Tag Archives: addiction

“Fallen Soldiers”

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Proving that Facebook is still good for something, I got inspired enough to return to the blog.

My friend Ben posted some pictures he took yesterday.  They weren’t of his kids, or his food.  He was documenting the sheer number of “fallen soldiers” – empty nips, beer cans, bottles of bottom shelf liquor – spotted around business parks while he was taking his lunchtime constitutional.

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We all see empties around the city.  For some reason we don’t really pick up on them the way Ben did yesterday, being that these particular empties seemed a lot more incongruous on the grounds of a business park in the suburbs.  Ben called what he documented “discarded evidence of alcoholism.”

And he’s absolutely right.

Day-drinking is fun, and funny, until it isn’t.  Until it becomes necessity.  Until it becomes the dirty secret that compels us to tell our coworkers that we’re “going for a walk,” like we’re just taking a break from the project at hand, to sneak off to the parking lot (or, in my case, the supply closet) to drink.  And we’re not sipping and savoring, wherever we are.  We’re furtively and desperately chugging, praying for that “relief” to wash over us so we can just FUNCTION.

Because as I’ve said countless times, drinking – for us – is not about pleasure.  It’s about drowning the howl we’re trying to keep from roaring up.

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Ben’s pictures broke my heart.  Because I remember what this is like.  Buying something that can be smuggled in, making excuses to sneak off somewhere to drink it, stuffing gum and mints into your mouth to mask the fumes, repeating this as many times as is needed throughout the day.

AND THEN – figuring out how to get rid of the empties.

Personally, I didn’t want to litter.  I still had enough shame around what I was doing to grasp the importance of proper disposal.  If you haven’t amassed an embarrassing number of empties in your hidey-hole, you can get away with stuffing them in your purse (arranging them against other objects to avoid the tell-tale clinking noises when you leave).  I also didn’t want to just dump them out into any old trash receptacle on the street, in plain view of everyone.  I preferred the dumpster in the alley next to a popular chain restaurant.  (You know – just sauntering down a dirty alleyway in my kitten heels and bolero jacket, like you do.)  Then a quick toss into the dumpster, and you’re good to go.  Until you have to do it again.  And again.

Can I tell you how EXHAUSTING that is?  Honest to God – it’s like a second full-time job, day-drinking is.  Except no one is supposed to know you’re doing it.  You’re pretty sure no one knows you’re doing it.  And that might be true.  For now.

And I’ll tell you something else – every last one of us knows how fucking insane this is.  But we HAVE to do it.  We tell ourselves that when things calm down a little, when there isn’t a deadline looming over us, this won’t be necessary anymore.  But when you’re an alcoholic, that time simply never arrives.  Because at this point, you ARE the crisis.  The ongoing, seemingly unsolvable crisis.  But you don’t see that.  And so the shitshow continues, with no intermission.

I saw those pictures, and said a little prayer.  Mostly of gratitude, because I haven’t lived that life in almost 16 years now.  But also for those parking lot drinkers, those smugglers of artificial solace, the people who’ve painted themselves into a corner and don’t realize that they can walk out of it at any time.

Ben put it all better than I could (unsurprising, since we were in graduate school together and he always could outwrite me):  “…addiction is never invisible, if you know where to look.”

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(All Photos courtesy Ben Kauffman.)

What about Bob (or: Staying Sober In The Zombie Apocalypse)

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I’ve had kind of a tumultuous past week+, so I’ll try to make as much sense as I’m able.

My mother-in-law is in the hospital with pneumonia. This is, unfortunately, very common with Alzheimer’s patients. Dysphagia, or difficulty with swallowing, happens in the later stages of the disease, causing people to aspirate and therefore develop pneumonia.

(This is yet another reason why I have little-to-no patience with Alzheimer’s “jokes” — like when people say they have Alzheimer’s because they lost their keys. Just…no. Stop. It’s not only not funny, it displays unimaginable ignorance as to how horrible this illness really is.)

She is bouncing back fine, and was cheerfully confused when we went to visit her yesterday, but will now have to be on a fairly strict puréed diet. It’s simply one of those things we now know to expect.

