“Dry toast,” I said. “And could you bring me the phone book?” Charlie raised his eyebrows. “I’m thinking I should try a recovery program again. You think I should?”
“I think it’s time you did something.”
I nibbled a piece of dry wheat toast, propped up by pillows. I stared at the unopened phone book on my bed. After twenty minutes, I opened it and dialed. This time I knew I’d be reaching an answering service, but the woman who answered was in recovery herself.
“I live near you,” the woman on the line said. “There are lots of meetings in your town. Just …”
“I don’t want to go to meetings in my town,” I interrupted.
“There’s one twenty minutes away this afternoon at six o’clock. I could meet you there.”
“Uh, the thing is,” I said, remembering the Wendts’ dinner party, “I’m supposed to go to a dinner party at seven with my husband. I don’t want to go. I’m so hung over. But this has been on my calendar for months.”
“Why don’t you cancel? Say you’re sick. It’s the truth.”
“I can’t,” I said. I told her about my dinner party last night and the calls from Kelly and Liv. “They’d know I was just hung over.”
“I think you should go to a meeting.” “I’ll go tomorrow. What’s going on tomorrow?” The woman told me there was a meeting at ten the next morning.
I spent the rest of the day in bed vacillating between going to the dinner party or going to a meeting. Charlie was no help. “It’s up to you,” was all he said.
By five o’clock I felt vastly better. I decided to put on a good face, go to the dinner party, and drink for the last time. I’d hit a meeting tomorrow. I got in the shower and slowly pulled myself together.
Charlie and I arrived at the Wendts’ at seven fifteen. The house was all lit up for Christmas. Tom took our coats and walked us back to the family room/kitchen. Liv, her husband, Reed, Kelly, and her husband, Joel, were already there. Wendy was shaking up hundred-proof Absolut chocolate martinis. Kelly elbowed me in the ribs.
“How ya feelin’?”
I shrugged. “Better than before.”
Wendy walked over and handed me a martini.
“Bren here’s feeling a little hung over,” Kelly told her.
“Oh,” Wendy said. “This’ll make you feel better.”
I sipped it gingerly. It tasted dangerously good. Wendy walked away to check on her standing rib roast. I scanned the countertops and tables for appetizers.
“Where’s Wendy hiding the hors d’oeuvres?” I asked.
“There aren’t any,” Liv answered with a grimace. I raised my eyebrows. Liv laughed. “I know. And hundred-proof martinis. I’m switching after this.”
“No shit.”
I finished my martini quicker than I thought I would and poured myself a glass of wine. Wendy hovered near the oven and basted her roast. I’m not sure how much I consumed by the time we sat down to eat at ten o’clock, and I’m not sure how I got home, but I know at some point I told my girlfriends I was giving up drinking for a while after tonight. “I need to take a break,” I told them.
[Sunday, December 8]
I spied the meeting address on a rundown office building downtown. I tried not to think about where I was going, which wasn’t too hard since my alcohol-soaked brain was running slow. I parked the car and entered the building. I stood near a stairwell and listened for voices but didn’t hear any. A man walked in behind me, and I followed him down to the basement and into a room packed with people. I took a seat in the back. Just like eight years ago, the meeting opened with literature reading and I kept thinking, I can’t believe I’m here, I can’t believe I’m here. Then a guy named Ted began telling his story.
“Hi, I’m Ted, drug addict/alcoholic. I’m fantasizing about killing my fucking wife, my soon-to-be ex-wife. That bitch is going to have to live with herself for trying to put a wedge between me and my kids. She took them away from me and put homophobic thoughts in their heads. I saw a really bad car crash. A semi hit a car and as I was driving by I hoped my fucking wife was in that car. Fucking bitch. That fucking bitch is living rent free in my head. I spend way too much time thinking about her. She’s going to have to live with herself. But she’s getting everything.”
