Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  When Reed shared this information with me, I said, “She’s just feeling sorry for herself because she got caught.” But I know Kelly cares about me in a warped way, and I feel bad about the whole screwed-up mess.

  Last year, I had season tickets to the Joffrey Ballet and took Kelly to one of the performances. Since then, she’s been bugging me to get season tickets for the two of us. When I got home from the pool, I called the Joffrey and got us tickets. I called Kelly and left a message on her answering machine, telling her that we were going to the ballet.

  [Saturday, August 16]

  I took Max to his swimming lesson at eight o’clock this morning and afterward, a guy who does carpentry work for my dad and his friends came over to give me an estimate on the damage done to our house from the microburst.

  “Is the insurance company coming out?” he asked as we stood in front of my house looking at the soffit and fascia that had been ripped off.

  “No.”

  “How much over do you want the quote?”

  “I have a $500 deductible that I’d prefer not to pay,” I said and immediately felt guilty.

  I never would have batted an eye over getting my insurance company, a company we’ve paid megabucks to over the years, to cover the damage. But now I’m working a recovery program and trying to be honest all the time, and this is bothering me. I wish I could stop the nagging voice in my head telling me, “Your character defects may be your destiny.” Screw it. I’m going to push this thing out of my head and not think about it.

  This afternoon, I chaired the women’s meeting I hate. The woman who was supposed to give the lead didn’t show up and since no one else volunteered, I was stuck being the talking head.

  “What book should I read out of?” I asked the group. “Is there a topic someone wants to discuss?” I thought about making honesty the topic and discussing my carpentry dilemma, but then three women said they wanted a meeting on the First Step, which is the Step that we admit we’re powerless over our addictions and that our lives had been unmanageable. Since I’m seriously kicking around the idea of drinking in Budapest, I figured it was a pretty good topic for me, too.

  During my lead, I fessed up and told the women that from the time I’d gotten sober, I’d planned to drink whenever I was in Europe.

  “This back and forth thing—should I? shouldn’t I?—is driving me crazy,” I told them. “I went out to dinner with my husband and told him what I was thinking. He frowned and said, ‘That’s up to you. I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do.’ But his face said it all. He doesn’t want me to drink. And I’ve been thinking that, no matter how good the bottle of wine is, no matter how expensive, I’d be selling my hard-won sobriety cheap if I took a drink. I haven’t had a drink in almost eight months and it’s been hard. There have been many times I wanted to drink but didn’t. I haven’t been numbing out every night with booze. I’m not drinking in front of my kids. I haven’t been hung over in a long time. I don’t want any of that back. If I drink in Budapest, I know I’ll find more good reasons to drink when I get back. I know myself. I’ll be right back where I started. So there, I’m glad I just worked that out. Thanks.”

  I can’t believe how relieved I feel. There’s something very therapeutic about hearing yourself say what’s running around in your head. It’s cleansing and clarifying. It’s bizarre.

  I went home and finished fixing dinner. We’d invited Liv, Reed, and Seth over and I’d made a beef tenderloin stuffed with a creamy horseradish sauce laced with bacon and mushrooms. I’d also purchased some nice red wine to go with it earlier in the week. Buying the wine had tweaked me a little, but uncorking it tonight didn’t bother me a bit. Watching Liv drink a martini and a glass of wine while Charlie and Reed got tanked didn’t bother me, either. I felt fine. Purging myself at that meeting had done wonders.

  [Monday, August 18]

  Max had his friend Walter over and the two of them spent a lot of time on the computer researching how to get a patent for a four-way pencil Max “invented”: four pencils of different colors poking out of a hub like spokes. After poking around, Max found himself on the Paper Mate site and clicked on a link to a patent attorney in Virginia. Ten minutes after Walter left, the phone rang.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Max,” a man said.

  “May I ask who’s calling?” I asked.

  “I’m Steve Littleman, a patent attorney, and Max contacted me about a four-way pencil he invented and I’m getting back to him,” he said.

  “Do you know he’s ten?” I asked.

