It took me a minute to settle into rehab and recognize that we were actually working on ourselves. I wasn’t there to find a husband or to make new friends. I wasn’t even there to stay out of the bars and away from drugs. I was there to learn how to stop drinking.
I still didn’t know exactly how that worked because, it seemed, after 28 days I would graduate from rehab and I would have nothing to do except drink beer. My entire adult life, all I’d done is work and drink and do drugs. What else could there be?
Fortunately there was no way to be in rehab without learning about the multitude of 12-step programs that were available to me outside the doors of rehab. I could go to Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, or even the brand new Cocaine Anonymous. I remembered those really fun stories and laughing aloud at my first three AA meetings and determined that I wanted to go to all the 12-step programs.
It never occurred to me that there was more to it than laughing about someone losing her car. This, I guess, is why we did so many therapy groups.
“Group” lasted all day, it seemed, with breaks for food and cigarettes. And I looooved “group.” In group, we sat around in a circle talking about the things we’d done, where addiction had taken us emotionally, physically and mentally, and why we started drinking and drugging in the first place. I enjoyed talking about my inability to adapt socially to a world where everyone was normal and I was weird.
But listening to the other people in my group talk about their experiences…. That woke me up.
For example, we were supposed to share the worst thing anyone had ever said to us. I said: “My mom told me I was the most selfish person she’d ever known.” Though I was horrifically selfish, this felt like a knife in my gut when she said it.
Then Alice told her story. “My dad took me out to the garden and pointed at all the weeds growing between the flowers. He said, ‘Alice, you’re just like these weeds. You’re disgusting and suffocating all the beautiful flowers.’ He started ripping out all the weeds and said, ‘You belong on the compost pile.'”
My jaw dropped. All the other “worst things” were worse than mine. Being selfish didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Another time, we talked about the underlying cause of our addictions. I talked about how my uncaring parents had moved me from Maryland to Virginia “right in the middle of 8th grade!” Imagine!
Then Keisha told her story. “My big brother walked me to school in the mornings,” she said, crying quietly. “Every day he pulled me into the bushes to have sex with him.” Keisha started choking, sobbing, and fell out of her chair onto her knees in the middle of group. “I was eight!” she wailed. “I was just a little girl!” Keisha screamed and moaned and wailed. I stared, confused and stunned.
Friendships inevitably happened; we all formed a tight bond. Everyone’s favorite person was Junior, who graduated halfway through my stay. Junior deservingly won the “Most Likely To Stay Sober” award. We all applauded, proud and excited for him to start his sober journey.
We all watched Junior from the rehab window as he got into his friend’s car to leave. Junior stuck his head out the window, holding up his drink to say “Cheers!” as they pulled away.
Junior’s drink? A can of Budweiser.
Don was short with blond hair and glasses. I was still under the mistaken impression that people with glasses were smarter than people without glasses. So I chose Don from all the rehab men and fell in love.
Don taught me how to play chess, and we played during all of our down time. I learned quickly and loved the game. From the rehab library, he acquired a book called The Little Prince, which was just exactly the kind of book that I loved, and told me it was a must-read. He filled my Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book with words of fondness and encouragement, like he was signing a yearbook.
And when we figured out how to pull it off, Don snuck into my room at night to have sex with me. It was against every rule; we could have been thrown out. Since it was over in two minutes, he disappeared without being caught.
On Family Visitation Day, my parents arrived and I introduced them to Don. I saw them exchange glances with each other – a boyfriend in rehab?! – but they just said, “Nice to meet you.”
“He’s so smart!” I told them. “He taught me how to play chess and he gave me this book and ….” I trailed off as Don went to greet his visitor.
Don’s visitor was a 250-pound woman who towered over him by at least six inches. He walked up to her and greeted her with a big hug and a long kiss, which is how I found out that Don had a girlfriend.
Don and the woman were holding hands and smiling goofily at each other for a few minutes before my mom spoke. “Take a look at the person he’s chosen,” she said. “Watch how they interact. It might tell you something about him that you didn’t know before.”
Until that moment, it had never occurred to me to judge my potential husbands by their behavior. I took one look at a man, determined his entire personality by my first impression, and then tried to force a marriage in spite of any glaring defects. I focused on twisting my ideals into relationships, rather than working with the human beings I called “boyfriends.”
Looking back, the men who were good choices for marriage were the ones who were emotionally available, kind to me, and loving, supportive partners. They were the ones I knew before I went off the deep end into alcoholism.