After twenty minutes of this tirade, the group split into two smaller groups. Half of the people left the room; the other half rearranged chairs into a cozy circle. I stayed in the room and joined the circle, wishing I could stay hidden in back. People began introducing themselves as they made comments in a clockwise fashion. Three-quarters of the way around the circle, it was my turn to speak. “Hi, I’m Brenda,” I said. Then the tears came. I didn’t even see it coming. I just sat there for what seemed like an eternity trying to compose myself, then I whispered, “I just can’t believe I’m here again. I tried this eight years ago.” I motioned for the next person to go.
Ted walked over to me at the end of the meeting and shook my hand. “Welcome back,” he said. “I was a binge drinker. Didn’t drink for weeks, then I’d go on a bender for days. The program has really helped me. I’m not even angry at my partner for giving me HIV. He didn’t know he was positive when he infected me.”
“Really,” I said.
“Find some good women’s meetings,” he said. “Stick with the women. You’re a good-looking woman and there are a lot of wolves in the program.” He gave me a big hug. “Good luck.”
Around dinnertime—martini time—I was feeling edgy. I didn’t want to go to a meeting in town because I was afraid of running into someone I knew, but I was going to drink if I didn’t get to a meeting, and I knew there was one in walking distance about to begin. I grabbed my purse and headed to my second meeting of the day. I entered an attractive building that housed recovery meetings and saw people gathered in a conference room. Two men, roughly ten years my senior, looked me up and down as I walked in. The meeting started and as the literature was being read, the guy chairing the meeting handed everyone a copy of a recovery book. He had us turn to the same page and he began reading one of the stories. After two paragraphs, he said, “Pass,” and the person on his left began reading the next paragraph. So it went around the table until we’d read the whole story.
The story was about a writer. She loved gourmet food and wine. She threw a lot of dinner parties. And after her dinner parties, she drank her guests’ leftover wine as she cleaned up.
As I listened to the story, I was reminded of when I hosted book club last month and purchased a case of good chardonnay for it. Yummy appetizers filled my coffee table, and I kept my guests’ wineglasses full as we discussed The Lovely Bones. Most of my book club friends left tanked. That didn’t usually occur because most of my book club friends are light drinkers, and they don’t top off wineglasses like I do. Afterward, I cleared dirty plates and glasses, and many of the wineglasses were a quarter to half full. The wine was too good to waste, so I downed the remnants while I cleaned. It was the first time I’d ever drunk leftover booze. I hesitated as I put the first used wineglass to my lips. It felt twisted and wrong, but I drank anyway.
This story about the writer hit me hard. The group split into smaller groups, and people began taking seats in discussion rooms. I joined one and sat on a couch. Across from me was a high school boy picking at his cargo pants and gym shoes. He started the discussion group off by talking about his mother and how hard it was to stay sober while she was drinking like a fish. “She tries to help my little brother with his homework at night and ends up screaming at him. Sometimes she throws his books on the floor.”
It was like an arrow pierced my heart. I had scenes like that with Max.
I stopped at a literature rack on my way out and picked up a meeting directory. The vultures who’d been ogling me in the conference room swooped in.
“You have to go to ninety meetings the next ninety days,” Vulture One said.
“You have to get a sponsor,” Vulture Two said.
�
��I could take you to this great meeting,” Vulture One said.
“I have a store the next town over where we could talk about what’s going on with you,” Vulture Two said.
“I’m married,” I said.
“You’re too young to be married,” Vulture Two said. “I’m thirty-eight.”
“You’re older than I thought,” said Vulture Two.
[Monday, December 9]
I got the ninety-meetings-in-ninety-days advice from several people. The martini bell was going off in my head at five o’clock so I went to an evening meeting, but I had no intention of doing ninety meetings in ninety days. It just seemed like a good idea to hit meetings when I’d ordinarily be drinking. I walked into a church and saw a janitor vacuuming the vestibule. An organist was practicing Christmas carols. The janitor looked at me and turned off the vacuum cleaner.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Is there a meeting here?” I asked timidly.
“No,” he said looking puzzled.
“There’s supposed to be a meeting,” I said, feeling sweat circles forming under my arms. I looked at the floor. “A recovery meeting.”
