Chasing the Glow

I dont know if I was born an alcoholic, but I was definitely born

anxious. The alcoholism came to me later in life, after years of drinking
to ease stress and worry, and to fend off panic. But the anxiety? It was
there from the start. My earliest memories are infused with it. It was a
steady theme throughout my childhood, and it is the background music
of my adult life. Sometimes it was loud and intrusive; other times you
could barely hear it. But it never left me. I dabbled in drinking in high
school, didnt drink at all in college, and then after graduation drank
moderately (or at least what I thought was moderately) for nearly two
decades. But even from the start, in my early twenties, I liked alcohol. I
liked the way it made me feel. Theres a sweet feeling that you get
from those first few glasses of wine. The world is softer, smoother,
more golden; the tension drains from the tightly clenched muscles in
my neck and shoulders. I could finally breathe. I would go out with my
friends after work in local news. Everyone seemed smarter and prettier
and more interesting, even me. We would toast our good fortune,
celebrate the newscast we had just put on live TV, clink our glasses to
another victory in the ferociously competitive business in which we all
worked. The nervous worry and the edginess I carried with me all day
would melt away, and I would bask in a chardonnay glow.
Some people chase that alcohol glow their whole life, and
somehow they make it through, or they learn along the way that there
are other, better ways to ease anxiety. I did not. Drinking started out to
be something that felt lovely and luxurious. It was a romance of sorts.
It ended with me on the brink of dying from alcohol poisoning, of losing
every single thing and every single person I treasured. It sent me to a
hardscrabble rehab in Tennessee, where I spent a grim Christmas

Excerpted from the book BETWEEN BREATHS: A MEMOIR OF

PANIC AND ADDICTION. Copyright 2016 by Elizabeth Vargas.
Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights
reserved.

alone, my two precious children nine hundred miles away, opening

gifts without their mom. There is nothing remotely romantic about that.
My problem was that at some point, the alcohol stopped working.
The more I chased that glow, the more elusive it became. Determined
to rediscover it, I would drink more. One or two glasses a night became
three or four. The relief I once enjoyed was now slipping from my
greedy hands, leaving me with my anxiety tapping on the door.
Drinking too much nearly always had consequences simple
hangovers at first, nothing a Gatorade and an hour at the gym couldnt
fix. But the opening in the window between when alcohol made me feel
better and when it extracted its heavy toll became narrower and
narrower. The hangovers morphed from bleary, shaky mornings to
entire days when I counted the hours until I could go home and have
another glass of wine, so desperate I was for that relief. And it wasnt
just anxiety I was looking to drown. It was fear. I was insecure and
terrified someone would wake up and say Hey, what are you doing
here? You dont belong here! and then unceremoniously show me the
exit. That fear was there whether I was in a newsroom or at a dinner
party, board meeting, or movie premiere. The world would see me for
the fraud that some part of me had always believed I was. Deep down,
I wasnt a confident, in-control network news anchor and the happily
married mother of two wonderful children enjoying life in one of the
most exciting cities in the world. Inside I was still a panicked five-yearold living in abject terror. I was living a double life, hiding the anxious,
worried version of myself that spent her entire life poised at the
starting line, every muscle tensed, straining to hear the sound of the
shot that would send her sprinting in panic as if her life depended on it.
I spent most of my life believing I was the only one who hid her secret
self from the world, that everyone else was as perfect and happy as

Excerpted from the book BETWEEN BREATHS: A MEMOIR OF

PANIC AND ADDICTION. Copyright 2016 by Elizabeth Vargas.
Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights
reserved.

they seemed to be. I know better now. Everyone has something that
scares them. Everyone must make a choice at some point whether to
be brave. Everyone has a story. Mine begins with a frightened little
girl . . .

Excerpted from the book BETWEEN BREATHS: A MEMOIR OF

PANIC AND ADDICTION. Copyright 2016 by Elizabeth Vargas.
Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights
reserved.