Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife (3 page)

“Yes.”

Charlie left and came back with a martini for me. It tasted fabulous.

I stopped going to meetings, and Pam didn’t bother to call me. She’d gotten mad at me before I went to Michigan, and we hadn’t spoken for several days. Pam had taken me to a recovery dinner where there had been a countdown. “Does anyone have twenty-five years of sobriety? Twenty-four years?” and so on. I stood up at the three-month marker and everyone clapped. They did that for everyone. When I sat down, Pam began to grouse about her pot-smoking sister.

“She really needs a recovery program,” Pam said.

“Why?” I asked. “I smoke pot once in a while.”

Pam looked at me shocked, then angry. “You just stood up and said you were three months sober!” she growled and stalked off. That was eight years ago.

My drinking was under control for a while. I had a glass of wine here, a martini there. Then I began having a bottle of wine one night a week, then two nights a week, then three. I began having martinis before my bottle of wine. Five years after I’d ditched the program, I got pregnant with Van and stopped drinking for the first seven months of my pregnancy. During the last two, I allowed myself two glasses of wine per week. Van nursed for six months and I kept to a ration of three or four glasses of wine per week. But when Van left the breast, I picked up drinking where I’d left off, which meant getting buzzed five or six nights out of the week.

By this time, we’d moved to a north shore suburb of Chicago for its great school district and charming historic downtown. I made friends with other stay-at-home moms and, to them, my life looked great. They didn’t know that almost every morning, before I got out of bed, I asked myself, “What did we discuss at dinner? Who put Van to bed? What pajamas is he wearing?” to get myself up to speed before I fixed breakfast, drove Max to school, and hit the health club with my head pounding. Van would play in the Kid’s Club while I lifted weights. Then I’d take Van to play dates, give Art Awareness presentations in Max’s classroom, write newspaper articles, meet friends for lunch, all with my head slowly clearing. But by three o’clock the hangovers were gone, by four o’clock I was helping Max with his homework, and by five o’clock I was shaking a martini.

The first martini spread “Ahhhh,” through my entire body. The second made me feel comfortably numb. I’d drink the first martini, sometimes the second, before Charlie got home so he wouldn’t know how much I had. When he walked in, I’d shake up a martini for both of us, finish cooking dinner, and uncork a bottle of wine. We’d sit down to dinner, and Charlie and I would finish the bottle. I’d clean up and uncork a second bottle. The next morning, as I pulled milk and eggs out of the refrigerator, I’d check the second bottle’s contents. Typically it was half to three-quarters gone. Then I’d tell myself, “I’m not going to drink today.”

This morning, since I could barely lift my head off my pillow, Charlie realized he wasn’t going to get lucky and got up and left me alone. I dozed for a while and woke up needing to go to the bathroom. I slowly pushed myself up to sitting. A sharp jabbing pain shot through my tailbone and I limped to the bathroom suffering more intense jabs. I foggily remembered falling while walking with Pat. Maybe I chipped my tailbone. I slowly descended the stairs—my tailbone radiating pain—and poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen before shuffling into the living room. I lowered my butt onto our antique couch, wincing, while Charlie continued to read the newspaper across the coffee table on our corduroy couch. Pieces of broken glass glinted on the floor at my feet. I leaned over and began picking up shards. My head felt like a split cantaloupe. “Someone break a glass?” I asked.

“You,” Charlie answered peevishly. “Don’t you remember? Maybe not. You could barely stand up.”

I threw out the glass shards and went back to bed.

About an hour later, Charlie walked into the bedroom. “You want something to eat?” he asked.

“Dry toast,” I said. “And could you bring me the phone book?” Charlie raised his eyebrows. “I’m thinking I should try a recovery program again. You think I should?”

“I think it’s time you did something.”

I nibbled a piece of dry wheat toast, propped up by pillows. I stared at the unopened phone book on my bed. After twenty minutes, I opened it and dialed. This time I knew I’d be reaching an answering service, but the woman who answered was in recovery herself.

“I live near you,” the woman on the line said. “There are lots of meetings in your town. Just …”

“I don’t want to go to meetings in my town,” I interrupted.

“There’s one twenty minutes away this afternoon at six o’clock. I could meet you there.”

“Uh, the thing is,” I said, remembering the Wendts’ dinner party, “I’m supposed to go to a dinner party at seven with my husband. I don’t want to go. I’m so hung over. But this has been on my calendar for months.”

“Why don’t you cancel? Say you’re sick. It’s the truth.”

“I can’t,” I said. I told her about my dinner party last night and the calls from Kelly and Liv. “They’d know I was just hung over.”

