The Tipping Point

“Um, Babe…. I think you might have something stuck in your teeth.” 

Those were the words that I heard, that one late afternoon in November of 2021. My partner at the time, her voice timidly resonating like a gentle bell that for some reason sounded so loud, reverberating and booming off the walls in our humble two-bedroom apartment. The way her body slightly recoiled from mine after I gently gave her a quick kiss, the way she couldn’t quite make eye contact with me. Those words that sounded more like a question. Like, “why do you think your breath smells like that? Why do you smell just a little bit like death?”

Those words were my tipping point. 

At the time, I deeply internalized those words, with as much shame that could possibly exist in a person, swallowing me whole. I felt so much shame because I couldn’t handle rejection. I had been traumatized so many times before in previous relationships, shamed for the way I looked, smelled, and sounded. I felt so much shame because I automatically labeled myself “unlovable” as soon as she said the words. Because she would never want to kiss me again, would never find enjoyment in being with me again. I felt so much shame because… I couldn’t smell it. I didn’t get it. Whatever she smelled, I couldn’t. Therefore, I let my imagination run away with me. Did I smell like rat poison? Mold? Sewage? Worse? Or maybe I was in so much denial. Maybe I had closed my nostrils just as tightly as I had closed my heart, my soul, any kind of recognition that I was slowly killing myself. Slowly, but ever so surely, drowning myself in alcohol. 

I was drowning myself in alcohol because I secretly didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore, and I didn’t know how to leave. 

So then, at the same time, I rejoiced in my secret little victory. I rejoiced in the fact that we would never kiss again, never be intimate again. I didn’t have to put up an act that I actually was enjoying myself in this partnership. I was crushed. My soul my crushed. I had buried my real self so far down inside, and somewhere deep down, she was screaming. The sound was muffled, just begging and pleading to get out. How? 

Those words were my tipping point. That feeling was my tipping point. I still remember it, the blood rushing up to my temples, my vision narrowing like a laser to a random point in the room, unsure of what to say or what to do or where to go. So I shrugged, and escaped to the bathroom to immediately brush my teeth.

Sitting on the bathroom floor, after I brushed so hard my gums were bleeding, I allowed myself to cry. I couldn’t understand why she would say something like that. My teeth weren’t rotting… were they? There’s no way. I brush. I use mouthwash. I don’t floss, but still. I take care of my teeth, because my father had problems with his teeth. I never wanted to have problems with my teeth. I didn’t need braces when I was younger. I had a beautiful smile. Maybe my teeth were a bit more yellow after years of working in the coffee industry, but there are Instagram filters for that. I never post a picture without a filter. It will be fine. It had to be. I didn’t have an issue. There was no issue here. 

Was there? 

Maybe there was. Maybe there was a problem. I pulled myself up to stare at myself in the mirror, to check the scar that was left under my right nostril, where I had busted my face open 6 months earlier after experiencing my first alcohol-induced seizure. I hit the pavement outside a 7-11, catching myself with my face. The cashier inside tried to call us an ambulance, but we denied it because we couldn’t pay the ER fees. Plus we were only an 8-minute walk from home. 

That night should have been my tipping point. But it wasn’t. Instead, it happened this day. Instead, it was my partner, grossed out by my breath. Grossed out by my rotten teeth. Grossed out by my secret habit. It wasn’t so much a secret. But the consequences were starting to show. The proof was starting to become more tangible, more real. It was getting harder to hide just how much I was drinking. 

And when I say hide, I don’t mean I was hiding my habit. In fact, I was very open about it. I was proud of it. I was proud of how much I could drink, hold my liquor, and keep up with the crowds. But the truth was hidden from ME, and that day… that moment… It was unbelievably clear.

My tipping point. It was certainly something to notice. It was proof.

It was proof that I had written myself off. It was proof that I had forgotten how to love myself. (Had I ever been taught how?) It was proof that I deemed myself unworthy of life. Yes, it was that dark. Yes, it was that real. Maybe it was time to really think about that word that I always treated like a curse word: Sober. What does that mean, anyway? Is that something that actual people do? Does anyone in this world actually know how to do this thing without drinking? What happens when life decides to “life”? What do these “sober” folk do, then? 

I sighed in the bathroom. Spat. Decided to brush my teeth one more time. Wiped my face. Back into the living room. Gently kissed my partner…. On the forehead. Never the lips, never again. 

And without a word, I headed to the minibar to pour myself a stiff one. Had to wash out the taste of toothpaste, after all.

It would still be 2 years until I stopped drinking. But that was the first time the thought ever entered my consciousness. That was the seed, quietly planted. And it stuck. I started exploring sober social media platforms. I started watching interviews of celebrities who had gotten sober. I started to think about how much money I would save if I could only stop drinking. 

I started thinking…. if only I could just stop drinking. What then?

What was YOUR tipping point?

~Miki