Drunkards, Food Is Secondary

I lived on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, for five years in the 1980’s, and I don’t really remember eating. I was usually in a bar. I know I never cooked, shopped for groceries or made a meal. I might have barbecued burgers a couple of times.

For sustenance I drank beer, and used cocaine whenever I could get it so I could drink more beer. I worked in a bar called Gallagher’s a lot, and I do recall scavenging food from the kitchen – slices of turkey and Swiss cheese. Sometimes, I ate burgers at the bar (Gallagher’s had great burgers), but I was usually smashed when I did. The sad fact was that eating was getting in the way of my drinking. Like a zit that takes over your face, drinking was front and center to my persona.

Let’s be real — if you are a drunkard food is secondary. I lived with another alcoholic for two years and never saw him eat a vegetable or a piece of fruit. His meal of choice was Popeye’s fried chicken.

By the end of my drinking in 1989, dinner, if I ate it at all, consisted of lunchmeat-laden subs or steak I would buy at the local P&C. It wasn’t beyond me to just steal the food. I would wrap up my drinking at several bars, usually between 9-10 pm on work nights (on weekends I really didn’t eat, only drank and drugged), and then lurch home and inhale the sub, or fry the steak. On some occasions I just ate the steak raw. Next was sleep.

Sound familiar? I know lots of men that ate the same way. Guys who consumed a steady diet of Pop Tarts, cold pizza, donuts, or Jiffy Steaks cooked on an iron. Dinty Moore beef stew was a favorite of mine. Just open the can. Of course the microwave made cuisine for alcoholics so much easier.

Okay, now we are sober. Our appetites and taste buds are returning. But so many men still don’t know anything about food. Sobriety is about getting and staying healthy. The healthier we are physically, the better we’ll feel mentally, right? That’s pretty common knowledge these days.

“No major life changes in your first year of sobriety” is the popular mantra. There’s worse advice. The first year, shit, the first few weeks of sobriety can be exhilarating. I felt good for the first time in years. My eyes didn’t hurt, and food…. well, it was akin to tasting chocolate for the first time…. when can I get more? Now that’s an urge addicts can relate too.

In my first year of sobriety I returned to food with a vengeance. Sweets and alcohol, especially beer, go together like George Bush and Kanye West. Feel like a drink? Get an ice cream cone. Don’t be shy about it. Alcohol turns to sugar as our bodies process it. You’re going to crave it. Giant Snickers bar at three in the afternoon – no problem- wash it down with a quart of whole milk, and you’re in heaven. I recommend eating ice cream every night too in your first year, because you won’t be able to get away with it later. Each Friday night after a meeting I downed a 32 oz. Monster Chocolate Malt on the eight mile drive home. Now that is drinking and driving I could deal with.

The sweets thing is something you’ll have to deal with eventually, but early on don’t worry about it. Diet soda was a key for me. I had already adjusted to it while I was actively alcoholic, so I was used to the sweet taste, but not the sugar. I haven’t had a regular Coke or Pepsi in thirty-five, forty years. Thank God for small victories. After work each day it was a 16 oz. Diet Pepsi and the 5:30 meeting, then dinner. Some nights I’d eat out and go to another meeting afterwards. When I ate out I dined deliciously poorly. At Ithaca’s State Diner I’d have a double cheeseburger with French fries and gravy. They have those patty style hamburgers that just melt when you eat them. Eating French fries with gravy on them is truly insane, but don’t let it bother you. You aren’t drinking, right?

After my first week of sobriety, I dropped about ten pounds of bloat from the four cases of beer I did not consume (beer contains a ton of salt). But then I started eating, and in my first year sober I gained about thirty-five pounds. Weight gain goes with the territory, especially my territory. Deal with it later. If you happen to be one of those people who can eat whatever and not put on weight-, you should be shot, but consider yourself lucky.

Good sobriety requires filling the hole in our soul that drinking inhabited. Positive actions are the key. And what is more positive than taking care of our health? I bet most of you didn’t have health care when the drinking stopped. I sure didn’t — regular doctor check-ups? Yeah, right. Get sober and it’s just us and our body. We’ve been beating and battering it for years. Better use it wisely this time. Good sobriety also means learning how to make good choices – go to meetings, don’t drink, work hard, eat well. This is how we roll.

Thomas H. Mann writes about recovery, sports, and American culture.