I don’t like to think about the past. It takes me too close to the times and textures I’ve spent every minute and mile trying desperately to forget. The lines blur between what was and what I want to remember; often I paint images of my mother a lighter shade to make up for the comfort she sometimes lacked. She loved me, fiercely, but from such a place of loneliness that hugs were too much to bear. I don’t want to remember her tears. The times she thought I wasn’t there to hear her crying, bathroom door cracked, bottle on the counter, her fear of not being good enough pouring out with every shot she swallowed.
Sometimes I am her.
I spent most of the summer before I entered high school grounded, prohibited from leaving my mother’s sight for fear I’d end up dead. Of course, I thought this was an overreaction. Didn’t everyone in our small rural Western Pennsylvanian town drink? Maybe not everyone ended up on a gurney being force fed charcoal by the ER staff the first night they tasted booze but certainly everyone drank. I was thirteen the first time my lips touched a sip and I discovered what I thought was freedom. Incidentally this was also the first time I’d tell myself alcohol wasn’t a problem even after the police and my parents suggested it most certainly was.
The night started with a note.
Sara would come over before my parents left for dinner to “get ready.” We would sneak a little liquor from the (later padlocked) cabinet my parent’s stored in the finished basement next to nautilus equipment and a treadmill no one ever used. We would walk the mile from my house to “downtown” – a quaint street lined with protestant churches, family run pizza shops, and a one screen movie theater where you could see a show for just a dollar.
We would look for harmless teenage trouble, but I didn’t realize I’d find my forever struggle.
Sara was different from me in all aspects but privilege and desire. Her father owned an antique jewelry store we’d often visit after school on our walks through town hunting boys to flirt with. Sauntering in the front door with a “ding,” we would lie about our plans and ask for “movie” money and a ride home after the late show of whatever was playing. He would pull $20 for each of us from his billfold fat with hundreds and remind us to “be good” in between calls to gemologists and questions from customers. Her strong calves would tense as she stood on tiptoes to kiss him goodbye and around the corner we would waltz, removing our cheerleading jackets so no one would recognize us smoking cigarettes in the alley.
We were unmistakable though really.
Her white-blond hair whispering around porcelain features, piercing blue eyes set perfectly above her pointed nose and slender waist hiding the power and strength seen in gymnast legs. My tanned cleavage increasingly hard to cover with mocha curls wild and long, almond eyes nearly black and always mischievous as though I knew what men were thinking as they whistled from across the parking lot, not realizing we were no more than children, children wishing away the last of our innocence with each drag of stolen cigarettes. We shared the belief we were too big for our backwards country town and the privilege that comes with parents who show you that more is possible.
It was that belief that convinced me to drink my whiskey straight the night of my first underage.
Sara didn’t mind the carbonation tingling her throat and mixed Pepsi with the shots we poured in her empty Gatorade bottle. With two “to go” bottles mixed and stashed in our backpack, my parents out for a night of shopping for new patio furniture to put around the pool, we set off towards town, determined to drink every sip before we got there.
It wasn’t the first sip that gave me relief…
It didn’t happen the way some alcoholics explain the first taste filling a hole in the chest, rather it hit me hard as I rounded the corner on to Broad Street. All at once I felt like the world had melted around me and I was swimming through the air. Colors were bright and soft, a watercolor painting shimmering under summer sun. I felt a confidence in my stagger. Each step and swig brought me closer to the woman I thought I was, the alcoholic I’d later become. I remember walking into the sandwich shop and slurring as I asked to use the phone.
“Come play…”
The words spilled from my mouth into the receiver, and I tried to hold my head above the counter so as to not arise suspicion. I’d called my boyfriend, the clever bassist of a popular local band; he was a few years older, wiser, and more worldly. A hockey player with wiry black facial hair and creative way of seeing the world he’d experienced more of than me; I often wondered what he saw in me. Though this night was no exception, I was feeling courageous. I wanted him to see me in this light. But even if he would have come to meet me, I wouldn’t have remembered. I was weeks away from breaking up with this boy in search of another. He was pressuring me to have sex and when I sobered up, I somehow still had enough self-respect to know I wasn’t ready.
I thanked the cashier, manners mattered even though I was weaving and wobbling like I’d just learned how to use my legs, bought a chocolate chip cookie and met Sara outside the front door. I stuffed the cookie in my mouth and the world went dark.
This would be the first of many blackouts.
I’d like to say eventually I remembered how I ended up in the back of a police cruiser in the alley just behind the sub shop, but even with full replays of the story in the weeks and years to follow, those memories are forever forgotten. Stretching across from me at cheerleading practice, Sara later told me I face planted on the sidewalk just as the local cops cruised by. Despite her best efforts to sober me up with a punch to the face and a last-ditch effort to hide her drunk best friend by pulling me around the corner, we were caught red-handed, those “to-go” bottles evidence of our plans to get wasted walking through our sleepy little town.
I remember coming to in the ER, sobbing between urges to vomit while my dad and his girlfriend looked on with sympathy.
The nurses had called him, unable to reach my mother, when the police brought me in with alcohol poisoning. I remember thinking, “at least he understands” as I felt my world shrink down in disbelief. How could this have happened? I only drank a bottle of whiskey in 45 minutes. I ate that cookie, wasn’t food supposed to help? My mom walked in, worry creasing her forehead, followed by my stepfather who simply shook his head. After hours of promising to never drink again, the hospital released me to my parents. Underage drinking charges, a court appearance, and hours washing police cars for community service would soon follow, but for that night the chaos I caused was over.
I couldn’t wait to do it again.
No amount of disappointment from those I loved would make me quit. This would become a theme throughout my life but at thirteen I thought I was just unlucky. If the cops hadn’t seen me face down on the sidewalk, no one would have cared how drunk I got that night. And the freedom I felt from the restraints of my own skin was clearly enough reason to give it another go. I wasn’t particularly shy or uncomfortable as a teenager, but I knew I felt relief once the first taste hit my tongue. Burning and violent, I’d swallow quickly reminding myself, “it’s like medicine, tastes terrible but it’ll make you better.” I felt responsible for everyone else’s good time and drinking seemed to ensure success. Friendships felt lighter and attention seemed to scatter around the room rather than feeling laser focused on me. I could stop obsessing about my thighs being a little too thick and how awkward I felt when someone commented on my curves. I was able to speak my mind, tell them to stop or at least giggle half-heartedly and change the subject.
I felt confident. I felt the way the rest of the world appeared.
I didn’t drink every day from that point on, not for the next nine years or so, but every time someone mentioned booze, that warm feeling would creep over my body and slink into my soul, just enough to calm down my nerves and excite my spirit and knew that I wouldn’t be uncomfortable forever. Relief was waiting to be found in the bottom of a bottle.
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