As the years progressed, I sought men who were emotionally unavailable, mentally unstable, incapable of being supportive or even understanding me. Being sick meant that I gravitated toward sickness.
In rehab, and for years afterward, I was still very sick.
After Family Visitation Day, I didn’t know how to process Don. We still played chess but when Don suggested we have sex again, I firmly declined, stating “rehab rules.” While I still considered Don my rehab boyfriend, we remained platonic but flirty until he left – about a week before I did.
Sidelining my “relationship” in rehab was the smartest thing I did while I was there. Surprise! I’d been wasting my time trying to find a husband while in rehab. (What a story for the grandkids!) I started to more fully engage in the multitude of self-help opportunities: support groups, therapy, social groups, reading and games. We were getting to know ourselves, many of us for the first time.
And I needed that. I wanted to care for Young Kirsten, from my dream. I wanted to learn and grow. So I started to pay attention.
Rehab consisted of two parts: detox and rehabilitation.
For me, detox lasted three days. I had my own room and I slept a lot. Food was provided on a regular schedule, and I ate some of it. I left my room and wandered around a bit, wondering how this place could possibly keep me sober. There was nothing to do. I watched TV in the common area.
Zane, a very tall patient with a dark beard, wandered into the common area a few times. He seemed quiet and reserved, as all of us did, as we stared at the television. Once he got up to leave, took ten steps or so, then fell abruptly to the floor. He started to seize violently, foaming at the mouth, eyes completely rolled back in his head.
Staff appeared from nowhere, jostling him about and saving his life.
Later I asked a nurse what had happened to Zane. “Seizure,” she said. “It’s why you’re in detox. We need to make sure you are physically able to go into rehab.”
“I thought I was in rehab,” I said.
“This is just detox,” she said. “Rehab is in another building.” This was news to me. I thought sleeping, eating and watching TV were all we would do.
“Well at least I won’t have a seizure,” I told her. “I mostly just drank beer.”
“Zane’s an alcoholic,” she said. “Never did a drug in his life. Anyone can have a seizure.”
This terrified me. Mere hours later, I was moved into the rehab side of the facility, where I never saw Zane or anyone else from detox. This also terrified me.
But somehow rehab didn’t scare me at all.
We had therapy groups, which I loved, even though I didn’t like getting out of bed at 8 a.m. We had three meals a day, and I scarfed them down. I discovered quite quickly that food tasted better when I wasn’t drinking, and I easily gained ten pounds in my 31 days in the hospital.
There were lots of people in rehab, many around my age. I even had a roommate: Chyna, a small, thin, dark-skinned woman who identified herself as a heroin junkie. She spoke quietly when we were in the room together, and she seemed very nice. But out in the common areas she was loud, very loud, and I didn’t do well with loud. She seemed to have been born with a volume button that automatically went up in large groups. Outside of our room, she seemed feisty and mean. So I didn’t get to know Chyna well.
I felt like I was back in middle school, trying to find my people. In an instant, even with my love for my younger self fresh in my mind, I felt completely ostracized.
So I gravitated toward the people who, I knew, would appreciate me without reserve: the men. The women were like knives in a sack of spoons; they could hurt me if I tried to get close. Rejection by women would have been more painful than my raw, sober self could possibly handle.
I sought the people who would like me simply because of my gender, and I had no trouble getting the attention of the guys in the rehab. I shied away from women of all ages with the exception of Sheila the pot-smoking taxi driver, who was my age, gay, and tough. I really enjoyed talking to Sheila.
Unfortunately for me, Sheila left rehab and relapsed immediately. She did not come back.
I learned quickly. Next, I latched onto a guy named Don.
My parents drove me to Gateway Rehabilitation Center and walked me inside. They reminded me to take things like a toothbrush and deodorant then dropped me off, certainly breathing a sigh of relief that I’d be safe.
I was ushered upstairs alone, a full grown adult who needed to be rehabilitated. They searched everything I brought, tossing out my matches and putting my cigarettes elsewhere. I’d have to ask to smoke.
A woman checked my height, weight and blood pressure. Then she sat down with a paper and asked me some questions.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“What’s your drug of choice?”
“My drug of choice? You mean which one do I like the most?”
The woman looked up from her papers. She seemed to think I was kidding, but I had no idea what she was asking me. It took her a minute to realize I was serious.
“I just read the questions. What is your drug of choice?”
“Well I like cocaine the best,” I said. “But I don’t have enough money to do cocaine. Oh! I love LSD. So I guess LSD was my favorite.”
