by Barb Rogers
Jack C. says, “There's a meeting tonight. Do you think you can stay sober?” No problem, I assure him. An odd calm comes over me. I pour a shot of whiskey, drink it down in one gulp, sit down at the kitchen table, and begin figuring out how I'm going to clean up the mess I've made of everything: my marriage of a few years; my relationship with that husband's kid; my only friend, Cheryl, who that morning told me I had a problem and walked out on me—after some verbal abuse on my part. I can turn things around. I simply have to get a handle on my drinking.
——
I still don't understand how it all went so wrong, so quickly. After I got out of the nuthouse, I stayed in therapy for years, got my GED, went to college to study psychology, and didn't drink at all. I did smoke some pot and take pills, but certainly not to excess, at least not to my way of thinking. My therapist of many years, who believed alcoholic behavior could be cured through psychotherapy, assured me that I'd know when I could drink like a normal person. I trusted that that day would come.
After nearly eight years of sobriety—during which time I was analyzed, theorized, hypnotized, and graduated from Eastern Illinois University—the day I'd been working toward, waiting for, arrived. The perfect excuse presented itself. In a truck borrowed from Tom, another girl, Nancy, and I made the trip to Bradenton, Florida to retrieve my belongings from my latest failed marriage. I wasn't even 30 years old yet, and my fourth divorce was in process.
I understood why the previous marriages had failed—I'd been drinking. One had taken place in Las Vegas after days of alcohol and speed. I didn't know his last name, but I took it as my own. The other had happened because I got drunk and in an argument with Tom, and he said, “Who would marry you?” I showed him!
But this last one I couldn't figure out. I was stone-cold sober, he swept me off my feet, yet as soon as the “I do's” were exchanged, he changed. It seemed that all those endearing qualities I had, from my outspokenness to my quirky haircut to the way I dressed, along with my kid and dog, were socially unacceptable in his world. Under constant stress, I barely stuck it out for a month.
So it wasn't surprising when, as I sat in a fine seafood restaurant with Nancy on our way to pack up my things from my fourth husband's home, she said, “I think I'll have a glass of wine,” and I said, “I think I will too.” I'd never been a wine drinker, but damn, it tasted good—like fruit juice with a kick.
——
Now here I am, less than five years later, half drunk, on the verge of a fifth divorce, waiting for a stranger to pick me up to go to an AA meeting. Some days, like today, I think it would be easier to cut my throat and get it over with. I'm tired, so tired, and I wonder if I have enough fight left in me to keep going on. I remember the day Mom killed herself. She said the same thing. I think she was just tired of life, of being unhappy, of not being able to figure it out. Today, I know how she felt. The blare of a car horn brings me out of my reverie. A deep breath, another breath mint, and I'm out the door. What have I got to lose?
After a tense ride, Jack C. turns the car into a parking lot adjacent to a church. “You didn't tell me the meeting is in a church,” I say, feeling the anger begin to build. “You didn't ask me,” he says, and opens the car door.
I don't do churches. I don't do God. After all, what had he ever done for me except give me pain and misery? “Are you coming?” Jack asks. I shake my head. “Suit yourself,” he says, and slams the car door. I watch his back as he walks to the church door and disappears inside.
With the engine shut off, the cold November night begins to creep into my bones. I consider walking uptown to the tavern, but my sweatshirt, vest, and tennis shoes are not suitable for the weather. I can feel my hands shaking. Maybe I'll just go in and warm up a bit.
I hesitate at the church door, but the wintry air drives me inside, down a hallway to a meeting room. Through the door, I hear laughter, smell coffee brewing. A hot cup of coffee would sure taste good right now. I like mine with a shot of whiskey. Probably not going to happen here, I think, and chuckle to myself.
A circle with a triangle in the middle adorns the door. I was right. It's some kind of cult symbol. Torn, but still chilled, I take a deep breath and slip inside the doorway. I'm strong. What can they do to me in an hour? I'll get through it, and I won't come back. It was a stupid idea in the first place. I'm feeling better now, warmer.