“Oh, I bet that’s in the rectory behind the church.”
He gave me directions and I walked outside. A woman about my age with frizzy blond hair and two inches of dark brown roots was trying one of the church’s side doors.
“Are you looking for a meeting?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s this way,” I said, glad to have someone to walk in with.
We each took a chair in the packed room moments before the meeting began. The chairperson asked, “Is this anyone’s first time at a meeting, or first time at this meeting?” The frizzy blonde and I both raised our hands. The chairwoman nodded at the frizzy blonde.
“Hi, I’m Jean, addict/alcoholic. This is my second meeting.”
The chairwoman nodded at me.
“Hi, I’m Brenda.” I swallowed. “I’m an alcoholic. I’m new and this is my first time here.”
A woman sitting next to me asked, “Did anyone First Step you?” I had no idea what that meant so I shook my head no. The woman looked at Jean. Jean shook her head no. “We need a First Step meeting,” the woman announced to the chairwoman.
“Who wants to go upstairs and do a First Step meeting?” the chairwoman asked the group.
Eight women and one guy got up and led Jean and me upstairs into what used to be a bedroom in a former pastor’s house. We sat on folding chairs arranged in a circle and the regulars took turns telling their drinking and drugging stories. I remembered I’d had a First Step meeting eight years ago at that meeting with my dad. Tanya, like a woman in my first First Step meeting, had burned her house down. Todd was an asshole navy drunk. Deidre pointed her finger at Jean and me and shook it.
“Secretly, in the back of your head, even if you’re unaware of it, you’re planning your next drink,” Deidre said. “And you have to squash that like a bug before it gets bigger.” Crack! She smacked her hands together. “When you start to think about drinking, think about somebody else, what you can do for someone else. Get your mind off you.”
A woman sitting next to Deidre said her name was Sophie. She said she was a high-functioning drunk and a good mother. “My children are grown, but I was very involved in their schooling,” Sophie said. “I helped with Christmas pageants, was on the PTA, and didn’t drink while I was pregnant. I actually considered getting pregnant to stop drinking.”
I stared at Sophie. She had just described me. The room was silent, and I realized everyone was waiting for me to speak.
“I love my children with all my heart,” I began. “I have never let my drinking interfere with being a good mother.” My throat constricted and I couldn’t talk. I waited and breathed deeply. “But I’ve known, in the back of my head, even though I’ve never admitted it to myself, that the reason I had my second child—part of the reason—is because I knew it would make me stop drinking.” I tried to choke back tears. My chest heaved. I put my face in my hands and sobbed.
[Thursday, December 12]
I went to a meeting in a nearby town and a woman came up to me afterward and told me her husband was addicted to Internet porn. “He’s a great guy otherwise,” she said. “But I feel disgusted and cheated on. I don’t think I can stay married to him.”
I scanned the room hoping someone else would come over, but everyone seemed to be avoiding us like the plague.
[Friday, December 13]
I went to another meeting in town, this one in the basement of a church. There were a lot of people there, many of them strange. One guy was a thalidomide baby. On the end of his arms were a few pegs where hands and fingers should have been. He was dressed like a cowboy. Another guy was missing an eye. His sunken socket was made huge by magnifying eyeglasses. There was a woman named Dora who looked like a hooker. She was wearing skin-tight patchwork jeans with frayed stitching, a low-cut leopard-print halter top, and a black sport jacket. During the meeting she got up, lurched around the room dragging her high-heeled boot heels, and disappeared into the bathroom for fifteen minutes. She lurched back into the room, slammed her butt down on a metal folding chair, and sat spread eagle. Sitting across from me was a woman named Gwen. She identified herself as an addict and kept bending over, her boobs almost falling out of her scoop-neck spandex top.
Gwen walked up to me after the meeting and shook my hand. “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a pothead,” she said. “I came home one night when I first got sober and my husband had left this beautiful bud on the kitchen counter. I got panicky and called my boyfriend. I was having an affair at the time. I was like, ‘I don’t want to smoke it, what should I do?!’ He screamed, ‘Flush it down the toilet!’ This is a great meeting. I hope you keep coming.”