She stared at me, paused, then wrote something on her paper. “Do you use any other drugs?”
“Well I tried opium, but I didn’t like it. And I used to take pills when I was in high school, but I haven’t done those in years. I hated speed. Actually I used to smoke spices from my mom’s kitchen, before I smoked pot. I gave up pot for years but now I smoke pot, too.”
“Have you used crack, methamphetamine or heroin?”
“I don’t think so, but I smoked cocaine a couple of times. Is that crack?” (I was still wondering.)
“I don’t know,” she said. She scribbled something on her paper. “Do you use alcohol?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “But I don’t count that as a drug. I thought all drugs were illegal unless they come from your doctor.” Again, I was serious.
“In here, we consider alcohol a drug.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well I drink all the time! It’s legal. And I drink less when I do drugs. I drink every day. Unless I’m working, then I drink after work. I don’t drink at my new job.” I didn’t mention the times I drank at my old jobs.
“What kind of alcohol do you drink?”
I couldn’t believe she was asking me so many fun questions. “Mostly beer,” I said. “But I don’t really even like beer.”
She looked at me again. “Any other kinds of alcohol?”
“Of course!” I said. “My favorite is kaluha! Oh, but I love blackberry brandy. And schnapps! Root beer is the best schnapps, then maybe peppermint or spearmint. And I love sloe gin, but I don’t drink it anymore. It made my stomach hurt. Do you think that’s a problem? Oh my god, rum and cokes! I drank a million rum and cokes. And vodka, but only mixed with orange juice, not tomato juice. In college I think I drank grain alcohol, but it was some kind of punch and I’m not sure what was really in it. But my favorite mixed drink is a slow comfortable screw, because I like the name. I don’t know what’s in that, though. Mostly, I just drank beer. Do you want to know what kinds of beer I like?”
“That’s okay, I have enough,” she said, pausing. Then: “Alcohol might be your drug of choice.”
“Oh no,” I said. “I like cocaine and LSD way more than alcohol.”
She blinked. “Okay, let’s get you a bed.”
Over the years, there have been a million times that I’ve wondered: why me? Why am I sober and so many other alcoholics are dead? And why are so many obviously alcoholic drinkers still drinking?
I can only answer using my own experience. I tried to get sober on my own and failed multiple times. I could only make it a few weeks without anyone helping me. Then I tried rehab – a jump start that I truly needed, but staying sober was up to me afterward.
I have kicked several addictions now – drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine – and there is only one thing necessary for me to stop destroying myself. There is only one mindset that “works,” that creates a space in my life for the miracle to happen.
It doesn’t work to pretend. It doesn’t work to “try.” It doesn’t work to move toward sobriety because I think I should. Only one thing truly works.
I had to want sobriety more than I wanted to keep using drugs and alcohol.
I had to want sobriety more than anything. I had to want to be healthy more than I wanted to stay sick.
For years I knew something was wrong. For years I thought about drinking, about how it was killing me, about what it was doing to my life. For years I watched myself deteriorate; I looked into the mirror and saw those dead eyes staring back. For years I wondered how I could fix the problem.
And then, one day, I actually wanted to stop. I wanted to stop more than anything in the world. I was willing to do anything it took to get sober. There were no more reservations.
No more, “But what if I’m not happy?”
No more, “But what if it doesn’t work?”
No more, “But … but … but…”
No. More.
When I started trying to get sober, it wasn’t because I really wanted to stop drinking. I tried sobriety because I had absolutely nowhere else to turn.
Nobody else could save me from myself. I had to give up on “trying” and start actually doing. I’d been trying for years. Trying doesn’t work.
In order to start doing something different, I had to be open to changing everything.
I had to change the thought patterns in my head, to change the behaviors I’d perfected, to change the person I thought I wanted to be. I had to open my mind to the possibility that what I believed – what I’d held onto with a death grip for all those years – was absolutely ineffective and, possibly, just plain wrong.
I had to do what other people told me to do, even though I didn’t want to, and I found my people in Alcoholics Anonymous – although sober people are everywhere in the world. Some people get sober through religion or family or work or therapy.
For me, anonymous support groups were the best way to open up and be honest and still do things my own way.
But no one stays sober who doesn’t really want to be sober.
Getting sober is hard. Staying sober is harder. It requires commitment and change. And really, truly, deeply wanting to change is essential for actual change.
So one day, I wanted to change more than anything in the world. I was done with my old life; it had run its course into the ground just as far as it could possibly go.
