Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  “No,” I said. “Put one drink in me and I’ll keep going until I’m messed up.”

  “I can’t drink like that,” Abby said. “I start feeling bad if I have more than a couple glasses of wine.”

  “That’s why you’re not an alcoholic,” I said.

  It’s funny because I was a lightweight drinker and drugger compared to Abby in high school. She and I both liked quaaludes and booze, but Abby got way more messed up than I did. Audrey, my constantly buzzed high school drug dealer, can’t even finish a beer now. But I’m the alcoholic. This strange twist of fate confounds the three of us. Why am I the drunk? I didn’t feel well after a couple of drinks when I first started drinking, but I kept drinking because I wanted to be the life of the party, the fun girl everyone wants to hang out with. I think I pushed myself into alcoholism by continually overriding my body’s resistance to booze until it stopped resisting. There’s the heredity factor, too, I guess.

  Abby and I left the Delano. As we walked back to our hotel, an attractive elegantly dressed older woman heading in the opposite direction staggered and swerved past us. Her glassy eyes were blank.

  “Did you see her?” Abby asked, looking shocked.

  “Yeah,” I answered, grateful I wasn’t walking in that woman’s shoes.

  [Monday, October 20]

  Back at home, I went to a meeting and Gerald, a charming well-to-do old man who used to be a corporate big shot, gave a lead on honesty.

  “I was telling an old golfing story, one I’ve told hundreds of times, and realized the punch line was a lie,” Gerald said. “I felt guilty and fessed up to the guy I was telling the story to.”

  As people took turns commenting, it became clear that most of us had done the same thing, like my story about the biker party where a guy named “Rabbit” got stabbed to death.

  The party was at an apartment of a biker I knew named Horatio. He was in the motorcycle club The Outlaws, and I went to high school with Horatio’s younger brother, Blake.

  Audrey drove me and another friend, Samantha, to the party. Horatio’s apartment was on the first floor, and his back door opened onto a fallow cornfield where he’d built a huge bonfire. Inside the apartment, people were dancing to ZZ Top, and Horatio grabbed my arm and started grinding his hips against mine to “Tube Snake Boogie.” When the song ended, I walked outside, where people were filling jumbo-size plastic cups at a beer keg.

  At some point during the evening, after consuming a lot of beer and weed, I noticed I hadn’t seen Audrey in a while. I left the bonfire and went back inside, spotted Samantha sitting on a couch in the living room talking to some biker, and sat down next to her.

  “You know where Audrey is?” I asked Samantha.

  “Off with some guy doing lines,” Samantha said.

  “Oh,” I said, instantly jealous that I wasn’t offered coke.

  “They’re doing more than that,” the biker sitting across from Samantha said. “Last I checked, your friend’s car was bouncing up and down.”

  A back door slammed, and a woman began screaming, “I’m gonna kill her! I’m gonna kill that bitch!”

  “That would be Steve’s old lady,” the biker sitting across from Samantha said. “You might want to get Audrey out of here.”

  Samantha and I looked at each other, got up, and bolted for the back door. We jogged swiftly through the kitchen past a deranged-looking woman with a carving knife. Another woman was holding the deranged woman’s wrist. “Don’t do it,” the woman was telling the deranged one. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “There’s the car!” Samantha shouted as we ran through the parking lot.

  We ran to Audrey’s brown Corolla. It wasn’t bouncing, but the windows were fogged up. Samantha and I began beating on the windows. Audrey rolled a window down, and she and Steve blinked up at us. “What?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

  “Your friend’s girlfriend is on her way out here with a knife!” I shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Fuck!” Steve said, quickly zipping his pants and bolting from the car. Audrey moved her seat to the upright position, and Samantha and I hopped in. The mad woman came tearing through the parking lot and Steve grabbed her.

  “I’m gonna kill her!” the woman screeched and struggled free.

  “Go!” Samantha and I both screamed.

  Audrey backed her car out of its parking space, and the mad woman slammed her body against Audrey’s car door and pounded her fist against the window. Audrey stepped on the gas and we took off.

