Arguing with Sobriety written by Deidra Ciolko
I wasn’t going to drink tonight…really. I say that all the time. Well, almost every morning anyway. But by 5pm or sometimes I make it until 9 or 10, then I say I will just have one. That never works. One always leads to many. No big deal, right? I don’t pass out on the floor, or trip down the street. I still wake up to take my kid to school. I still work every day. I’m not an alcoholic or anything. Well maybe I have rationalized that. At least I am a functioning alcoholic. I come from a long line of that, and of course I know and associate with plenty of people who are worse drinkers than I am. For God’s sake, at least I only drink beer. I do dream of vodka, tequila or lovely gin & tonics…but I never go there. I won’t slide down that slippery slope. So, I am maintaining, right?
Except I know that I am, in fact, an alcoholic. That’s the bitch of it, because I am not stupid. I have always hated being smart. I even blame my intelligence for my drinking. Most days I just can’t take it. All the stupidity in the day wears me down. I am constantly surrounded by bullshit. I think I am better than this crap, except I am not. I have held out a long time put up with shit, struggled, made excuses, stayed strong. I am in my 50’s now. Isn’t it enough. This shit has been going on in my brain since I was twelve.
“If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.” Right?
I dumbed myself down first. I lowered my expectations. I succumbed to the stupidity. I played the duck, trying to let it all roll off my back. I have prayed, journaled, sought professional help, seen psychics, tried religion, positive thinking, denial, exercise. I’ve tried yoga, meditation, played ignorant, smiled valiantly, cried shamelessly, reached out, bottled it up. Really nothing has worked. I just gave up and finally went for the slow burn of alcohol. Now I can’t kick it. I have watched, first hand, my own brother kill himself with the same poison end up dead on the floor, alone in an apartment by the sea. With everything to live for. Me desperately having tried to talk him out of it, to save him, to reach him. I couldn’t, I didn’t understand it…now I do…I get it now Johnny.
I watched my father, my first husband, my sister, my second husband, scores of boyfriends and colleagues struggle, give in to, or beat alcohol or drug addiction. Yet today I am in the throes of it, I am sinking, and nobody is throwing ME a lifeline.
The problem is, I don’t want to stop. In the moment that I give in, right around that 3-beer buzz, it feels so good. It’s like nirvana, heaven, ecstasy. It is my friend, my confidant, the best lover, the comforting breast of a mother. A listening father, a perfect day. It’s a great golf game, the perfect wave, the excellent turn of a phrase…fuck at 12 AM it’s like winning the lottery or getting perfect scores on my SAT’s.
Except it’s fucking not. It’s the devil in disguise. Alcohol is a lying suitor, a broken promise, a poor excuse. It is a fucking rampant tragedy. It is history repeating itself. It’s ground hog day. I can’t break the cycle, I can’t escape. Its grip is so tight on me I am suffocated by its overwhelming love. But it is a form of love none the less and that is all I really need. It is an unrelenting lover, a best friend, a mother’s arms. I hate myself so much that I need that validation, unconditional acceptance, forgiving support… give me something. I am not finding anything in the bright hours of the day that fulfills me. I have not lived up to my own expectations. I have given up on redemption. My life is waning. Time is slipping by and I have just been existing. I am disappointed, disillusioned and angry. I am wallowing in the bitterness of my own personal failures. The only respite I find lies in the warm cocoon of an amber bottle
No one else is coming to save me from myself and I am too tired to do it alone. I am a pathetic cheerleader, forlorn and used up beneath the bleachers. I have no energy left to shake my pom-poms. Take me to the courtyard with the smokers and druggies. I don’t need the letterman sweater anymore. Gone are the days of Rah Rah. I am left saddled with sadness and remorse. I have been deflowered and unceremoniously tossed aside just one too many times. I will never be the homecoming queen, the valedictorian, or the “most likely to succeed” of my own life. I am the balding, overweight ex-jock of my high school reunion. The rode hard and put up wet mare in the pasture. The beauty queen in Mom jeans.
It’s fuckin over man…really over, and I know it. There is no hope left to be the phoenix rising. I just want to curl up with a bottle and let it all pass me by. Just give me a pillow and a quilt. A day filled with soap operas, sad movies, a bag of chips and a broken-down trailer. I am home… knock knock, let me in. Take my battered psyche and let it rest on your worn brown couch. Feed me canned spaghetti and dress me in K-mart clothes. I give up. There is no amount of fairy dust, motivational seminars, self-help books filled with reveries of second chances, that can help me build wings strong enough to fly out of this deep pit of negativity. Do me a favor and buy me a beer. Don’t laugh at the maudlin hackneyed application of my so-called lipstick…I am still a pig. A pig with lipstick. Whatever remains of my good breeding, my past successes my ability to be well spoken and well-mannered will disappear in the next few hours.
Because if it is after 10 pm…I’m done.