Five older men sit at the end of a long table, steaming coffee in white Styrofoam cups and black plastic ashtrays in front of them. “Come in,” the white-haired man at the head of the table says. “Coffee's over there.” He points. I fight the urge to run, fix a cup of the hot brew with loads of sugar, sit a couple chairs away from the group, and light a cigarette. As they pray and read from a big blue book, my mind wanders to the walls, which are adorned with what look like bumper stickers with sayings on them. Then, I see them: the steps. Twelve steps in bold black letters against a white background. You have got to be kidding. Even if I could, I wouldn't get into that stuff.
Since it's my first meeting, the topic for the evening is the first step: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction and that our lives had become unmanageable.”
I shut out the voices as they share about how they ended up in AA. I don't care. I'm not like these people. I may be an alcoholic, but I can manage my life. I quit before, and I can do it again. I don't need their help. I don't need those ridiculous steps. I certainly don't need some God. Dwight S., the last to speak, looks directly into my eyes and says, “You never have to be alone again.” Tears threaten to fall. I push them back. Everyone is looking at me as if expecting me to talk. I shake my head. I'm not telling these people what I did this time to screw up my life.
——
Bill and I didn't date long before he asked me to marry him. It seemed the perfect solution to my problems, my loneliness—especially since I lost Jon. He was fun, liked to party, and didn't mind my drinking, even when I got a bit out of hand. I loved his laid-back attitude, his sense of humor. He could be the one to help me get over my feelings for Tom. This was a golden opportunity—I'd tried everything I could think of to get that man out of my mind. He probably hated me anyway, because of the way I treated him when he came to my door to tell me Jon was dead. I had blamed Tom and said terrible things to him.
Life was good with Bill. He didn't mind me going out with Cheryl, but that was because he didn't know everything we'd been up to. The big trouble began when he got his little boy every other weekend. The first time I looked into the child's eyes, I knew. I saw the hurt, the anger, the helplessness of an abused or neglected child. It touched a place in my heart that I thought I'd completely closed off. It scared me. I wanted to help him, but not get attached to him. I couldn't go through the loss of another child. Every time we had to send him back to his mom and stepdad, it nearly killed me.
I fought for that boy nearly to the point of obsession. I called family services, argued with them, wrote letters to the Illinois state representative, threatened to go to the governor, even called Tom to help us pay for an attorney, all the while continuing to fight forming any emotional attachment with the kid. Bill, on the other hand, didn't seem willing to fight. All of a sudden his laid-back attitude didn't seem so endearing. I didn't understand why he couldn't see the urgency of the situation. I decided if he couldn't stand up for his kid, he would never be able to stand up for me. How could I respect that?
Within the year, Bill and I attained full custody of his son. The boy's mother would have him every other weekend. Every time he left, it made me sick. As hard as I tried not to, I loved that boy. But the truth was, he wasn't my child, and I could only do so much to help him. Unable to cope with my feelings and fears, my drinking escalated. I wasn't a fun drunk anymore—I was angry, even abusive. There were arguments between Bill and me, days of not speaking, until I ended up sitting in the middle of the living room floor in fear of losing my mind.
——
Jack C. pulls his car up in fron
t of my house. He says, “There are meetings somewhere every evening.” I nod and get out of the car as quickly as possible. Bill is waiting inside the house, wondering how things went. After I convince him I am not like those AA people, I send him to the liquor store for a bottle. He goes. We drink. The following morning, as I drag myself out of bed, hungover and looking like something the cat dragged in yet again, the terrible truth is reflected in the bathroom mirror.
8
The Cave
NEVER, NOT IN MY WILDEST DREAMS, did I ever imagine I would ever end up here again. I thought I'd lost everything seven years ago—but at least then I had Jon. His indomitable spirit and sense of humor, coupled with the relief over getting away from my fourth husband, made life an adventure. The converted garage that Jon had dubbed “the cave” the first time was the only port we could afford in the raging storm that was our life. It sat back from the street, was surrounded on three sides by trees, and had windows built into the walls that wouldn't open. The tiny apartment's three rooms were separated by pegboard walls. We called the furnishings “shabby chic,” but the couch looked like something one would find next to the curb to be picked up by the garbagemen, the mattress on the bed sagged in the middle, and the ancient refrigerator had to be defrosted weekly to keep it from growing icebergs.
