The last time I did it consciously was in college, after a week in school where all my friendships seemed to fall apart, after a poorly-done hookup/getting together with someone who was a dear friend– and then an even more poorly-managed “umm, wait” on my part. I was exhausted from thinking about it, and couldn’t stop. So I went away for the weekend, to visit a friend spending her junior year elsewhere. We went out and painted the town red, and on the way home, I filled the gutter with all my shame and sorrow, in a purge that felt like a tidal wave.

My forehead was numb cold hot tingling all the way back to her dorm, as the cab slid around corners in defiance of natural laws. We were at the bottom of her hill, not far, when I said, “stop.” Just that, but the cabbie did. I slid off the leather bench seat, and somehow did it butt-first, landing right on the curb. And I sat there and vomited, one heave after another, until all the emotion came out, was purged, and was carried away by the water, by gravity, by time.

I don’t like that there is something in me that is sometimes so unable to handle a situation that I have to get drunk in order to literally spill my guts about it. I would rather spew words, knowing the history of alcohol in our family. But sometimes? It’s necessary, the only release valve I have that is less destructive than the alternatives.

My usually Better Half and I had a problem recently, one that came up suddenly (at least to me) and which infuriated and wounded me. I was boiling over, and didn’t know what to do. I was too angry to say anything constructive, too wounded to hear anything that might make sense. I talked to a friend or two about it, and it did clear a little perspective for me, but I was still circling, feeling like both a bleeding swimmer and the sharks surrounding her.

So I got wasted, slowly, methodically, at a small gathering at a friends’ house– friends who I knew wouldn’t mind. He was there– he was driving. And unlike other times when he’s said hey, maybe you should slow down a little, he didn’t this time, for which I’m glad. Because I needed not the drunkenness, but the release from it that came on the ride home. Without spewing my guts on the highway, on my shirt sleeve, on the side of my car? I don’t know how I would have been able to respond to the situation.

When I wrote this, it was less than twelve hours after disgorging that anger and confusion, that humiliation and almost-hate.  (I have a disproportionate, awful temper at the best of times.) I am still a little angry, and still a little sad, but they’re of manageable proportions, and we’ll be fine. But I don’t know if I could have said that and felt that I meant it unless I’d gone and drunk a bottle and a half of red wine, just so I could throw it back up, four hours later. The physical purge acted as an emotional memory dump, and I’ve never been so glad to lose a set of feelings. At least since the last time, thirteen years ago. May it be at least that long before I need to again.