So while it was a mostly pleasant visit, it’s one of those things that remind me that my life is still not “normal,” in the sense that once you’ve committed to caring for someone with this disease, you can’t ever go back to where you were prior to taking on the responsibility, even when you are no longer an in-home caregiver. This is probably going to happen again. Or something else will happen. We’ve certainly learned that there are no shortage of rugs to be pulled out from under us.

I was still recovering from a conference I’d been to last week, which was book-ended by air travel snafus going to and coming back. Some air traffic control mess outside of D.C. caused my flight to the conference to be delayed several hours, and severe weather caused an even longer delay coming home. I didn’t hit my own bed until around 2:30 in the morning on Friday. The conference itself was great, but every day was scheduled such that I was up early and in bed late. I think I averaged maybe 4 hours of sleep a night. And maybe some of you can function fine on that, but this girl cannot. So I spent most of my first day home asleep either in my bed or on the couch.

I roused myself sufficiently to attend Walker Stalker Con (which my sister and I had been planning on since LAST year’s Walker Stalker Con) on Saturday. Among other cast members, I got to meet Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.

CNDFRwkUkAAHUcmHis character, Bob Stookey, an Army medic prior to the outbreak which has created the zombie pandemic in the series, is also an alcoholic. I found Gilliard’s portrayal to be spot-on and incredibly moving, and when I met him on Saturday, I got to tell him as much (I may have gotten a little weepy as well). He was really happy to hear this, and said, “You know, I figured, in this alternate universe – you know there’s gotta be people like that out there in it. I wanted to do that justice.”

I’ve thought a lot about that since Saturday. It’s sort of comical. Like, where are you going to find a MEETING in the zombie apocalypse? And if you did find a group of recovering addicts out there, what are you going to talk about?

“I took this walker’s head off with a mop handle, and while I KNOW I did the right thing, I just keep thinking about how GREAT a glass of Scotch would be.”

“Wow. I so relate. I had to shove a crowbar through my coworker’s skull, and I have SUCH a resentment about it.”

I kid, but I’m also kind of serious. I THINK ABOUT STUFF LIKE THIS. Especially now that the companion series has started and one of its principal characters is a drug addict. We’re not exactly equipped to deal with even mundane things like paying bills without wanting to anesthetize ourselves, and here are these characters trudging a Road of Happy Destiny that’s strewn with big globs of gore and severed body parts. It gives one pause, it really does.

And it comes down to survival, doesn’t it? We’re faced with a decision. We have to make that decision every day. Drink or don’t drink. Use or don’t use. Live, or die. Maybe it’s not quite on the level of…magnitude…as a zombie apocalypse, but…you know, actually, it really kind of IS. Let’s not even get into the parallels of substance abuse (and the way it can render someone who previously had been vibrant) and being a shuffling, unfeeling walking corpse. Let’s not talk about insatiable need. Let’s just talk about getting through a day without being destroyed by something inside of you. About finding the people who’ll survive alongside you. About the importance of connections, even when shit is falling down around you.

It’s not that much of a stretch. Not to me, anyway.

In recovery, I’ve absolutely learned that I can survive just about anything without drinking. I can sit with discomfort. I can handle 4 hour delays in the middle of a lightning storm at the Orlando airport. I can be present just sitting with my severely-addled mother-in-law in an unfamiliar hospital. So, you know, I could probably deal with zombies.

It’s just too bad that Bob had to die on the show.  We would have stuff to talk about.

Today’s Rant

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Most of the time, I feel supported, if not entirely understood, in terms of my being open about addiction and recovery. Friends and loved ones take the time to read what I write, and engage in respectful, supportive discussion.

It’s enough to make me feel pretty good about what I’m doing. That’s why it’s always a punch to the gut to hear someone describe people like me in some really unflattering terms.

I’m still reeling a bit from seeing a thread on a friend’s Facebook wall last week. My friend was wondering why some people “look down” on those in recovery, and those who are still struggling. And a friend of hers went on a rant about how addicts will ALWAYS fail, we will NEVER recover, and we’re basically doomed to die terrible, scumbag deaths.