All you will get from me now is sappy stories, drunken dancing and the promise of a great blowjob. Maybe a half assed ear for your own laments. I am done, washed up, incapable of actually caring. I might talk a good game, I may even still be able to fool you for a while. I might woo you with my past successes. I might impress you with my imaginary dreams for the future. You might be tantalized by my abandon or tricked by my intelligent wit. But I am nothing. Nothing but a sad aging drunk with an amazing past and a fruitless future. No grapes will ripen on my vine. The roots are dead. Overwatered by the gallons of ingested alcohol and saturated by my salty tears of my despair.
Take me to an AA meeting. Look beyond my bravado. Realize the potential but don’t talk to me about because it I won’t believe you. Offer me a buoy in the dark sea of my psychosis. Bring me a coffee in the morning. Remind me of others that have beaten a fate worse than mine. Tell me you will hold my hand, be there for me on the other side. Recognize my potential and offer me an alternative to the dingy apartment my mind lives in now, crawling with the cockroaches of my own discontent. Over run by the rats of my fear.
I am afraid…. utterly terrorized, of you, dear SOBRIETY… but more importantly of myself. What could I possibly become now? Who would I be if I wasn’t the junkie of inebriated joy? Some pathetic AA groupie? A crunchy granola health nut? Some righteous reformed bull shitter? Show me who I can be now. I cannot fulfill the dreams of my past. That door of opportunity has closed. What do you have to offer me other than the Lord’s Prayer and a bunch of Hail Mary’s on the way up the twelve steps? Can God really grant me the serenity that has so long eluded me? I doubt it…know that I doubt sobriety more than I even doubt my drunken self. I am safe when I am drunk. Safe from myself and any inclination of struggle.
It is easy for me now to wake up and hate myself. I am a pro at navigating the terrain I currently tread. I’ve got no sea legs for abstinence. I cannot function on that even surface. And what will I do when the road gets bumpy? What will I do on the bad days? Go for a run, cook a gourmet meal, and write a few pages of my book? All of that I know how to do so well already…under the influence and with the help of my partner, Mr. Alcohol.
Even if I was inclined to stop the madness it wouldn’t be today. I have a fridge full of cold ones and a fistful of dollars. I HAVE NOT REACHED ROCK BOTTEM and no life changing tragedy has befallen me. (Really? What am I demented?) I am still whole, right? Well maybe not whole but well pieced together. Not today please I am not ready. Where shall I wait for you sobriety? In the street, by the dumpster, or sleeping on a bench in the park? Things are not that bad. I have a few more good highs in me, don’t I?
What???…my child, my spouse, my business, my aging parents, they’ll all be alright. I am still maintaining… until the day I am not. Maybe it won’t be too late. Maybe my novel will be done by then and I will leave them well set up, posthumously caring for the people who have loved me. Isn’t that enough? Won’t that be a tragic marketing ploy? They could forgive me, right? After all I made it this far. I played the game. I followed the rules. I faked it. I’ve kept up my responsibilities. Isn’t it my turn? Isn’t it my time. Don’t judge me.
Do you think abstinence will love me unconditionally, like the liquor does? It never judges me. It leaves me to my own devices. It has long nourished my neurosis. It is a long-lost friend in these deflated days of the autumn of my life. Alcohol has picked up the pieces, spurred me on during the times of trouble and eminent pathetic self-reflection. It has fed me in my frenzy of confusion, lulled me off to slumber when I COULD NOT SLEEP FOR all MY WORRIES AND STRIFE.
Doesn’t it deserve some recognition? A grandiose farewell party. Don’t call my curfew. Let me dally in-sub ordinance. I never really got to be a teenager. Grant me some sophomoric indulgence. Just a little longer. I am about to make out with the star quarterback. And everyone will soon see I am the prom queen of my own dreams. I will be vindicated at the homecoming and everything with be rosy and bright, everything will be alright. Won’t it? Don’t be the angry dad and call me home. I am finally starting to enjoy myself. Don’t take away my bottle…I’m just not ready.
Until I am, then I do too beg the universe for a second chance. Every sweaty, panicked dizzying morning. Head pounding and day looming. Yes, then I pray. I worry, I cry, I promise… my own blurry eyed reflection in the mirror…
“No more drinking. Just cut back a little. Don’t you have any will power?”
“Of course, you do. Today will be the day…” I tout to the angel on my right shoulder.
Every morning I wash my face and go forth into the dawn with some renewed hope. Oh, the ever-elusive hope. By nightfall it has eaten away at my morning strength until it is in shreds. Even the scotch tape and Elmer’s glue of my fortitude is eroded. I take a sip. Just one I think, just one drink…
Then it becomes one day more lost to intemperance. All day I have been scouring the shops of my mind for the cloak of abstinence, but it has eluded me like the perfect shoes. Instead I put on my feet the well-worn moccasins of my current state of inebriation, they don’t let me down. Maybe one day the dogs of my soul will chew them up and bury them in my yard never to be seen again.
Until then I take a sip, I throw my future into the still… of the night.