  “Ah, well, hmm. He did a good job filling out the patent form on my Web site.”

  “Do you still want to talk to him?”

  “Ah, I can talk to you,” he said.

  In a nutshell, the attorney wanted $400 to do a search to see what other similar ideas were out there with patents pending. If we wanted to pursue a patent for Max’s pencil, it would cost about $3,000.

  “You might just want to go ahead and do the search,” the attorney said. “It would be fun and educational.”

  “I think Max needs to come up with a better idea if we’re going to spend four hundred dollars on it,” I said.

  I told Max about my conversation with the patent attorney.

  “God, what a rip-off,” he said, looking angry and disappointed.

  [Tuesday, August 26]

  Sara came over this morning, and we talked about starting my Fourth Step, which entails making a list of the people I resent and how I behaved badly toward them.

  “I think you should wait until you get back from Budapest to do it because I don’t want it ruining your vacation,” Sara said.

  I was actually jazzed about doing my Fourth Step. I have been treating myself like a science experiment, and I wanted to get on with the dissection process. I’ve glimpsed parts of myself I don’t like. I haven’t been as honest with myself as I thought I had. I haven’t been good at seeing myself for who I am. I justify and rationalize everything I do. I rarely examine my motives.

  My grandmother used to tell me, “You’ve got an answer for everything,” and it was true. I also judge others to feel superior, make myself feel like Queen B. And Queen B’s about to find out what an insecure self-centered little shit she is, but not until I get back from Budapest.

  Sara and I were sitting on my deck sipping tea and watching Max and Van play in the yard. Max climbed out of the sandbox, walked over to us, and asked if we wanted another pot of tea.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That would be great.”

  Max took the teapot off the table and disappeared inside the house. He came back a short time later and placed the pot on the table. I poured Sara and myself a cup. It tasted horrible.

  “The tea tastes coffee-ish,” I told Max. “How did you heat the water?”

  “I ran it through the coffee maker.”

  “Ah,” I said, putting my cup down.

  Max slid a piece of paper in front of me. It was a bill for $1.25. Under the amount, he’d listed all the things he’d done for me that morning: “Gave Van water. Put a video on for Van. Helped Van down from the monkey bars. Made tea.”

  “What about all the things your mom does for you in a day?” Sara asked Max. “What would that list look like if your mom wrote down everything she did for you and came up with a dollar amount?”

  “That’s her job,” Max said.

  Later, Kat and I went to Playboy Pete’s house for a meeting. It’s Playboy Pete’s twenty-fifth sober anniversary. Twenty-five years without a drink. Unbelievable. More than forty people showed up to celebrate his anniversary with him.

  I owe Playboy Pete. When I first started going to meetings, I felt like a fish out of water and I wanted to be a fish out of water. I didn’t want to be an alcoholic loser. I wanted to keep my distance. Playboy Pete came up to me after a meeting one Saturday night and asked, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” We both started laughing. He hooked his arm around my
shoulders and started steering me around the room. He introduced me to a lot of people that night and jokingly avoided others saying, “You don’t want to meet that guy, he’s a, well, you don’t want to know what he is.” He invited me to go out with him and a group of people who were going to a steak house afterward, and it was the first time I felt normal in weeks. I didn’t feel like a sicko hanging out with other sickos.

  [Wednesday, August 27]

  Max started fifth grade today and, officially, I haven’t had a drink in eight months. I can’t believe it. It’s actually gone by surprisingly fast.

  I took Sturgis, my arthritic thirteen-year-old dog, to the vet because his teeth are rotten and his gums are infected. My poor old boy can’t even eat now. I helped him into the back of my Jeep, drove him to the vet, and he limped into the vet’s office. The vet did blood work to see if Sturgis could survive being put under for dental cleaning and tooth extraction. She also wants to see if Sturgis should be on heart meds and steroids. I love that dog. I hope I can keep him alive and feeling better a while longer.

