Pick Your Poison: a civilized cocktail in a pretty glass? Or a bottle of Mad Dog? It’s all the same thing.

Pick Your Poison: a civilized cocktail in a pretty glass? Or a bottle of Mad Dog? It’s all the same thing.

I do a lot of pondering while I am driving. Living in LA, that means I do a LOT of thinking. Today, I was thinking about all the different phases I went through in my drinking. By phases, I mean my chosen poison, which reflected my lifestyle choices at the time. Or, possibly my beverage of choice dictated my lifestyle- its hard to say.

As a teenager, it was Milwaukee’s Best beer. Horrible stuff. I hated it, but I was determined to develop a taste for it.  There was a small convenience store just past the bridge in the small town I grew up in that would sell to minors. I can still remember how that case of beer held promises. It promised  something fun, something different. It meant I would get noticed, I would feel more brave, be bulletproof and charming and therefore irresistible- something awesome was bound to happen. Usually it was something sloppy I regretted, but the promise still held fast every time before getting my drink on, and that never changed in the years that followed.

Growing up in rural Virginia, there was always moonshine to be had. In a mason jar by the fish sticks in the freezer. We had to sneak tiny sips, but that is all you really needed. Shortly after that, it was Jaegermeister. Anyone who has ever tasted the foul stuff and is reading this now is probably cringing a little at the thought. During this phase, I was at some point in the course of a night hugging a toilet, room spinning, wishing I had never been born. And still, I didn’t give up. I still believed the promise, and I was determined.

When I moved to Colorado, I went through a Mad Dog phase. I thought it was romantic in an off-kilter, Bohemian way- derelict wine, Hobo wine, train hopping wine, thick and syrup-y and nearly hallucinogenic, in crazy flavors that would make your stomach turn. Banana, for instance. Or butterscotch. I suffered for my slip-shod romanticism; this was a cheap thrill that, like all the others, created dismal, throbbing mornings full of shame and regret, and a trail of wreckage that fueled a vagabond existence for a while.

I moved from that phase to Tequila. I thought it was epic to keep tequila by my bed and do a shot upon waking- sometimes to chase a hangover, but even without one, it seemed rather original to me. I was out to prove something to myself. And I was still chasing the promise.
When I got to LA in the early nineties, tequila was still the drink of choice, and Zima was new and everyone was drinking it. By the time I got here, I was at the point where I would challenge men in bars to drinking contests. 40 shots. Lets see who can drink more. It was like the scene with Karen Allen in Indiana Jones drinking the big guy under the table- it garnered respect for her, and I thought it would do the same for me. Drinking was the one thing I knew I could do. I had a fast metabolism and earned the nickname Hollow Leg.  I was also called Wolverine, because that is what I ended up acting like. I was also called a tragedy waiting to happen, because that was obvious. At no point did I think I had a problem; this was just what life was.
Then it was Jack Daniels. Oh boy. We were a pair. I would dress up and flirt with Jack, and he would end up beating the crap out of me every time. I always crawled back to Jack, thinking the next time would be different. It was during this time that my boyfriend would frequently call me from the hospital, and I would answer at 3 or 4am, asking why he was there. “Because you cut me again,” he would say. Or the time I drove through the desert with a man I barely knew but had just married in Vegas. We had a bottle of Jack and parked the car and spent the day in the desert. We don’t know what we did out there, except we were covered head to toe in severe cactus scratches and sunburned to the point of blisters. It never ended well when Jack and I were together.

Next it was Ketel One, chilled, in a rocks glass with a coke back. Finally I was drinking ‘cocktails’. This was an attempt at being civilized. Things went from bad to worse.  Nights at home I would drink Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joes’, feeling sophisticated as I prepared meals for my kids, glass of wine in hand, as if I had finally grown up. Except later I would be incoherent and my children, frightened. Or I would switch to champagne during the holidays, again, very civilized, in a Waterford crystal champagne glass- which would turn into two bottles a night, or three. Alone.
And then there was my bottom. 

My bottom really commenced when I would buy tiny bottles of vodka for lunch during my break, while I still had a job. I am not even mentioning the drug use at that time in this blog, but suffice it to say, it contributed to the decline of me. When I quit that job, because I was convinced that everyone was crazy, it was big bottles with handles, alone at home. Handfuls of pills. I forgot how to eat. If I felt hungry, I drank. I couldn’t even chew anymore. I drank to feel slightly normal, to make the shakes subside. I drank to pass out at night. I didn’t smile for a whole year.

Finally, on February 19, 2007, I stopped believing the promise that never came true.  And on February 20, I walked into an AA meeting, and they saved my life. Why this long drunkalogue? To tell you- I GET IT. We develop such a relationship with the drink- besides the act of drinking and all that goes with it, there is that relationship with it, the dance, the lies we believe, that we feel we can’t live without. Something will be better if I drink. Something will happen. I will find freedom, I will be happier. My outlook upon life will change. I will suddenly not be as baffled by situations, and fear of financial insecurity will leave me. Every time I drank, I believed this would happen. So when I heard the AA Promises in the 9^th step, you can’t imagine how relieved I was. Here, AA was promising me the exact same things that alcohol had promised me.  Here they are-
 
The Promises
(properly known as the “9th Step Promises”)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. (Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 83-84)
 
This felt real. This felt like something I could really believe in, and I wanted it. I always wanted it, I was just looking in all the wrong places.

But then again, I wasn’t. All of those wrong places lead me to the right place, eventually. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been there. I’ve hurt many people in my life, and I have made and continue to make amends for that. But I know my life has happened exactly the way it was supposed to, and lead me to exactly here and now, which is where and what I want to be.  Who I have always wanted to be. I am so grateful for everything that brought me to this point. But it isn’t easy, the good stuff in life never is. I earned my seat. And I am saving a seat for anyone who needs it.