Alcoholism is Just an Excuse.
Paul and I studied together. He was working toward getting his MBA anyway, so I felt right at home sitting quietly in his living room, working on homework. On weekends we’d get takeout chicken salads from the Village Inn and chat about the ways of the world as we munched on our lettuce.
I felt really grown-up and sophisticated with those chicken salads, but I needed to pay for school, for rent, for food.
So I got a job working for the garage-sized video store near Paul’s house, where we rented movies. I just walked in and asked for a job, and the very, very, very old guy behind the counter said, “Sure. You can start tomorrow.” And that’s when I discovered all the movies that I hadn’t seen – which was, pretty much, all the movies other than the handful I’d seen in high school.
I spent a great deal of time devouring videos during my early sobriety. But I also learned a valuable lesson, again, about how my idealism conflicts with real people.
One day I said to my boss, “I don’t drink anymore.” I giggled. “I’m an alcoholic!” I giggled again.
“You’re not an alcoholic,” he said.
“I am!” I said. “I even went to rehab! I’ve been sober for more than a year!”
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “Alcoholism is just an excuse for people who don’t want to quit drinking alcohol. They’re just weak. Anybody can quit drinking alcohol. It’s just willpower.”
My eyes grew wide as I stared. “I couldn’t do it,” I whispered.
He ignored me. Or maybe he couldn’t hear me. He was, after all, ancient. “It’s like cigarettes,” he continued. “I quit smoking cigarettes one day and never smoked again. People say it’s so hard to quit, but I quit! You just have to know what you want out of your life and make it happen.”
“I don’t think it’s willpower,” I said, fighting back tears. “I really tried to quit smoking, too, and I couldn’t do it.”
“You can do it,” he said. “Anybody can. And that’s that. There isn’t anything else to say about it.” And he walked into the storeroom, effectively ending the conversation.
I got a second job shortly after that and eventually, when I’d seen all the free VHS rentals I thought were essential, I got a job working two 12-hour shifts at Montefiore Hospital, walking distance from the hospital lab where Paul worked – although he worked weekdays, and I worked on Saturdays and Sundays.
My new coworker was not only young, but self-confident and friendly. She was happy and self-assured without being arrogant. I’d never seen anything like it.
I thought everyone was a mess, like me.
“How did you get to be so … happy?” I asked her, genuinely curious. “Didn’t your parents mess you up?”
She laughed. “My parents are great,” she said. “And I think I was just born this way!”
She blew my mind. I learned from her how to be a friendly person, though I was definitely not born that way. It was very much a learned effort to treat my coworkers and the hospital patients with respect and care.
But I did learn. I learned from both jobs that (1) I was kind of weird in how I thought about the world, and (2) I could get better at dealing with people if I really tried.
Still, I preferred holing up in Paul’s living room and talking to nobody other than Paul. I felt validated, simply because someone so smart and wonderful liked someone as lost and discombobulated as me.