We'd lived in dumps many times before, so we knew the drill: bomb for bugs, put boric acid where the floors met the walls and on the outer walls to keep the cockroaches from coming in, scrub with lots of soap and water. I always thought of my mother when we moved into one of those awful places. She would always say, “It's no shame to be poor, but it's a shame to be dirty. Soap's cheap.”
——
One hand on the doorknob, I steel myself for the flood of memories when I enter. If I had anywhere else to go, if I could afford something else, I certainly wouldn't be here. But I have to go inside. I'm out of options. The door open, Angel darts past me into the dark interior. I wish I could be more like her—so accepting of whatever situation she's in—and she's been through some harrowing escapades living with me. I used to laugh and say, “If she could talk, I'd have to shoot her.” I don't laugh much anymore. Seems like when I do, I get this big knot in my belly and have the urge to vomit.
The past seven years hasn't improved the place. In fact, it's shabbier than when Jon and I lived there. The landlord turned the heat on just enough to warm the living room. When I reach for the knob to turn the heat up, I think of how I used to have to run from the shower in the back of the garage to the front room so I didn't freeze. If I turned the heat up enough to heat the other rooms, it got so hot that Jon couldn't sleep on the couch. I guess I won't have to worry about that anymore.
Perched on the edge of the old brown couch, Angel in my lap, I close my eyes and picture my son, so tall … taller than me by the time he turned 13, with thick blond hair that curled around the edges and piercing blue eyes filled with love and trust. We laughed so hard the day I finally found a job. We'd left Florida with nothing but the dog, two suitcases, and very little money. Back in Sullivan, the small town where I'd pissed off so many people and had a well-deserved bad reputation, it was hard to find a job. But I got one washing dishes in a restaurant and lounge. I hated washing dishes—made Jon do them at home—so when I told him, he shot me a smile and said, “Do you think you remember how?”
Dropping Angel, I rush through the bedroom and kitchen to the tiny bathroom. What little I'd eaten that day comes up. I don't know if I'm still having withdrawals from the booze, if it's the ulcers again, or a new wave of guilt and shame caused by having to move back into the garage Jon and I shared as our home for several years. Sometimes I think I should leave Sullivan, but I don't know where I'd go, and I don't have any money. Besides, Jon's buried right outside of town.
The past few weeks have been a living nightmare. I left Bill shortly after he drank with me after that first AA meeting. He believed it when I told him I wasn't like those people at the meeting. He was so sweet and kind, but easily manipulated—not a healthy thing for someone living with me. I told myself I would never be able to live with him and stay sober. The truth was that when things got tough, I got going, one way or another. I'd been running away since the third grade when I discovered Mom's little green-and-white pills.
Christmas had been a bittersweet time. With no place to live, I took a house-sitting job for a few weeks for an older couple who were going back East to spend the holidays with family. The big house, crammed with stuff—the lady hoarded everything from furniture to knickknacks—seemed cold and empty. I figured that if I spent my days cleaning the house, which was no easy chore, it would keep me from thinking about drinking. That worked for a couple of days. The third day, the shakes, vomiting, and insomnia started. The last time I suffered withdrawal, I was shut up in the mental hospital, and the doctors gave me drugs to ease the cravings. I wasn't going back there. With no insurance, I wasn't going to a hospital. I'd screwed up every friendship I had, so there was no one to call … that is, no one except those AA people again.