Unfortunately for everyone in my world, that psychic change didn’t happen to me until 1992.
I walked into the doors of my first rehab on May 4, 1989.
When I finally left for rehab, leaving Gregg at my apartment in charge of Kitty, I was still plastered.
I also had to face some truths about myself that I’d ignored for many, many years. My number one ignored truth: the world is not responsible for my problems. I was responsible for my problems. And I had absolutely no idea how to fix that.
I’d blamed the world for all my problems since childhood.
I was sure that the entire world needed to change or I could never be happy. The world sucked. So what could I do? How could I live in a world I detested?
While pondering that question in rehab, I had another easily analyzed dream.
***************************
I am 24 years old, standing alone in a huge, empty room, probably a school cafeteria. Everything is white, sterile.
There is nothing until … I notice someone walking toward me – a little girl, maybe 13 years old. She has reddish blond hair, recently permed and too curly, lips protruding slightly over garish braces. She stares at the floor as she walks; her shyness is palpable.
When she reaches me, she stops and looks up, unsmiling, saying nothing.
I don’t recognize her for a moment. Then, suddenly, I am overwhelmed with a tidal wave of recognition.
“Kirsten!” I say, smiling brightly and opening my arms wide. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!”
She is scared, confused, but she steps forward. Young Kirsten walks into my open arms and I hug her tightly, embracing her for the first time in my entire life.
***************************
I woke up without sitting up; my eyes flew open. I knew where I was – in a cold hospital bed at Gateway Rehabilitation Center. I knew why I was there.
And for the first time in many years, I knew who I was.
That dream was my first step in making peace with the child I’d discarded so many years ago. I’d loathed that girl. She was duped and bullied and hurt for decades, so I’d ditched her. I’d become someone else entirely – someone tough, someone who did wild, dangerous things in the name of freedom.
But at 24, I rediscovered my inner child. I didn’t need to change the world. I only needed to find myself, to start believing in that younger me, comforting her. Accepting and loving that scared little soul was the key to my adult happiness.
Finding her was a small step on a very, very long road.
I envisioned rehab as a sort of vacation. It seemed like a peaceful place to be, where I would be able to sleep and eat and get away from my lying boyfriend.
I really needed a vacation from my life.
So I went into work and explained my situation, told them I would need to take time off. My boss was incredibly supportive, and gave me a whole additional week off.
This was obviously a mistake in judgement on their part, but I relished the extra time. I used that week to “prepare” by getting as drunk and high as humanly possible, assuming it would be my last-ever chance to do so.
But I never forgot my end goal. I called the rehab – drunk – nearly every night.
“Can I bring my boom box?” I slurred.
When they flatly refused to allow my giant cassette-playing radio, I slurred, “Will there be music somewhere? I can’t fuckin’ live without music!”
Another night I asked, legitimately concerned, “Will I have to get up early? I can’t even get up for work!”
I was too drunk to remember their answer in the morning. I just remember repeatedly humiliating myself on the phone, night after night, as I drank and drank and drank.
For the first time ever, though, my drinking had an end in sight. I knew I was going to stop. Finally, I was going to stop.
But I wasn’t going to stop before rehab; that would have been insane. In fact, the night before I went into rehab was one of the best nights I’d had in years.
My friend Jeremiah lived three houses down, having just moved in. Jeremiah – who I knew from a Pennysaver party – was whip-smart and funny as anyone I’d ever met, and I absolutely adored him. If he’d ever been home, I would have spent tons of time with him. But Jeremiah was always out partying.
The night before rehab, though, I begged him to go out drinking with me. Oh, and Gregg, who was still attached to my hip. We smoked a few joints on Jeremiah’s porch, then strolled to a bar for a handful of shots and beers. One of Jeremiah’s friends, a girl named Jackie who was also incredibly smart and funny, suggested we go to a bar in another city and we all piled into someone’s car.
I don’t remember going to another bar, but I remember six or seven people smashed into the car, Jackie and I smashed together on the seat laughing hysterically for hours.
Jackie was the first woman whose company I had enjoyed since … well, since being with my college friends. In three years, she was the first woman with whom I found a real, personal connection. She got me; I got her. And she was astoundingly fun.
“Where have you been all my life!” she screamed over the music in the car.
“Where have you been!” I screamed back. We laughed some more. Eventually the sun started to rise and I had to go home, so the driver – whoever it was – dropped off Jeremiah, Gregg and me on our street.
“When will I see you again?” she yelled.