  “I’m never going to another one of these parties,” Samantha said angrily. “Last one I went to a guy got killed.”

  “Really?” I said.

  Samantha turned around in the passenger seat and looked at me in the back seat. “This guy named ‘Rabbit’ was hitting on me all night. I finally got him to leave me alone and he started hitting on someone else. The woman he started hitting on had a boyfriend. Rabbit and the boyfriend started fighting, and the boyfriend stabbed him. We all got the hell out of there, and when we left, Rabbit was sitting up against a tree bleeding. We found out later he died.”

  “I guess you should have fucked him,” Audrey told Samantha.

  We all started laughing, and Audrey lit a joint.

  When I began relaying my biker party story, I tacked on the Rabbit murder, and after I told it enough times, it felt like the truth.

  As I was getting ready to pick up Max from school, I got a call from Janie, a cute, little twenty-year-old I met at a meeting months ago but haven’t seen since. She told me that since I’d seen her, she detoxed twice, tried to kill herself, and just got out of a treatment facility.

  “I was at a place in Florida, one of the few that specialize in mental disorders plus addiction,” she said. “I’m bipolar, you know. My parents weren’t thrilled about paying $11,000 for it. And now here I am climbing the walls, crawling out of my skin, and jobless. My parents are paying my rent, and I’m having suicidal thoughts again.”

  “Are you talking to a therapist, a psychiatrist?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Janie said. “And they don’t help much.”

  “Maybe you should find new specialists.”

  “I’ve been through a lot of people already.”

  “I’m glad you called me,” I lied, feeling completely out of my depth. “It helps when I talk about what’s going on in my head. There’s something about hearing myself say what I’m thinking out loud. It forces me to make sense out of what’s pinging around inside my skull.

  “Maybe you should look for a job,” I added. “A job you don’t bring home with you, maybe at a coffee bar or bookstore or something. Get out of your apartment and start feeling productive. I feel like shit if I’m not productive. I go nuts if I have too much time on my hands.”

  After we got off the phone, I hoped I hadn’t said anything to make Janie feel worse.

  [Friday, October 24]

  I’ve been thinking about Janie for days. I’ve been worrying that she killed herself. I should have called her, but I didn’t because I don’t want to get sucked into her life. I called her today, however. I called several times and each time got a weird automated message that kept telling me I dialed an inaccurate number.

  [Tuesday, October 28]

  I was hoping to see Janie at the women’s meeting tonight but she wasn’t there. Deidre gave the lead and announced that she might be going to jail again for thirty months. Deidre is on probation and not supposed to drink, but she’s been drinking off and on since her arrest, and her probation officer finally caught her. On November 6, her next court date, Deidre will find out how badly she screwed up.

  I don’t get it. How can Deidre attend meetings, make insightful pro-sober comments, and keep drinking? The last place I’d want to be if I were drinking is at a meeting. I’d feel like a fraud, nerve-wrackingly uncomfortable. I’d be hanging out with people I could drink with, not sober people. But maybe Deidre doesn’t have any drinking buddies left.
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  “I was feeling cocky,” Deidre said. “I was feeling like I could get away with everything. My driver’s license was returned to me mistakenly, and I was driving with it until they realized their mistake and took it back. Probation was just a slap on the wrist. So while I was feeling above it all, I sucked down a bottle of rum while I was performing my community service. The next morning, someone from the probation office showed up with a Breathalyzer and I blew a high number even after sleeping. Now I’m facing jail time, and the judge hates me.”

  I looked at Darcy, who was sitting across the room from me. She was hunched over and silently sobbing. When it was her turn to comment, Darcy wiped away tears and sniffed loudly. “I’m going through a very tough time,” she croaked. “I’m single, I’ve been unemployed for almost a year, I’m running up debt, and I’m scared. I took a part-time sales job, but it’s all commission and I’m not even making pocket change. I just came from a bad psychiatrist’s appointment. My doctor is unsympathetic about my job situation. He told me I wasn’t trying hard enough.” Darcy began sobbing again. “I’ve sent out 200 resumes since I lost my job and I’m looking at losing my house.”