I picked up the phone several times, even dialed a couple of times, only to hang up before anyone answered. Sugar—I needed sugar. Rummaging in the overstocked refrigerator and the stuffed cabinets, I grabbed anything sweet I could find and crammed it into my mouth. I paced, I ate, I threw up, and then I forced myself to eat more. After purging I don't know how many times, I realized the solution to my problem was probably in the medicine cabinet. I jerked it open. Like every other space in the house, it was jam-packed. I started pulling out pill bottles, trying to hold my hands still so I could read them. I finally found some pain pills and dumped them out into my hand, spilling some down the sink. It was the moment of truth.
Still holding the pills in my closed fist, I made the phone call I swore I wouldn't make. I had no idea what I would say if anyone answered. When I heard Jack C.'s deep voice, all I could do was weep, sobbing into the receiver. Patiently, he waited until I could squeak out a few words, and said, “Well, why don't you come over here?” He only lived a few blocks away. Fumbling with buttons and zipper, I bundled up and trudged through the snow—because between the shakes and stomach cramps, I knew I couldn't drive.
Unaware until I arrived at the house that it was Christmas Eve, it struck me as strange that Jack had told me to come over when he obviously had company. I hesitated at the end of the driveway full of cars and stared at the house, decorated in blinking lights with a wreath on the door. When I would have turned to leave, the door opened. Jack motioned me inside. His four grown boys were there, three of whom I discovered were also in AA. One by one, they left the room until I was alone at the kitchen table with Jack and a half a cup of coffee that I could barely get to my mouth without sloshing all over myself and the table.
My arms crossed, hands tucked under each armpit to keep them from shaking, I stood and paced back and forth as I poured out my pain to this virtual stranger. He listened. He waited. When I'd exhausted myself, he shared with me some of his story, including how he got through withdrawal. Then he said, “It's not forever. This too shall pass.” “When?” my mind screamed. Jack didn't seem to notice. He smiled, rose, reached up to a shelf and pulled down a box, which he handed to me. It was tea. For God's sake … tea? How was tea going to help?
Jack drove me home as I clutched the bag of items he called the withdrawal emergency kit. The last thing he said to me was, “If you think you're going to drink or drug, call me first.” I nodded. Inside, I unloaded the items and stood staring at them. I didn't believe herbal tea, honey, Epsom salts, and hard candy would help, but it was worth a try. If all else failed, then I'd consider the pills.
Purposefully, I set forth the plan Jack had laid out for me. In the bathroom, I lit some candles I found in a drawer, placed them around the tub filled with hot water, bubble bath, and Epsom salts, stuck a chunk of strawberry candy in my mouth, and lowered my ravaged body slowly into the water. It felt like heaven. It was the best I'd felt in days.
Staring into the flickering flame of a candle, I began to question the choices I'd made that brought me to that moment in time. Tears welled up in my eyes. I let my body slide beneath the water. Why couldn't I just let go … end it all? Running out of air, I popped up quickly, drew in a deep breath, and considered what was going to happen to me. What would I do when the owners of the house came home? Then I remembered something Jack told me. He said, “Don't worry about tomorrow, or the next hour, even the next moment. All the worry in the world won't change one thing. All you have to concentrate on is the moment and not putting anything nasty in your mouth.”
It was a long night filled with hot baths, herbal tea loaded with sugar and honey, and candy, but finally I slept. It was a deep sleep, the sleep only those exhausted with life can understand. By morning, I did feel better, but I looked like hell. Jack invited me over for breakfast and to spend Christmas day with him and his family. It was time for some damage control. I did the best I could with what clothes and makeup I'd brought with me and made my way to Jack's house, even though everything in me told me to turn on my heel and run away. The truth was, I'd run out of anyplace to run. If I didn't like it there, I could always say I was sick and leave.
As soon as the door opened, I felt the warmth from the kitchen, smelled bacon cooking, and wondered if I would be able to eat. Jack and his boys were busy cooking, setting the table, and talking to each other. They seemed so normal that it was hard for me to fathom any of them ever being an alcoholic … being like me. They welcomed me, ushered me to the table, and set a plate in front of me. Jack fixed me a cup of tea, the same stuff I'd been drinking all night, and some toast with butter and jelly. I picked at it, eating slowly, ever mindful that it might not stay down.
