Drinking it away...

Has a portion of your life ever just came rushing back? Have the flood gates ever just opened up and brought you right back to a place and time in your life you thought you had forgot?
It just happened to me as I was, get this, watching the Real World. The drunken, overly emotional, screwed in the head antics of one of the "characters" reminded me, of me. I saw clearly the similarities between me and this girl, I understood why. I was reminded of a time in my life, a situation that I thought was gone and buried.
One night I ran into this guy that I went to college with. He was a couple years older than me, and I totally had a crush on him. We ended up hanging out and I got wasted. I left the bar with him, and I went to one of his friend's houses. I vaguely remember being there. And for some reason, I feel like I lost it and flipped out on him. Hours later two police officers woke me up. I had been sleeping on some one's patio, someone I did not know, and they did not know me. After getting the 3rd degree and being called everything from a delinquent to a slut by one of the cops, they called me a cab. The cab took me to my car which I had left near the club, and then I headed home, or so I thought. Hours later I remember finding myself on the other side of the city. I couldn't for the life of me remember how I got there, where I had been or why I was there. I finally made it home, with barely any memories of the night before. So what did I do? I buried it. I kept shoving it down and brushing it off until it was gone, or so I thought.
Watching the Real World tonight, it came back to me and I realized why I got so drunk that night.
I remembered I liked him the guy from college. What I didn't allow myself to think about was why I didn't like him.
When we were in college I got drunk and ended up hooking up with one of his friends. I buried that night, down deep, in a place I thought where I thought it would never resurface. Tonight, it came back. I remembered the guy I was hooking up with inviting his boys in. One of them was this guy I liked. The reason I buried that night... just came rushing back. It is so difficult for me to face, I cannot even say it out loud. I was violated, by several guys.
Fast forward to the night at the club, when for some reason I decided I wanted to hang out with him, even flirt with him. Maybe I thought it would be fun to shoot him down. Instead, I found myself drinking and drinking and drinking.
I left the club with this guy and went to his friends house, now really fucked up, and it all came spilling out. I got kicked out of the house for my drunken rant, accusing my crush of.. well you know. I was miles from my home, in the middle of the night. I just started walking, got lost in a neighborhood and finally needed to rest so I landed on a bench on a stranger's patio.
What I realized tonight was that I allowed myself to get that drunk, because I was trying to forget. I was hoping I could just pretend like it never happened, drink enough that I had a different life.
I was self-medicating, hoping when the buzz wore off, I would have a different life. Instead, the drinking just brought out the issues I had worked so hard to bury. I didn't want to think about what happened years ago, something I blamed myself for. The truth is, I drank way too much for several years. The truth is, I was only creating more issues when I was trying to drink them away. The truth is, there are a lot of things in my life I don't want to face, don't want to remember, don't want to deal with. The truth is, I just realized why I always got so fucked up. I got fucked up because I was fucked up...and I still am... fucked up.