  [Thursday, August 28]

  I went to Liv’s house for book club tonight. Kelly just got back from a fabulous family vacation, and she and I talked about it for a good long time. It felt like we were back to normal. The entire book club meeting felt normal. It was nice.

  [Friday, August 29]

  I’ve been trying to potty train Van, but it hasn’t been going very well. After I worked out at the gym this morning, Van and I went to the toy store to purchase a potty-bribe present. Van picked out a Leap Pad, and I paid for it and we went home.

  “Do a good job of going potty for one week and you can have the Leap Pad,” I told Van and let him watch me put the potty present in my closet. Van looked like he wanted to push past me and tear the box open. Experts say you’re not supposed to bribe your kids, but bribery helped me potty train Max, although he relapsed into pants-wetting behavior four years later.

  Max wasn’t interested in using the toilet until I told him I’d buy him a police car with flashing lights and a siren. In three days, Max was using the toilet and playing with his police car. He had just turned three. Van will be three October fifteenth, so I figured it was time to get started.

  “Do you want to go potty?” I asked him.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Let’s just sit on the potty and see if you can go.”

  I sat Van on the potty and he peed a little. I asked him throughout the day if he had to go, and although he always said no, I’d sit him on the potty, remind him of the Leap Pad, and he’d go a little.

  During dinner, I smelled flatulence coming from Van’s direction. I asked him if he needed to poop and he said no. I took him to the potty anyway and reminded him about the Leap Pad. Still nothing. We pulled up his pants, washed hands, and sat back down at the dining room table. Moments later, Van stood up on his chair, grunted, and loaded his pants.

  [Saturday, August 30]

  My parents saw Tony Bennett tonight using the tickets I’d given them for Father’s Day. They were good seats in the pavilion. I bought lawn tickets for Charlie and I, as did Liv and Reed, and we coordinated a picnic dinner for the concert. At six thirty, Liv and Reed picked up Charlie and me for the eight o’clock show. Hoards of people were going to see Tony Bennett. By seven thirty, we were somewhat near the concert but sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and Reed was getting pissier and pissier by the minute. I started laughing. I poked fun at our situation, trying to lighten the mood. Liv and Charlie joked back. Reed muttered expletives. We turned onto Green Bay Road, almost at Ravinia, and inched our way closer and closer. The parking lot was full. We continued driving north on Green Bay Road flagged on by Ravinia workers directing us toward remote parking. We approached another lot. Full. Lot after lot was full, and we continued on through downtown Highland Park, a fair distance from Ravinia, and drove until we were in neighboring Highwood. I tapped Liv’s arm.

  “Good thing we have our pack mules,” I said. “My picnic basket’s heavy. I’m not carrying it.”

  “Brenda!” Liv laughed, shooting a look at Reed and cringing.

  “Fuck it!” Reed said angrily, yanking the steering wheel and turning the car west toward the highway. “We’re bagging it and going back to our place. These fuckers have been out here waiting since four o’clock (which I later found out was true). They fucking oversold the lawn.”

  “I’m with you,” Charlie said. “Let’s bag it.”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Liv agreed.

  “By the time we park and haul all this stuff and get on a shuttle bus and try to find a spot to sit, not to mention trying to get on the damned shuttle later,” Reed said, “fuck it. I’m not doing it.”

  Reed sped back to his house. The moment we walked in, he began pouring drinks. He began shaking a martini for Liv and I wanted one bad.

  “I wouldn’t mind a martini,” I said, hoping Reed would offer me one, but he ignored me. Liv and I set out the food, and I watched the three of them drink. I talked myself into and out of having a drink for the next twenty minutes. We sat around the island counter in Liv and Reed’s kitchen and ate shrimp, sushi, bruschetta, and pâté.

  “Back in college,” Reed said, “my buddies and I had an eight-ball. It was some good cocaine. We went to a forest preserve to get high. We were underage and having trouble getting booze, and we came across a biker party. I walked up to the first biker I saw and asked to see his leader.”

  “Sounds like something Frankie and Annette would have asked in Beach Blanket Bingo,” I snickered. Liv and Charlie laughed.

