I realize that I am actually speaking and it appears that I am talking to a couple of hookers about the perils of being a working girl. Like I have any idea whatsoever of what I speak. Not unusual, really, as I pretend to be all kinds of characters when I’m “out there” but a hooker? Wow, I look out the window and the sun is coming up. Damn! Another day shot to hell.
The girls are talking to the bartender when I look down to see that I have a red dress on and there is blood all over my knee. Tch, what now? I have a mystery gash across my kneecap. I vaguely remember something happening at my apartment, something to do with the fridge…? Crap, I hope I don’t need stitches again. I look up to locate some napkins and as I do I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bottles.
On this day, in this moment, my life is about to change forever. If there be a god, he lives in the mirror behind the bottles. As I look up at myself, it occurs to me, as if a thunderbolt has struck me smack in the face, that the reason for the seemingly eternal mess I am in is – me.
This has not occurred to me before this moment, and believe you me, that seems somewhat impossible as I was 29 years old at the time. Up to this point, I honestly think that all of my “troubles” are “just happening to me” and that I am slowly but certainly diving into insanity, that it is only a matter of time before I arrive.
Who the hell wouldn’t drink and drug like I did if they were in my predicament? They say that denial is the number one symptom of addiction. Well, here I am, one big bundle of denial on a barstool at Elaine’s on July 16, 1985 at approximately 4:15 in the morning, seeing the face of god in a barroom mirror and having a bona fide spiritual awakening. BAM indeed.
I know I must have left the bar and staggered home in some kind of existential shock, because I come to several hours later, roll over and look up “alcoholism,” yet another concept I haven’t considered before, in the yellow pages. There is the number for Alcoholics Anonymous, a “club” I had heard of only once many years ago in a bar while I was talking to what I now know to be a chronic relapser. I barely remember this, but when I see it in print, I know who to call.
My first meeting was not easy. I felt like I had been run over by a freight train and had no idea what the hell I was doing, walking ten blocks in the blistering heat to find out if someone could please help me at this “club.” I got to the sign that said “Hungarian Literary Society,” like what the guy on the phone told me, and I buzzed up. The buzzer sounded and I pulled the door open and found myself at the foot of a very, very long staircase. I remember sitting down on the steps and crying because I was certain I couldn’t make it up them, when an arm pulled me up and said, “Don’t worry about anything, you’re coming with me.” I remember thinking, “This guy looks like a Hell’s Angels reject.” But he helped me up the stairs, no questions asked and told me at the top door to just find a place to sit down and hold on to my seat because I was “in for the ride of my life.” What a nut job, is all I could think. Some cliché idiot, right?
I found a seat in the back and the room was packed and buzzing with laughter and conversation. Then the meeting started and someone was reading from a clipboard. I looked down only to find that the dress that I had put on was on inside out. And covered with stains. Ugh, let me out of here, I thought. But the meeting was already going and I sure as hell was not going to call attention to myself (!) by standing up and walking out. So I sat there on my hands (to keep them from their incessant shaking) with my regulation sunglasses on and cotton balls stuffed up my nose to keep it from spontaneously bleeding (as per usual) and kept as quiet as possible. I heard almost nothing those first days, but what I did hear that Wednesday was this: “Hi, my name is Irwin and I’m an alcoholic.” Everyone answers “Hi Irwin.” Jesus, get me out of here! I can sit for an hour through anything, right? Irwin talked on and I hear him mention that he’s originally from Minnesota. Oh – My – God – I’m originally from Minnesota!!!
That Irwin was from Minnesota and decided on that day to share this is the true reason that I’m sober today - this was the first time in many, many years that I felt any kind of minute connection with another human being. And although I had no idea what was going on and wouldn’t know for a very, very long time, I knew that a connection with another human being was something that I was absolutely NOT going to walk away from. And so, a day at a time, I stayed.
On my 90th day clean and sober, a big deal for recovering persons, I was sitting in that same room and, yes, Irwin was there too, along with other newfound friends and fellows. I was proud to raise my hand and say that I had 90 days and have everyone congratulate me. Hope, something totally new for me, had tentatively arrived in my life.
After me, they called out for people celebrating anniversaries. A couple of people responded – and then, from directly across the room, I caught a glimpse of a very, very handsome man in scrubs, raising his hand to say that he had five years clean and sober that very day. The room burst into clapping and he smiled and laughed his deep, sexy laugh as he turned to his wife, who had beautiful flowing brown hair and looked very, very nice…
Yes. It was the couple I saw so many months before, on that Saturday evening, dancing their way back home with their dog and their New York Times and their light and happy lives! Please see previous post I.A(1)(b). Oh, yes it was them. And it occurred to me then, as it still does now, that they had been there that night for more than one reason, that my life did not change on the day I walked into the rooms, that it had begun it’s journey to that room long before that - as I lay in a gutter on Second Avenue and 80th Street.
That was over 24 years ago. And I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink or a drug since. Today I too am nice – most of the time – and it’s not an act. And I laugh out loud and I have danced down a block and I read the New York Times and I have a dog and I have never again seen the inside of a gutter from a rat’s eye point of view. And for all that and more, I am grateful.
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