  After the meeting I sat next to Darcy and hugged her. “I wish there was something I could do,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  When I first met Darcy, she was one of the best-dressed, most chic-looking women at meetings. The first time I heard her speak, she said she made good money and was trying to separate her identity from her career because who she was was too wrapped up in what she did. Lately, every time I see Darcy she’s wearing sweats and looking puffier and puffier from antidepressants. I left the meeting feeling depressed, and when I got home and began getting ready for bed, the phone rang. It was Derek from the meeting.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while and I was wondering if everything’s okay,” Derek said.

  “My husband was out of town last Friday night and I was in Florida the weekend before that,” I said. “You guys were probably wondering where I was since I volunteered to chair the refreshment committee for your party.”

  “Laura and Jane are going to talk to you about that for sure,” Derek said. Then he changed the subject and told me Henry relapsed.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Derek said. “I’m not sure how I should handle things as his sponsor. I’m getting harsh advice like, ‘If he was my sponsee, I’d drop him.’”

  “That’s pretty heartless,” I said.

  “I think so,” Derek said.

  “Aren’t we supposed to help people, not tell them to fuck off?” I said. “If people reach out, we’re supposed to give them a hand. Frankly, I can’t believe some of the control freak shit I’ve heard sponsors say to their sponsees.”

  “I know this one sponsor who wouldn’t even let her sponsee go out for a cigarette break,” Derek said.

  “I know you’re talking about Laura,” I said. “I heard her bossing Miriam around the night of the planning meeting. I have to tell you, I get bad vibes from Laura.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Derek groaned.

  “I thought I was doing something nice, volunteering to chair that committee when no one else stepped up,” I said. “Then Laura starts grilling me like a suspect. ‘I didn’t know you attended this meeting,’ I mimicked. ‘Does this mean you’re committed to our group, that you’re going to attend every meeting?’ I nodded like an idiot. I wish I had told her to go to hell.”

  “I know,” Derek moaned. “They’re planning to talk to you about that.”

  “I don’t want to chair that damned committee,” I said.

  “Really?” Derek said, his voice brightening. “That’s what they want to talk to you about. They really want a regular to chair the committee.”

  “I thought I was a regular,” I said. “I don’t hit that meeting every week. I have a husband and children and things come up. But I’m there a lot.”

  “They want you there every week unless you’re sick or out of town,” Derek said.

  “Yeah? Well that’s not going to happen.”

  “They’d like to make Doreen the refreshment chair because she and Gwen both wanted to chair the decorating committee and Gwen got it and there were some hard feelings.”

  “Good,” I said. “Give the position to Doreen. And tell Laura not to call me.”

  “That wasn’t the reason I called,” Derek said. “It really wasn’t.”

  It really was, but I like Derek. And I’m thrilled to be off the hook.

  [Thursday, October 30]

  I hosted my first alcohol-free book club. Earlier in the week, I called my friends to remind them I was making crème brulee and serving tea instead of wine and appetizers. I set the ramekins of crème brulee on my kitchen table, sprinkled them with sugar, and pulled out my blow torch. The doorbell rang and my friends began filtering in.

  “I love that little torch,” Margaret said as she watched me melt the sugar into sheets of caramelized glass. “Can I try it?”

  “Sure,” I said, handing over the torch.

  Tina and Nosey Rosy had a turn at the torch, then the six of us sat at my dining room table, ate crème brulee with fresh raspberries on top, and drank tea from three different pots: black tea, green tea, and fruity rooibos.

  “This is fabulous,” Margaret said.

  “Yeah,” Tina agreed. “I love this. Cloth napkins, silver, china—you outdid yourself, Brenda.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling pretty happy. It had been less work and less expensive than serving appetizers and wine.

  We began discussing The Liars Club by Mary Carr, a memoir about Carr’s rocky whacked-out childhood.