And it’s just…sigh. You know, I get that the majority of non-addicts out there still believe that this is a moral shortcoming, that we’re a bunch of pleasure-seeking selfish idiots who could just, like, stop if we really wanted to. I also know what it’s like to have lived with an addict, and been the recipient of the pain and humiliation that comes from that.  I get that.  But then I see the judgment bubbling out of people every time a celebrity addict dies from their condition: Why are we caring about Whitney Houston/Amy Winehouse/Philip Seymour Hoffman when good people are dying of X/Y/Z?

Because there are limitations on compassion, right?

I write and post about people who die from the same thing I battle every fucking day because it’s what I know, and it’s but one of the things I care about. And when I call people out for denigrating addicts, I invariably get: “But I’m not talking about YOU!”

Except that they are. Because I’m only one drink away from being that scumbag alcoholic. I’m one drink away from being the obnoxious drunk on the train. One drink away from being the selfish asshole with no self-control. They are talking about me, because of this refusal to see people like me as ill. Gravely ill.

I tend to keep it light on Facebook. I’m not the kind of person who goes online and says, “UNFRIEND ME NOW if you think _____.” But I have been sorely tempted to do just that every time an addict of note dies, because the willfully ignorant bile coming out of folks – who are purportedly on board with me as my “friend” – is enough to make me doubt just how valid some of these “friendships” are.

It doesn’t matter that you’re not talking about me specifically when you’re bashing addicts. See above.

It doesn’t matter that you’re “just joking.” It’s not funny.

It doesn’t matter that you’re just trying to point out that there are “more important” things to talk about. “Important” is relative. Would you be giving me as much crap if I were posting about someone with cancer? Don’t tell me that’s “different.” It isn’t.

I have a condition that will absolutely kill me if I don’t remain vigilant about my specific route to recovery. I don’t think it’s out of line for me to ask that folks take a second to muster a soupçon of empathy before unloading their judgmental ish on me and my kind. Because the junkie you saw that you have so much disdain for? That’s me. The guy reeking of beer sweat in the subway station? That’s me, too.

And I can pretty much PROMISE you that not a one of us sets out to become an addict. I don’t ever – EVER – hear anyone in recovery say, “When I was a kid, I COULDN’T WAIT to become physically and emotionally dependent on substances. Like – woo! – SIGN ME UP.”

When I was seven, I wanted to be a writer. At 16, I thought maybe I wanted to be an actor. Sobbing and retching over the toilet every morning, alienating everyone I cared about, covered in bruises because my liver couldn’t keep up with the steady flow of poison I was drowning my organs in? Not at all in the game plan. But that’s what happened to me. Because I am sick. My condition is in regression, and it’s certainly my hope that it won’t rear its head again, but this is what I’ve got. What I’m dealing with. And it’s no joke. And when you say ugly things about people who die from this, or people you pass on the street who can’t get well, you are talking about me.  And it hurts.

So if that’s the way you really feel, then perhaps you aren’t my friend after all.

Do with that what you will.

Sticking Up.

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A post I wrote a couple of years back has been making the rounds again, and has brought with it a bunch more followers.

I always get a little nervous when this happens, like I’m being thought of as this Sobriety Guru, like a wizened Yoda-type sitting on a lily pad doling out sagacious tidbits about not drinking, when really I’m just another clown on the bus trying to stay on board. I mean, you’re dealing with someone who sticks her eighth grade picture into pre-existing photos and works of art. I am really NOT the person to look towards for sanity and wisdom, y’all.

So I feel a responsibility to let folks know that while I do a fair amount of talking about recovery, it’s not the ONLY thing I talk about, and a lot of times you’re going to also get stuff about Alzheimer’s, zombies, and garden variety potty humor. If that’s not your bag, and you want to bail, I will totally understand. But getting sober frequently means rediscovering other areas of interest, and one of the great things about sobriety is that while it’s still gotta be first and foremost, it doesn’t have to be ALL you talk about.

Something I will address today is sticking up for yourself and your sobriety. That can mean anything from shooting down overly-personal questions about why you quit to voicing your discomfort.

Case in point: I share a practice space with my bandmates. As someone who’s contributing to the rent, I think it’s fair of me to ask that people not leave their empties lying around after practice. It’s not like I’m going to run around drinking the dregs in said empties (although I definitely wouldn’t have been above that 13 years ago), but – you know – I also don’t particularly want to look at them, either. So the other night, I politely asked folks to pitch them in the trash can in the hallway. I’m not a Puritan by any stretch of the imagination, and I get that sometimes people want to have a beer at practice. I was able to express my discomfort about the empties in a respectful way, and everyone was on board with being a little tidier.