  “No, really,” Reed said. “I asked to see their leader and when he was pointed out to me, I offered to turn the guy onto coke if he let me and my buddies drink at his party. He and I bonded. I ended up riding around with him on his bike all night doing blow. We snorted the last of it beside a donut shop at dawn. It was great.”

  I remembered that jagged, edgy, coming-off-the-rails feeling when the coke ran out and the sun was coming up. People were beginning their day and there I was, skin coated with a clammy narcotic film, barely able to function, going to someone’s dark apartment to wait for sleep. It sucked. I hated the ugly aftermath. Maybe that’s why coke was never my thing.

  The last time I got really high on coke was at an overnight bachelorette party, and I came home all wired and haggard to a two-year-old Max. It was a new low for me, and I decided never to get wasted on coke again. I did a line or two here and there on New Year’s Eve if someone offered it to me, but that was it.

  “I’ll never forget that night,” Reed said, smiling fondly at the memory.

  “Yeah, sounds awesome,” Liv said sarcastically.

  I no longer wanted a drink. I was glad I was sober.

  “I was just on a motorcycle trip with Joel and his friends,” Reed continued. “We got busted. We were camping and drinking in a state park that didn’t allow alcohol, and the cops came by and made us dump our booze. After the cops left, the guys started chopping down trees for a campfire, but they were green and wet. They kept trying to light a fire and I kept telling them it wasn’t going to work. It was hysterical.”

  “Wow, sounds like fun,” Liv deadpanned.

  “Did you see Bowling for Columbine?” I asked Reed, changing the subject. “You’re a big fan of George’s. You should see it.”

  “I hate Michael Moore. The guy’s a smug, fact-altering prick.”

  “The guy’s got bigger balls than anyone I know,” I said. “How ’bout I buy it for you? It just came out on DVD.”

  “Don’t.”

  [Sunday, August 31]

  I went to a meeting this morning and mentioned wanting to drink last night. Old Baseball Bob, who’d had visions of playing pro ball, was there, and when it was his turn to speak he said, “Brenda and I were just at Playboy Pete’s for his twenty-fifth anniversary.” He turned to me and continued. “It made my heart drop when I heard you say you wanted to drink. I really want you to stick
around.”

  It made me feel good.

  [Thursday, September 4]

  I’ve been in a depressed funk the past few days and I’m not sure why. I can be driving my car, fine as can be, and all of a sudden I start crying. I don’t understand it.

  Van and I went back to Van’s old preschool today. After the bad field trip incident, I pulled him out, wrote a letter of complaint documenting what happened, and as a result, Casey and Isabel were fired. The director asked me to re-enroll Van, so he and I visited today to check it out because Isabel’s sister, Aliyah, is still there.

  “Aliyah has really blossomed now that she’s out from under Isabel and Casey,” the director told me. “She has no hard feelings about what happened. Bring Van in, let him play, and talk to Aliyah. We hired another new teacher for the room who I think you’ll love.”

  Van and I got to the school at nine thirty, and Van was happy to see his friends. Jenny, another new teacher, seemed great. She just got back to the States after being on a mission trip in Africa, and she and Aliyah were on the playground with the kids.

  “Hey Aliyah,” I said.

  “Hi, Brenda,” she said and gave me a hug.

  Surprised, I hugged Aliyah back. “I’m thinking of re-enrolling Van,” I said. “You’re great with the kids, but I’ve been a little worried that you might have hard feelings about what happened between me and your sister.”

  “Not at all,” Aliyah said. “What happened on that field trip was wrong. I was actually happy to see them go. Casey used to say mean things and make fun of me all the time. Isabel used to boss me around and take credit for things I did. We should go out to lunch sometime when Van’s back in school.”

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  I re-enrolled Van.

  [Friday, September 5]

  I dropped Sturgis off at the vet to have his teeth cleaned and two rotten molars extracted. When I picked him up later, the woman running the office gave me the two molars they yanked, a bottle of antibiotics, and an enormous bill. But my boy is worth it.