Holy mother of God, I don’t want to hang out with these people.
[Saturday, December 14]
Charlie and I went to Wildfire for dinner with Reed and Liv. I felt very edgy before we left the house, but I was determined to be funnier and wittier than I was when I was drinking.
Wildfire was probably not the best restaurant for me to go to. Their martinis are excellent and they have martini flights: four flavored mini martinis served all at once, but martini flights were never a draw for me. Health nut that I am, I didn’t want artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners in my booze. Liv had made reservations two months in advance so we could get in on a Saturday night, and a table was ready for us when we arrived. Thank God we didn’t have to sit in the bar. We all slid into a huge banquette and I ordered a club soda while everyone else ordered cocktails. I reminded Liv that I was giving up drinking for a little while.
“You’re not drinking?” Reed said, sipping a manhattan. “How long are you going to keep that up?”
I shrugged. “As long as I feel like it. I’m bored with drinking. I need a change. When I get bored with being sober I’ll start drinking again.”
I scanned the tables to see what other people were drinking. A lot of people were having soda and iced tea. I was shocked.
During dinner I bantered, joked, told funny anecdotes—but it felt like work. I had to be on all night because I wasn’t drinking and, damn it, I was going to be the best dinner companion ever. But I started feeling uncomfortable, like a dullard, when we all hopped into Reed’s car after dinner. I was always the one to suggest going to a bar or back to my house for drinks and a joint, and we’d party until Charlie or Liv got sick of it. Tonight, however, Reed drove us home and pulled up in front of our house at ten thirty.
“I can’t remember when I’ve gone home this early on a Saturday night,” Reed said.
“Me too,” I agreed, feeling lame.
“I’m glad,” Liv said. “I won’t waste the whole day tomorrow feeling horrible.”
“Suits me just fine,” Charlie said.
I washed up and crawled into bed. Charlie was waiting for me. We did it, him on top and me under a cloud of boozy
breath.
[Tuesday, December 17]
I went to dinner at Bin 36 with my aunt Alina. Bad, bad restaurant for me. It’s a new restaurant I suggested eating at over a month ago—which is how long this dinner date has been on my calendar. When I opened the menu, I was drawn to the extensive wine list on the right page. The less prominent left page listed the food, and all of it, appetizers to desserts, had wine suggestions.
Aunt Alina ordered a pinot noir flight and the waiter set a paper placemat in front of her with four circles on it. Each circle had a bin number written under it. The waiter then placed a half glass of wine on each circle and handed my aunt a card that described each of the wines. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to torture myself.
“I’m on antibiotics for a sinus infection (true) and can’t drink (never stopped me before),” I told my aunt.
“That’s a shame,” Aunt Alina said.
“Maybe a flight wouldn’t hurt,” I said, deciding to drink just like that.
“Oh, you can’t do that,” Aunt Alina said looking quite serious. “Not if you’re taking antibiotics.”
“You’re right,” I said.
Aunt Alina and I talked for four hours, and I watched her nurse her four glasses of wine the entire time. She’d take a tiny sip, set the glass back on her placemat, a while later take another tiny sip from another glass, place it back on her placemat, etc. It was killing me. My insides squirmed. When we finished dessert, there was still a little wine in each of the glasses. It brought back memories of the time I had dinner with my friend Emily.
Emily and I met for dinner at Wildfire this summer. Emily ordered a Cosmopolitan so I ordered one, too, even though I wanted a pure Kettle One martini free of high-fructose corn syrup and food coloring. However, I didn’t want Emily thinking I was a lush who loved straight booze. I drank my Cosmopolitan slower than usual because I paced myself with Emily. When we both finally finished our last sips and I was about to suggest ordering another, Emily opened the wine list.
“That martini really hit me,” she said.
“Yeah, me, too,” I lied. “Should we order a bottle of wine?”
Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife Page 3
