They Could Be Free.
Oh, how I loved my return to alcohol.
After six weeks without it, that first drink was like magic: the slow burn down my throat, my head feeling ever so slightly lighter, the buzz of both emptiness and excitement. That first beer was golden, godly even. Immediately I felt whole and perfect and good.
It had been so very long since I’d felt good.
Instantly my raw, painful emotions were drowned by the alcohol.
One week earlier, I’d ditched my friends because they could drink and I could not. They could be free and I could not. They could dance and hug and flirt and cavort and all I could do was flop around like a sausage stuck in a sugar cookie.
My experience had nothing to do with specific people, friendships, my past or my future. I simply didn’t know how to function in a room full of people without using alcohol as a buffer. I didn’t fit because I hadn’t learned how to live without drinking.
I didn’t know it was possible.
The only thing I knew is that without alcohol, I couldn’t do anything properly. Not only could I not dance at the wedding, but I couldn’t even hold a conversation. Emotionally I ached and wailed. My return to alcohol had everything to do with my complete inability to function in the world without it.
After six weeks without drinking, beer was the greatest gift I could give myself. It returned my courage to speak my mind, to be myself in a room full of strangers, to dance to the jukebox and pour out my heart to the old men who had once dreamed the way I did.
I believed that alcohol allowed me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. And what I wanted most of all – suddenly and again – was to drink.
I didn’t tell anyone in my family that I’d had another alcoholic weekend, but I did share the news with my therapist. I confessed that I’d been drinking on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’d slept all day Monday and saw him on Tuesday afternoon.
“How much did you drink?” asked Dr. C.
“What do you mean, how much? I have no idea how much I drank. I just drank!”
“More than three drinks?”
“Of course more than three!”
“So maybe six?”
“Oh my god,” I said. “Why would anyone stop at six?”
“So how many?”
“I DON’T KNOW,” I said, frustrated. “I don’t exactly count the beers.”
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe count them next time.”
Why wasn’t he ordering me to quit?
“I wasn’t planning to drink again,” I said.
“Okay,” said Dr. C. “Then maybe we could get back to doing some real work in therapy.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s so fucking helpful.”
“Well,” he said. “I thought you were making more progress when you weren’t drinking. Maybe we could get to the underlying issues we’d been discussing.”
“Maybe,” I harrumphed. “I just think drinking helps me to live my life the way I’ve always wanted to live it.”
“Do you mean the life where you’re a writer, living on a farm with dogs and children?”
“No,” I said. “The one where I am actually free. I’ve wanted freedom my whole life but instead I have to do what everyone else expects me to do!”
“Is there something keeping you from being free right now?”
“YES.” I groaned. “There’s ALWAYS something keeping me from being free.”
Dr. C waited.
Finally he said, “So what is it? What’s keeping you from being free?”
“I have no fucking idea,” I said.