That’s maybe an overly-simplistic example, but I think a lot of alcoholics/addicts also have fallen into the habit of being really, really passive aggressive. Before I started really getting into the work of being sober, I just assumed that everyone would immediately sense my discomfort and summarily capitulate without my having to say a damn thing. And if they didn’t, then I’d find some insanely roundabout way of getting what I wanted. That’s exhausting for everyone.

But what I’m basically trying to say is this: you’re dealing with something that could kill you; it’s okay to protect yourself. You have the right to turn down invitations to parties if you feel you’re going to be uncomfortable in any way. You have the right to ask if a get-together can take place somewhere other than a bar (I’m usually okay in a bar if it’s also a restaurant, and I can occupy myself with nachos or fries). I’ve learned over the years to understand that this is NOT an outrageous proposition. If I know I’m going out to dinner with vegetarian/vegan friends, I will order vegetarian/vegan. It’s just common courtesy. I will say that it’s interesting that this is a courtesy that is very seldom extended to me as a non-drinker, even though I’m generally comfortable with someone ordering alcohol with dinner. I’d say less than 5% of the time I’m asked whether or not I’m okay with someone drinking in front of me, and maybe that’s because I’ve been pretty sanguine about it over the years. I don’t know. It’s nice to be asked, though.

I am, however, wicked uncomfortable around people who are obviously inebriated. That’s just plain no fucking fun at all, and it’s why I’ve sometimes either stayed home from a party, or bowed out early. As I get older, this becomes less of an issue, since most of my friends by and large aren’t into getting stupid drunk anymore. Me, there is always going to be that urge, however long it’s remained dormant. I am hard-wired for oblivion, and there are still days where I have to tread carefully, and it is 100% okay for me to ask my friends and loved ones to help me out when I’m on shaky ground. And it’s okay for you, too.

Now We Are Thirteen.

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Today marks 13 years since I had my last drink.

This morning I tried to think about what I was going to write, and I mostly kept thinking back to what I wrote last year. It was just about a week before my mother-in-law went into memory care, and I was just barely functioning. I was on auto-pilot, just trying to get through every day, trying to knock off the tasks in front of me and hoping things wouldn’t get too FUBAR, because I honestly didn’t think I had it in me to deal with anything other than just surviving.

In a lot of ways, that was like early sobriety. Only I wasn’t entirely stripped of coping mechanisms.

This year was better. Markedly so. It wasn’t without its stressors – emptying out her apartment so we could move in, and subsequently have our friends move into the downstairs apartment, was probably one of the most emotionally taxing things I’ve done. Sorting through the personal effects of another person, trying to assign value to these objects, and all the while doing so knowing that the person is still alive, yet unable to tell you to whom things should go…that is some brutally frustrating shit, you guys. I found myself fighting resentment left and right, because as a recovering alcoholic, I really don’t get to be resentful. At least not for very long.

The further I get away from that last drink (warm Chardonnay in a plastic cup, in case anyone was wondering), the more I feel like I have to really make a concerted effort to remind myself what a bloodhound for oblivion I was. How many hostages I took because I wanted an audience.

Three years ago, I wrote this:

I don’t want congratulations — I want understanding.

I want the people out there who are drinking themselves to death to understand that there is nothing romantic about being a drunk. It is not a cultural or artistic imperative to be a drunk. Drinking does not make you a better writer, a better artist, a better musician, or a better lover. It does not make you more in touch with the Universe, your muse, your emotions, or the person you’re trying to have sex with.

I want the people still out there, still trying to make it “work,” to understand that nothing is so terrible, no emotional terrain so unnavigable, that drinking will not make worse. I want them to understand that it’s not a balm; it’s poison. At the very LEAST, it is preventing them from processing their grief, pain, or frustration in a healthy way. It’s simple physics: you meet with a lot more resistance when you try to move through fluid.

I want people who don’t suffer from addiction, and the indignities it heaps upon those of us who DO, to understand that they need to stop making jokes at our expense. I want them to understand that we are not less deserving of grief or compassion when we die from our illness.