“I don’t know,” I said, climbing out of the car. “I’m going to rehab tomorrow!”
“REHAB? Tomorrow?” She scrawled her phone number on my hand. “If you change your mind about going to rehab, call me!” Then the car peeled away, her laughter echoing in my soul.
The next time I saw Jeremiah was at an AA meeting. He only went to one meeting.
I never saw Jackie again.
In the months since I started seeing Dr. C, we’d done a lot of great work – or so I’d thought. I believed I’d come to deep personal revelations that would help me be happier in my future.
Dr. C thought I couldn’t progress any further in my life if I didn’t give up alcohol.
Suddenly I realized: he’d had me talk about the consequences of my drinking, try to count my drinks, collect bottle caps – then can tabs – to determine how much I was drinking, and talk for hours and hours about both my dreams and my failures.
It didn’t seem fair that, after building a rapport with him for so many months – now he didn’t want to see me anymore? The alcohol is what gave me purpose, kept me sane and happy. Beer was my best friend. How could Dr. C not have realized this?
I actually cried when he said he didn’t want to see me anymore. I didn’t hear “you need to quit drinking.” I heard “you are not my friend.” I felt betrayed and abandoned and deeply hurt.
But also, I knew how to analyze my own dream, and that dream had been clear. There was no denying the bloody, slashed and brutally beaten body that my subconscious created while I slept. And I remember the recognition, looking at my battered bones, that I had done all that harm to myself.
Most notably: I couldn’t feel any pain, even after destroying myself so completely.
So after crying and begging and fighting more than was necessary I told Dr. C: “I don’t actually know how to stop drinking, so I guess I can’t see you anymore.”
“You can learn how to live without drinking,” he said. “Would you be willing to go to rehab to do that?”
“I can’t! I have to work!” I wailed. I loved, loved, loved my job. And rehab sounded a little scary.
“You might need to take a medical leave of absence.”
A leave of absence sounded nice. That meant I didn’t have to work and I could keep my job! “Will you keep seeing me if I go to rehab?”
Dr. C paused, considering this. “If you complete the program, yes,” he said finally.
I thought about my life. I would need someone to take care of Kitty. I would need to tell my job that I needed to go to a hospital. But that was it. I had exactly two responsibilities.
I thought about the rest of the things in my life – the people who would care that I was going to rehab. My entire extended family would be elated, but I wasn’t going to go to rehab to appease them. I was thrilled to be getting away from Gregg; his lies had destroyed our relationship. I thought about that scary LSD experience with Bonnie, who was finishing her college degree in Ohio. Exchanging letters with my other college friend, Debbie, wasn’t going to stop if I went to rehab.
And any other friends I still had … well, they only visited to drink with me. And even those friends had been gone for awhile.
Rehab wasn’t likely to end my loneliness, but I sure didn’t feel anything pulling me to stay at home.
Plus I could go to a place where someone would feed me and take care of me for however long it took for my “rehabilitation.” And I therefore didn’t have to worry about taking care of myself.
Maybe rehab wouldn’t be so bad.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said.
After all of the nightmares I created for myself in my waking life, it was a dream that changed everything.
**************************************
THE DREAM:
I am inside an enormous, very crowded drinking establishment.
The place has a four-story-high sliding board centerpiece. Its top touches the ceiling; slick, smooth curves swerve atop the crowds below, delivering a dramatic and exciting ride.
Surrounding the giant slide are dozens of bars: glossy wooden platforms with varying themes. One bar is rodeo-style with mechanical bulls. Another is a nightclub, another a hotel bar, another dark and dingy, smoke-filled. Another is a pool hall; another has darts and a bowling machine. Another has a band playing, with swaying young adults waving their drinks above their heads. Everything is in one warehouse-sized building.
All the people look familiar; these are people I know. They are dancing, chatting, drinking, laughing.
Nobody is on the giant slide.
I’m as happy as a kid at Christmas in this place, with the music playing and the thrilling slide in its center. I run back and forth to the various bartenders and get drinks, which I then carry with me to the slide – and I am there for the slide, more so than the drinks. I climb like an ape to the top of the slide and then – WHOOSH! – I zoom down to the bottom, taking the curves at breakneck speed, enjoying the wind in my hair as I fly. And as soon as I reach the bottom, I leap up the ladder to the top again.
I run back to the bar – there’s Larry! ‘Hey Larry!’ – I kiss him, and zip away with my drink. Then – zoom! – I’m up that ladder again and flying down the giant slide, laughing all the way. I go back to Larry after this ride and say, ‘Hey! Why aren’t you sliding?’ And Larry laughs and shakes his head at me, like Larry always did.