  “I remember chasing the mosquito abatement truck with my friends as it sprayed insecticide everywhere,” Margaret said. “No adults stopped us. They just watched us. Unbelievable.”

  “I grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania,” Tina began, “and I remember going to the dump for school picnics. What was that?”

  Nosey Rosy grew up in a Catholic orphanage and said, “The nuns scared us to death. They told us ghost stories at night so we wouldn’t get out of bed. I used to lie under my covers petrified, afraid to move.”

  “Our children are so fortunate,” Tina said.

  “But you know we’re screwing them up somehow,” I said. “Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing or saying that they’ll wind up discussing with a therapist.”

  We drank tea and talked until eleven o’clock. It was one of the better book clubs we’ve had, I think.

  [Friday, October 31]

  I met Sara for dinner before picking up Van at my parents’ house. My mother had attended Max’s Halloween Poem Recitation at school yesterday. Max stood in front of his classroom with a silver garbage can over his head and recited the Shel Silverstein poem, “The Man in the Iron Pail Mask.” Then my mom took Van home with her for a sleepover because she wanted to take him trick-or-treating.

  “Is Max out trick-or-treating?” Sara asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “He’s out with a big group of friends. It’s his first year trick-or-treating without me. I’m kind of sad about it.”

  “They grow up,” Sara said.

  “He’s probably having more fun without me.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I went to the Spooky Stroll at his school today,” I said. “The kids walk around the block in their costumes. It’s really cute.”

  “What’s Max dressed up as?”

  “A SWAT guy. My mom’s probably trick-or-treating with Van right now, but maybe they’re done. He’s only good for a handful of houses.”

  “How old is Van?”

  “He turned three on the fifteenth. Hey,” I said, changing the subject. “I had the weirdest conversation last night.”

  I told Sara about Derek’s call and filled her in on the horrid party-planning meeting I’d gone to. A while back, Sara mentioned she was looking for a receptionist and that Laura applied because Laura wanted to become a therapist. This supports m
y theory that psychology draws messed-up people who want to fix their own heads.

  “Laura was practically frothing at the mouth, grilling me about my commitment to her meeting,” I said. “Look at her face. She’s totally nuts.”

  Sara, looking thoughtful, nodded her head. I hope for Sara’s sake she didn’t hire the loon.

  [Saturday, November 8]

  I’ve been practicing yoga for six years, and let me tell you, it’s a beautiful thing to practice without a hangover. Lately, I’ve been practicing with my new friend, Vivian, whom I met at a recovery meeting. Vivian’s yoga teacher recently moved, and I invited her to come to class with me. Now we’re yoga buddies. The thing that concerns me about Vivian, though, is she’s bipolar. I’ve kind of made a point of steering clear of women who say they’re bipolar—which seems to be a quarter of the women I’ve met at recovery meetings. Sara is bipolar, too, but so far she’s been a good sponsor. Vivian, unlike Sara, is intensely loud, opinionated, funny, and sharp as a tack, so I’m pretty sure she’s not taking the fog-inducing meds Sara does. I’m kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  A few days ago, Vivian invited me to walk a labyrinth with her.

  “I’ll pick you up at six o’clock on the eighth,” she said. “There’s going to be a lunar eclipse at seven fifteen. Let’s get Indian food and start walking the labyrinth when the moon is being eclipsed.”

  Vivian said six planets were going to be in some hexagonal alignment, and this alignment would increase communication with God.

  “Why don’t we ask Darcy to come with?” I asked. “She really needs to get out.”

  When Vivian showed up at my door, Darcy wasn’t with her.

  “Darcy bailed,” Vivian said. “She said she was feeling under the weather.”

  “She’s depressed,” I said. “I bet she doesn’t want to spend money on dinner either. Want to split the bill and treat her?” Vivian agreed and I called Darcy. After some minor arm-twisting, Darcy said she’d go out with us. Vivian and I hopped in her car and picked up Darcy. At the restaurant, we ordered food and Vivian looked at her watch.