I stand by those words. We’re still living in a culture that celebrates drunkenness in the form of cutesy “wine humor,” yet looks upon the struggling addict as weak-willed and worthy only of derision. There is still so much willful ignorance when it comes to this.

And there are still so many people who won’t get what I have. I lost another friend this year to this disease. Brian was beyond kind and patient with me in my early sobriety, when I was just a blubbering mass of exposed nerves. We went out for bagels, we got ice cream, we went to the movies. He understood my need to fill those first days and weeks with all manner of stupid, banal shit. He was also the only person – EVER – to get away with calling me “Lee.” But he struggled, too. It happens with us. It honestly doesn’t take much to shove us off the straight and narrow and right into a ditch. As horrible as it sounds, I need to see what happens when we start up again. In a terrible way, that was Brian’s last gift to me. I am not immune, nor impervious.

It was another twelve months of loss and transition, but it was also a year in which I remembered how to take really deep breaths. It was a year in which my shoulders began the slow descent from just around my ears to where they more or less are supposed to be. I can actually start focusing more on my job, and my writing. I can write about something else other than being a caregiver. I can write about vampires. I can create ridiculous Photoshopped pictures of my 8th grade self.

I’m beginning to not feel guilty about how much I enjoy weekends. I’m trying to give myself a break from thinking about all the things I could have done better, the things I could have done to – I don’t know – slow down the process of my mother-in-law’s disease. I’m trying not to put the ugly things I’m thinking about myself into the thoughts and motivations of other people. And I’m starting to take off some of the 30+ pounds I gained while being a primary caregiver.

I am really trying to better myself through simply listening. I’m also trying to avoid comments sections.

And I’m not drinking. Miraculous. Unfathomable. Fucking amazing.

Pushups

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The death of Robin Williams has almost everyone I know shaken. People are talking about how “shocking” it is.

The sad thing is – it’s not shocking. It’s tragic, yes. But to me, and to countless others who struggle daily with the one-two punch of addiction and mental illness, it’s not shocking when someone succumbs to it.

Williams had always been open about his issues. He maintained sobriety for 20 years, then relapsed. It’s an altogether too common story, but the public at large only hears about it when a celebrity stumbles, falls, and can’t for the life of him pick himself back up.

And this is what so many people fail to understand. Mental illness and addiction are still looked upon as matters of “willpower.” And when we are active in our addiction, our brain chemistry is so profoundly fucked up that reason and willpower have nothing to do with correcting it.

“Cheer up.”
“Get over it and move on.”
“Things could be so much worse. Try to have a little perspective.”

This is the advice we invariably get from people who don’t understand the depths that we can find ourselves in.

When a celebrity dies from the complications arising from these illnesses, there is a period of online hand-wringing. How we wish he could’ve gotten help. Depression is bad. Addiction kills. We post updates begging people who are depressed to get help. And then we go back to taking the “How Crazy Are You” quiz on Facebook. 53%! LOL.

Because it’s still misunderstood. It’s an issue one minute, and a joke the next.

My friend Kay put it this way last night: “Addiction and depression walk hand in hand into the mouth of hell.” As an addict in recovery with a mood disorder that requires regular and carefully administered medication, I am well aware of how close I can get to the mouth of hell, how many times I’ve dipped a toe into it and felt the blast. I am not waxing overdramatic here. This has brought me to my knees and has destroyed friendships, relationships, and trust. I know what to do to take care of myself now. But I also know how easy it is to go on autopilot and believe that I no longer need to do those things.

You hear this a lot in recovery: “Your disease is doing pushups.” It’s always there and always ready to take control. And when it does, it is exponentially stronger and subsequently exponentially more difficult to get out of its grasp. This, I believe, is what happened to Robin Williams. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Vic Chesnutt. My friend Caroline. I have watched people I know and love circle the drain and all I can do is stand there, holding out my hand. Some grab hold. Some don’t. This is the reality of it.

There’s help. There’s hope. And it begins with understanding.

This is me making this about myself.