“I think you should go to a meeting.” “I’ll go tomorrow. What’s going on tomorrow?” The woman told me there was a meeting at ten the next morning.

I spent the rest of the day in bed vacillating between going to the dinner party or going to a meeting. Charlie was no help. “It’s up to you,” was all he said.

By five o’clock I felt vastly better. I decided to put on a good face, go to the dinner party, and drink for the last time. I’d hit a meeting tomorrow. I got in the shower and slowly pulled myself together.

Charlie and I arrived at the Wendts’ at seven fifteen. The house was all lit up for Christmas. Tom took our coats and walked us back to the family room/kitchen. Liv, her husband, Reed, Kelly, and her husband, Joel, were already there. Wendy was shaking up hundred-proof Absolut chocolate martinis. Kelly elbowed me in the ribs.

“How ya feelin’?”

I shrugged. “Better than before.”

Wendy walked over and handed me a martini.

“Bren here’s feeling a little hung over,” Kelly told her.

“Oh,” Wendy said. “This’ll make you feel better.”

I sipped it gingerly. It tasted dangerously good. Wendy walked away to check on her standing rib roast. I scanned the countertops and tables for appetizers.

“Where’s Wendy hiding the hors d’oeuvres?” I asked.

“There aren’t any,” Liv answered with a grimace. I raised my eyebrows. Liv laughed. “I know. And hundred-proof martinis. I’m switching after this.”

“No shit.”

I finished my martini quicker than I thought I would and poured myself a glass of wine. Wendy hovered near the oven and basted her roast. I’m not sure how much I consumed by the time we sat down to eat at ten o’clock, and I’m not sure how I got home, but I know at some point I told my girlfriends I was giving up drinking for a while after tonight. “I need to take a break,” I told them.

[Sunday, December 8]

I spied the meeting address on a rundown office building downtown. I tried not to think about where I was going, which wasn’t too hard since my alcohol-soaked brain was running slow. I parked the car and entered the building. I stood near a stairwell and listened for voices but didn’t hear any. A man walked in behind me, and I followed him down to the basement and into a room packed with people. I took a seat in the back. Just like eight years ago, the meeting opened with literature reading and I kept thinking,
I can’t believe I’m here, I can’t believe I’m here.
Then a guy named Ted began telling his story.

“Hi, I’m Ted, drug addict/alcoholic. I’m fantasizing about killing my fucking wife, my soon-to-be ex-wife. That bitch is going to have to live with herself for trying to put a wedge between me and my kids. She took them away from me and put homophobic thoughts in their heads. I saw a really bad car crash. A semi hit a car and as I was driving by I hoped my fucking wife was in that car. Fucking bitch. That fucking bitch is living rent free in my head. I spend way too much time thinking about her. She’s going to have to live with herself. But she’s getting everything.”

After twenty minutes of this tirade, the group split into two smaller groups. Half of the people left the room; the other half rearranged chairs into a cozy circle. I stayed in the room and joined the circle, wishing I could stay hidden in back. People began introducing themselves as they made comments in a clockwise fashion. Three-quarters of the way around the circle, it was my turn to speak. “Hi, I’m Brenda,” I said. Then the tears came. I didn’t even see it coming. I just sat there for what seemed like an eternity trying to compose myself, then I whispered, “I just can’t believe I’m here again. I tried this eight years ago.” I motioned for the next person to go.

Ted walked over to me at the end of the meeting and shook my hand. “Welcome back,” he said. “I was a binge drinker. Didn’t drink for weeks, then I’d go on a bender for days. The program has really helped me. I’m not even angry at my partner for giving me HIV. He didn’t know he was positive when he infected me.”

“Really,” I said.

“Find some good women’s meetings,” he said. “Stick with the women. You’re a good-looking woman and there are a lot of wolves in the program.” He gave me a big hug. “Good luck.”

Around dinnertime—martini time—I was feeling edgy. I didn’t want to go to a meeting in town because I was afraid of running into someone I knew, but I was going to drink if I didn’t get to a meeting, and I knew there was one in walking distance about to begin. I grabbed my purse and headed to my second meeting of the day. I entered an attractive building that housed recovery meetings and saw people gathered in a conference room. Two men, roughly ten years my senior, looked me up and down as I walked in. The meeting started and as the literature was being read, the guy chairing the meeting handed everyone a copy of a recovery book. He had us turn to the same page and he began reading one of the stories. After two paragraphs, he said, “Pass,” and the person on his left began reading the next paragraph. So it went around the table until we’d read the whole story.

The story was about a writer. She loved gourmet food and wine. She threw a lot of dinner parties. And after her dinner parties, she drank her guests’ leftover wine as she cleaned up.