14
“I WOKE UP last night and looked at the ceiling,” the woman across from Ryan said. “And you know what? It wasn’t spinning around. I got up to go to the bathroom and I found it without bumping into furniture or knocking anything over. It was right where it was supposed to be. Sometimes I used to wake up in the morning on the floor and I’d say a prayer, before opening my eyes, that I’d know where I was.”
The table leader said, “I know what you mean. The first six months to a year in the program, I’d still wake up in the morning expecting to be hung over. I was amazed I actually felt normal.”
The meeting was in a windowless basement room of Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac. Cinder-block wall, fluorescent lights, lunchroom tables and folding chairs, the coffeemaker, the Styrofoam cups, the cookies. It could be an AA meeting anywhere, with groups of eight to twelve people at the five tables.
Another of the women was saying that sometimes she’d wake up in a motel room and there’d be a man with her she’d never seen before in her life and she’d scream at him, “What’re you doing here! Get out!” The poor guy would be baffled-after the beautiful evening they’d had that she didn’t remember.
There were four women and seven men at the table, including Ryan. He wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything when the table leader got to him. He might pass, say he just wanted to listen this evening. He wondered if there might be a trace of whiskey on his breath. He asked himself then, Would it matter? Like someone might point to him and they’d throw him out of the program. Amazing, two days of drinking and the guilt feelings were back. He had stayed away from meetings too long. He knew it, but he didn’t feel part of it tonight. At least not yet.
A man two chairs away from him said, “Thank you. I’m Paul, I’m an alcoholic, and I’m very glad to be here. You know, there’s a big difference between admitting you’re an alcoholic and accepting the fact. That’s why I like to sit at a First Step table every so often. Not only to listen, but to keep reminding myself that I’m powerless over alcohol. I wasn’t like Ed there, who mentioned binge drinking, go off for a couple of weeks and then straighten out, stay sober awhile. Shit, I was drunk all the time.”
What were you? Ryan was thinking, a moderate drunk? A neat drunk. He had always hung up his clothes at night and only wet his pants once.
A woman about forty-five said that Saturday night finally did it when she came home drunk and had a fight with her fourteen-year-old daughter: the unbelievable language she used, screaming at the child, Mommy in one of her finest scenes. The next morning she wanted to die. But she called a friend in the program and went to a meeting that night. She had come to meetings Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and she was here tonight and was going to keep coming.
The guy next to Ryan leaned close to him, reaching for the ashtray, and said, “What does she want, a fucking medal? She doesn’t have any choice.”
When the guy’s turn came to speak to the table, he said, “I wasn’t an alcoholic, like the rest of you drunks. Hell no. In a two-year period I got fired from three jobs, my wife divorced me, I was arrested twice for drunk driving, I smashed up the garage and five cars, but I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was a heavy social drinker.” There was laughter and some nodding heads. Ryan smiled.
Everyone at the table had been there.
“Cats slept in my car,” a woman said. “It had so many holes in it from smashups.”
Ryan remembered scraping the side of his sister’s house pulling into the drive, ruining the flower bed. He remembered picking up the strip of molding and throwing it in the car while his brother-in-law ran his hand gently over the brick wall, like the scrape mark was a wound.
“I wouldn’t, the way I was, I wouldn’t go anywhere unless I was sure I could get a drink,” the woman was saying now. “I’d be at a school PTA meeting, I’d say excuse me, like I was going to the bathroom. I’d go out to my car. I always kept a couple of six-packs in the trunk.”
In a cooler, Ryan remembered. Unless it was winter. Open the trunk like it was a refrigerator. Drive with the can between your legs. He looked at his watch.
Nine o’clock. Another half hour. The room was close and he could feel himself perspiring. All the hot coffee and cigarettes. The ashtrays around the table were full. Walk into a room like this anywhere, and if everybody was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes it was an AA meeting.
A man was saying that two years ago, when he and his wife were in Europe, they’d taken a boat trip down the Rhine. He didn’t see much, though. The only thing he looked for along the river was liquor stores.
The table leader said to Ryan, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name. Would you like to say a few words?”
Ryan had lighted a cigarette, getting ready, knowing his turn was coming. He said, “Thank you.” He paused. The people at the table waited.
“I was going to pass,” Ryan said then, “or make something up… but I might as well tell you where I am. I’ve been in the program three and a half years.” He paused. “I’m Jack, and I’m an alcoholic. I got drunk yesterday and the day before, and I thought I’d probably keep going a few more days. Why I started drinking again, I don’t know. Maybe because my car needs new shock absorbers. Or it was King Farouk’s birthday. The reason doesn’t matter, does it? I slipped-no, I didn’t slip, I intentionally got drunk-because I’ve stayed away from meetings too long, four months, and I started relying on myself instead of the program. I forgot, I guess, that when you give up one way of life, drinking, you have to substitute something else for it. Otherwise all you’ve done, you’ve quit drinking, but you’ve still got the same old resentments and hang-ups inside. You’re sober but you’re miserable, hard to get along with. You’re what’s called a dry drunk. Sober, but that’s all. Well, I’ve been very happy the last couple of years. Not only because I’ve been sober and feel better physically, but because the program has changed my attitude.” He paused. “A friend of mine has a sign on the wall at his office, it says No More Bullshit. And that’s the way I feel, or want to get back to feeling again. I know I can be myself. I don’t have to play a role, put up a front, pretend to be something I’m not. I even listen to what people say now. I can argue without getting mad. If the other person gets mad, that’s his problem. I don’t feel the need to convince everybody I’m right. Somebody said here tonight, ‘I like myself now, and it’s good to be able to say that.’ I had fun drinking, I’ll admit it. At least, I had fun for about ten or twelve years and, fortunately, I didn’t get in too much trouble or hit bottom and sleep in the weeds. But once I realized I was thinking about the next drink while I still had one in front of me-once I started making up excuses to drink and got drunk every time I went out-I was in more trouble than I realized. You know what happens after that, drinking not to feel good but just to feel normal, to get your nerves under control. What I’m saying, I’d be awfully dumb to go back to that when I can feel good and be myself-that’s the important thing-without drinking. I don’t know where we got the idea we need to drink to bring ourselves out.”
Ryan paused again, not sure where he was going.
“I’m glad I’m here and can tell you what I feel,” he said then, “instead of sitting in a bar thinking. The best thing we can do, besides staying out of bars, is try to stay out of our heads.”
It was a good feeling, coming out instead of beating himself down. He picked up his empty coffee cup, and the guy’s cup next to him, and went over to the urn and filled them up. When he sat down again, a girl at the end of the table was speaking.
She was saying she thought the sign was a great idea. No More Bullshit. Because that’s what the program, to her, seemed to be all about. The idea, quit pretending and be yourself… a way to self-awareness that everybody, not just alcoholics, seems to be more interested in today. That’s what had surprised her most about the program, the positive aspect of it. Not simply abstaining from alcohol, but as Jack said, substituting something positive for it, a totally different way of life, not inner-directed anymore, but outgoing.