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I think I was in ninth grade when I first experienced the aftermath of a death of a classmate. She wasn’t anybody that I was particularly close to; in fact I don’t think she could even be called a passing acquaintance. But I remember the makeshift “counseling center” that was assembled in the school’s library, which was then closed off in terms of browsing, studying, or anything else not directly involved with grief. And I remember some of my classmates becoming absolutely hysterical, and other classmates’ whispered opinions over whether or not someone was in the library crying “for attention,” as opposed to genuine horror over the idea that death can sweep in and grab a 14-year-old who just yesterday asked you for a piece of gum.

That was my first exposure to this idea that there was a hierarchical “right” to mourn someone’s death, based on any number of factors, not the least of which was how well you knew the person that died. If you didn’t know the person in some substantive way, any display of grief or bewilderment simply meant you were doing it for show. That you were making it about you. That you were doing it “for attention.”

Fast-forward 29 years. Now we have the internet, for better or for worse. We question the appropriateness of mourning in such an “impersonal” way. And the death of a celebrity becomes the subject of countless blogs, status updates, and poems of questionable taste. These are invariably met with scorn. You don’t know that celebrity. Why grieve publicly about that celebrity’s death? And lord help you if that celebrity dies from a drug overdose, because then you’re paying more attention to some selfish, dirty junkie than to REAL problems and people who die much more noble deaths. I’ve written about this before.

I don’t doubt that there are people in this world who unreservedly have to “make everything about them,” who post things precisely because they know they’ll get a virtual shitstorm of attention. I’ve given major side-eye to these kinds of antics, but in the end, I’d argue that anyone with a blog has decided to draw attention to themselves somehow, myself included. Here it is, less than 24 hours after Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment, and I’m writing about what that MEANS to me, someone who didn’t know him, who passed him on the street once, who works almost daily with someone who did know him. These are the things I weigh as I write, and they’re all found wanting. I am telling on myself here: I am doing the thing I despise by staking my claim to someone else’s tragedy. I am a tragedy vulture. Pass the carrion.

When it comes down to it, I have no right to sit here and write about the fact that I burst into tears when I found out.

But I am going to write about it anyway: I burst into tears of pure terror.

Philip Seymour Hoffman had 23 years of sobriety. 23 years of continuous, daily reprieve from the compulsion to completely destroy himself. That compulsion is something I identify with. It is the most horrifying thing in the world to live with, when it’s actively raging in your brain to the point where the need is primal, cellular: every cell in your body screams for it. And it has fuck-all to do with pleasure. You know in your very soul that the “relief” you’re getting is artificial, and temporary. But it is your only option. You simply cannot see any other way out.

Except some of us do find a way out. And we can go for a long time without whatever it was that we needed so desperately. Philip Seymour Hoffman went 23 years. And then he started abusing prescription pills. I need to stress that: heroin is likely what killed him, but pills are what took him out. Pills. We all hiss in an almost superstitious way when we hear “heroin.” Heroin is for people on the very bottom rungs. Heroin doesn’t happen to people who have it all. We shake our fists and bewail heroin as the killer, nobody wanting to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that very often, there are “normal,” “acceptable” substances that pave the way to chasing the dragon. That alcohol kills more people than heroin.

There’s an artist I occasionally follow on Twitter. The day before Philip Seymour Hoffman died, she was tweeting about how having a drink ended her writer’s block. And several of her fans chimed in along the lines of: “Yes! Write drunk! Have a shot before embarking on anything creative! Yay!” And I thought, “This is the mindset that kept me so unwell for so many years.” This is just one of the things that could conceivably end my 11+ years of sobriety, if I don’t remain vigilant. I don’t know if people understand how very fragile sobriety is. I certainly didn’t give it as much thought I should have, until yesterday, hearing that someone with 23 years caved, gave in, and got himself killed.

That is terrifying. So terrifying that I sat on my couch and sobbed.

And so this is me making this about myself. I am frightened. I am angry. I want people to stop being so goddamned cavalier and irresponsible when it comes to addiction, to alcohol, to passing judgment. Myself included.

Horror Story

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Lest everyone think I only write about deep matters, I would like to take this time to talk about a television show.

This one.

It’s long been established that I have a predilection for anything creepy, spooky, gory, bedecked in cobwebs or performed by Peter Murphy. Not too many television shows deliver almost all of the aforementioned goods (as far as I know, Peter Murphy has yet to appear on an episode).