The next time I ride, I land in a grocery cart – just an empty cart, so that when I go flying off the end of the slide, the cart catches me. I assume that I can use it to get to the bar faster, and get back to the slide faster, but neither happens. It doesn’t move, so I climb out and walk. I grab my drink, go up the slide, WHOOSH! down the slide, CRASH! land in the cart – then I hop out and do it all again.
And again.
And again and again and again.
Then suddenly, there’s Bonnie at the bar – ‘Hi Bonnie!’ I yell. ‘You gotta try this! It’s so fun!’ Bonnie looks at me, her mouth agape. She says, ‘Kirsten, look.’ And she points at my mid-section, which makes me look down at myself, and I see that I’m not wearing any clothes.
I appear to be tattooed head-to-toe, covered in scrawls.
But upon closer inspection, I realize that the “tattoos” are actually innumerable bloody gashes on my body. I’m completely covered by giant black and purple bruises; slashed, torn skin; crusty scabs; deep scrapes and gaping wounds.
Not one centimeter of clear, unharmed skin remains. And I’m standing there, drink in hand, numb.
I can’t feel a single thing.
I realize: THIS is why no one else was sliding. Because this is what I’ve been doing to myself.
**************************************
I woke, gasping for air, my battered body still visible in my mind’s eye.
My therapist and I had analyzed dreams for many months; I didn’t need him to decipher this.
I told him about it anyway.
Dr. C said, “I can’t see you anymore until you stop drinking.”
I remember quite vividly the day that I finally did exactly what I wanted to do.
I prepared on a Friday by picking up a carton of cigarettes and two cases of Natural Light beer. (“Light” because I have never not been on a diet.)
I rolled out of bed and changed it into a sofa. I lit a cigarette, guzzled some Diet Coke, then settled down with a beer to watch Pee Wee’s Playhouse and My Little Pony.
My dream of drinking with zero interference from the outside world was finally coming true.
It was raining outside, so I stayed inside blasting music, thrilled to choose whatever songs moved me. Judas Priest‘s Hell Bent for Leather seemed like a good way to start a Saturday. By mid-afternoon, I’d run through AC/DC, Donny Osmond, John Schneider, The Carpenters and Ten Years After.
I drank with purpose; I wanted to inject the alcohol directly into my soul. I drank and drank and drank.
As the sun started to set, the music stopped making me happy. I felt – quite suddenly – extremely and unbearably lonely, and didn’t know how to handle that loneliness.
I turned on the television – blah blah blah emitted from the tinny speaker. The music continued to blast. When I realized the people-sounds weren’t enough to quell the creeping sadness, I looked for other things to fill the silence. I turned on the water in the bathtub – PSHHHH! – loud, but not enough.
Kitty raced to her spot on top of the refrigerator.
I turned on the water in the bathroom sink. I flushed the toilet. I turned on the water in the kitchen sink. I turned on the microwave – empty – for 30 minutes.
The clamor was insufficient.
I made a circle out of ashtrays on the floor. It’s amazing how many ashtrays I had, considering I’d never purchased one. I sat cross-legged with my beer in the center of my stolen ashtrays. I ashed my cigarette in every ashtray, then lit another one. I started burning holes in the carpet next to each ashtray, just because I could. I put out my cigarette in the carpet and lit another one.
The stereo blasted. With the TV, the rushing water and the microwave, my apartment blared like a distress signal to another planet.
I held my breath, trying to soak in the external influences. This made me cough.
Suddenly I knew what I needed to do.
I raced into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. And there I was, after a full day of drunken partying my way, with the same dead eyes I saw in every bar bathroom.
I turned off the water in the sink and the tub. I turned off everything in the kitchen. I toppled the ashtrays and ground the ashes into the carpet, destroyed by my pathetic attempt at self-care. I turned off the TV and put a new album on the stereo.
This time: Yaz. An appropriately chaotic song called I Before E.
I flopped onto the floor, into the ash, and curled into a fetal position, every bit as dead inside as I’d felt every previous drunken day. I couldn’t even cry. I felt lost and abandoned and completely hopeless.
Worst of all, I was utterly alone.
I drank another beer anyway, then another. I lit another cigarette and ashed it onto the floor. I drank and smoked and drank some more until I passed out on my face without so much as a pillow.
I had created my dream day and I hadn’t fixed anything.
I was still me.
