Where Life Broke Into Pieces – An Alcoholic's Diary Behind the Glass
I am an alcoholic. I was, I am, and I will be until the end of my life. I knew the truth about myself precisely when I was seventeen years old. For decades, yet, I did everything in my power to keep it hidden—even from myself. What you are about to read is the diary of an entirely ordinary person who simply learned how to compensate and cling to appearances. I stepped out the door with a determined look, in a suit and tie, as if playing a carefully scripted theatrical role every morning. This constructed costume was my shield, behind which I tried to forget the constant fear and anxiety inside me. This is how I concealed reality at my workplace and before the world, while deep down, every single day, I was balancing on the verge of total collapse, and my inner struggle slowly consumed me.
This continuous, grinding tension was impossible to endure sober. I needed something that would silence the voices in my head. I found this artificial silence first in the flashing lights of slot machines, then in online poker, and above all, in alcohol. When my account balance hit zero at the card table, I reached for the company's or my family's money without a second thought. Outwardly I played the reliable, precise man, while behind the scenes I mastered self-deception: I convinced myself I was merely borrowing it. I take the money out, I win, and I put it right back. I never put it back. I only took it out again and again, and every single morning I woke up with the terror that today everything would come to light. Meanwhile, alcohol imperceptibly took control. It was no longer about relaxation; it was about sheer survival. I needed it to put on the tie in the morning, and I needed it to endure myself at night.
For years I dug my own grave deeper and deeper, all the way to the point where no air was left. No life, no anything else. Deep down I simply ceased to exist. The final station—and the complete destruction of my carefully constructed costume—was ultimately brought about by a breathalyzer they made me blow during work at exactly twelve noon. In that minute I didn't simply get caught. Right there, my self-built prison collapsed like a house of cards, and alongside the fear, I felt a strange, visceral relief. I no longer had to, nor did I want to, run away from myself any longer. Nothing remained, only total surrender. I threw up my hands. I felt: do whatever you want with me, because I have become definitively powerless against myself.
I asked for help and ended up in Szigetvár—to the place where they have been dealing with alcoholics deemed nearly unsalvageable for the longest time. I went to therapy. I did not give up my inner walls easily. The Big Book of AA states: "that probably no human power would have relieved our alcoholism. God could and would if He were sought." For me this arrived as a feeling, in the form of love. That pure, deep attraction I felt toward my helper, the chief medical doctor, was necessary for the armor I had thickened for decades, the wall I built around myself, to finally crack. I could not not believe her, and I could not lie to her, fudge, or conceal my past any longer. It took me one hundred and twenty-three days before I was even capable of speaking about the shame within me—about that innermost pain I had been drinking over from the very beginning. She kept me alive. She held my hand, showed me the way, and taught me how to take a breath and breathe again.
After therapy, I had to translate what I learned there into real life. Day in and day out I had to work—and must to this day—for my sobriety. It took a long time to find my sponsor—an older, experienced sober person who had already walked the steps and shows the way in recovery.
The most merciless lessons came later, over the years. First I was barred from the national AA gathering, where I simply could not participate. The most painful blow landed in my own home group in Gyöngyös. I have never been an easy case, and I am not one today either. I express myself openly, straightforwardly, and often mercilessly honestly, and I take responsibility for it. I admit, sometimes I push things too far. Because I was not willing to think, act, or share the views of others according to their expectations, to fall in line among the nodding yes-men, and because I did not assist in the exclusion of others, they slowly and completely ostracized me. The process culminated when my group simply stood up at a meeting, walked out of the room, and literally left me there to rot.
I remained completely alone. And that wasn't everything. I had to realize that even those closest to me did not believe in me: neither my partner nor my family. They saw no point in why I was dealing with objects made with the Tiffany technique, and they instantly condemned this activity of mine to failure. Thus, everyone finally drained away from me.
Right in this complete vacuum, in this quiet emptiness, I understood the most important thing. I now see it crystal clear: healing and the program exist solely within my own heart. I cannot make my recovery dependent on others, and I cannot expect anyone to believe in me. I must learn to stand on my own two feet.
I finally found peace, calm, and silence in the creation of glass art made with the Tiffany technique. When I first stood in front of the grinder and started grinding the glass, the relentless hammering in my head suddenly vanished. Silence fell. Where chaos once and always reigned, silence fell.
Today I make glass clocks and 3D glass flowers. These flowers are made purely of glass, requiring no other hidden supports or illusions. They stand in space on a one-hundred-percent clean glass base. Stably. Independently. Exactly as I am trying to exist today.
This blog is my weekly journal. Walk with me on this path—not for you to pity me or look up to me, but because perhaps there is a broken piece of glass in your own life that is not yet too late to put back in its place.
2649 days – one day at a time.
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