It’s not for everyone. People who are easily frightened/grossed out/offended would do well to stay far, far away from this show. Because it can be frightening. It can be quite gross. And just when you think there’s a line this show WON’T cross, it will go ahead and cross it. Yea, verily, it will leap over it, run circles around it, and even double back and cross it again. It “goes there,” and brings back souvenirs – mental postcards that will never be purged from your brain, never. Ever.

So if you’re not versed in all things American Horror Story, here’s the deal: it’s in its third season. Each season is a different story. There are no returning characters, but there are returning actors. Jessica Lange is always there. Ditto Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and Lily Rabe. Season One takes place in a haunted mansion in Los Angeles. Season Two – a mental asylum in Massachusetts. This season focuses on a coven of witches who live in a private school for “exceptional girls,” in New Orleans.

This time around, Lily Rabe plays an ostracized witch who also happens to be obsessed with Stevie Nicks. It’s PERFECT. The cast this season includes Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Gabourey Sidibe and Patti LuPone, which has led my friend (and Cohort In All Things Creepy) Dan and I to rename it American Horror Story: Bitches.

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I have friends who turn up their noses at it, in the main because they think it’s “derivative.” Of course it’s derivative. Horror stories ARE derivative. Personally, I enjoy catching the references to other horror movies. I enjoy that a story about witches suddenly brings on a herd of zombies, and then turns into a scene straight out of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Derivative, you say? BRING IT, I say. I laugh like hell every single episode. Every one.

And, because I’m an alcoholic and notice these things, every season deals in some way with addiction. Jessica Lange is always portraying someone in the throes of alcoholism: Constance, the aging, failed actress in Los Angeles; Sister Jude, the former barroom chanteuse/hit-and-run driver turned nun; Fiona, the coven’s leader (or “Supreme”) whose powers are not enough to stop her aging.

Fiona can raise the dead, erase memories, persuade people to do her bidding….but so much more in her life is out of her control, and so she lies, she covers up, and all the while pops pills and drinks as her carefully-created façade crumbles around her. It’s about as accurate a portrayal of a woman alcoholic as I’ve seen. The witchcraft element just drives the point home. You can’t fix everything, no matter how much power you think you have, no matter how much you try to control the outcome.

And that, I think, is the real horror at the heart of it all.

Symbols and dishonesty.

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One of the things I knew I’d have to work on the hardest, once I managed to get the “not drinking” thing more or less under control, was my niggling habit of being a total liar.

I think that’s one of the things that kept me drinking long after drinking ceased to work, to be honest (see what I did there?).

In the time I’ve been sober, and in the time I’ve been hanging around other sober people, I’ve come to understand that they’re pretty well entwined, substance abuse and telling whoppers.  They’re reactive behaviors.  I did both as a response to what I was perceiving.  I did both because they (very temporarily) provided a quick “hit” of relief whenever I was feeling any kind of discomfort.  I drank, and I lied, because these things allowed me to be somebody other than I was.

Feeling awkward in a social situation?  Drink.

Feeling like I’m somehow going to be found wanting when weighed against someone else?  Lie.

Yes, I’ve read that book.  Yes, I am also a fan of that movie.  Yes, I know who that obscure German industrial band is.

Will I be more interesting to you?  Then I will say these things.  And I will drink so that these things pour out of me like bad poetry into a spiral notebook.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Years ago, I read a biography of Edie Sedgwick, and was struck by something she did during her time living in Cambridge.  She was hanging around with a lot of Harvard University students, and while they adored her, and despite the fact that she was studying sculpture, she insisted on walking around Harvard Square with a hardcover copy of A Tale of Two Cities.  I related immediately to this little quirk.  I grasped that she, in essence, wanted everyone to believe she belonged there.  Simple enough to carry a book around and appear as though you’re well-read.  Just pray that nobody asks you what you’re reading.

When I was in college, I went to Cocoa Beach one weekend with my roommate, her boyfriend, and a guy I thought I was seeing.  I wasn’t really clear on what we were supposed to be to one another.  And this little weekend getaway was going to clear that up for me.  He’d hold my hand, put his arm around me, and I’d think that maybe he was heading into boyfriend territory.  But then we went out for coffee at some diner, and after we’d ordered, he closed his eyes for a few moments and then looked at me, meaningfully.  “I just sent a thought to someone.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.  I sent it to the girl I’m in love with.”

He then proceeded to tell me what a complicated relationship they’d had, but she was in Michigan.

“I see.  Did she get it?”

“I think so.”

“Well, maybe she’ll send a…thought…back to you.”

The next morning, my roommate and I went to get breakfast to bring back to the condo in which we were staying.  And I ducked into Ron Jon.  And it was in Ron Jon that I found myself seriously considering buying a used surfboard.  Just to have in my room, you know.  In case someone walked by and saw it and would come to the conclusion that I was….Gidget.  Or something.  I was so craving reinvention at that moment, was so desperate than to be anyone other than the girl sitting across from a guy who was “sending thoughts” to another girl in fucking Michigan, that the complete absurdity of buying a surfboard was nowhere in my thought process.

Fortunately, common sense – in the form of my roommate – prevailed:  “And how in the hell are we supposed to get that back to the dorm, Lees?  Jesus.  You’re insane.”

Edie’s book.  My (potential) surfboard.  External symbols of an internal need to be someone other than who we are, because who we are seems woefully inadequate.  Edie became a drug addict.  I became an alcoholic.  Edie died before having a chance to get at the painful truth about herself.  I’m trying to be more honest with myself.

Drunk Dialing

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I overheard some cute young thing giggling about having had maybe a TAD too much to drink the other night, and calling someone who may or may not have been her boyfriend.

I had to think back a bit…more than a bit, really, because a) my twenties were KIND OF a long time ago, and b) I haven’t been drunk since I was 31 years old. I had to think back and recall if I’d ever engaged in “drunk dialing.”

I mean, it’s entirely possible that I DID, and I just have no recollection of it, and my friends and loved ones are just too nice to tell me. But my friends and loved ones have never had any problem with telling me about the times I puked in their cars, crashed into their living room furniture on my way to the floor, or otherwise behaved in very unladylike ways. I can’t imagine they’d hold back on any phone calls I placed to them at drunk o’clock in the morning.

I seem to remember wanting to call people, but some odd sense of self-preservation would kick in, something that told me that no matter who I was to these people, not a one of them would be any too pleased to be hearing from me. Now, this same sense of self-preservation never stopped me from drinking myself into churning melancholia, but it did spare me the humiliation of slurring sweet nothings into the phone.

What I DID like to do was write. I have some very terrifying notebooks of stuff I thought was amazing and brilliant when I was completely scuttered. I would write in this crazy, upended Gothic scrawl, and cry because I was so very moved by what was pouring out of me, unhindered by the inner editor I’d managed to drown in bourbon. Drinking slowed the chattering in my head long enough to get it out on paper. Because I was also quite mad, and I romanticized the madness along with the drink, as so many of us tend to do.

Those of us addicts who also possess any sort of artistic bent frequently labor under the delusion that we can’t function without our substances. We are more of, and in, the moment when we’re intoxicated. Add mental illness into that mix and some of us really don’t want to surrender our version of reality.

Here’s something I tell people who start in with that “I play/write/paint better when I’m altered” – Jack Kerouac might have done a lot MORE if he hadn’t died, at age 47, of bleeding esophageal varices caused by cirrhosis. Without going into graphic detail, it’s a pretty horrific way to die. Is it worth putting your body through that just to have something that might or might not get published? MAYBE your output is better because you’re drinking or using, but frankly I think you’re cheating yourself. The stuff that I wrote when I was drunk? 98% pretentious crap. The other 2% was somewhat decent material that I found a place for in the work I didn’t have to chemically coax out of myself.

A funnier anecdote – a sober friend of mine is an architect. He would get blunted and hit his worktable and come up with TOTALLY GENIUS DESIGNS that he’d look at in the morning while saying, “What. The. Fuck.”

I guess what I’m driving at here is this pursuit of lowered inhibitions. We want to be able to say the things that don’t come as easily when we’re sober. The problem is that what we set out to say very seldom comes out as planned. If we’re lucky, it’s something we can laugh about, like the girl I overheard yesterday. Make it a habit, though, and we rob ourselves of genuine communication.