when did i stop being the hip, fun, having a blast galpal at the bar at rick’s cafe? the one who had a few glasses of wine with lunch because, well, there wasn’t any other obligation that was required of me besides an afternoon nap? this past thursday i was the gal so mortified by myself that all could do was hold my glass with both hands to quel the shaking. down the bar was a gal who came in every day. quiet, with the best manicure, older and dignified–but we both had our backs to the dining room where the real people, the people who are connected to each other, celebrated their meal.
i went on a bender. a thursday, friday, saturday day drink until it’s gone and then figure out how to get more bender. i lost the ability to pray. i had an appointment with an outpatient facility on monday morning. i just had to make it to that distant shore of ten thirty a.m. monday.
i have for many years prayed by simply saying thank you for ten things each morning, then repeating my thanks and feeling my gratitude with the intensity gratitude to God deserves. i would caress each word and send out good thoughts to those people and things i had been blessed by the day before. i have never been good with the Lord’s prayer and doing a rosary of Hail Mary’s make me fall asleep. And now i feel i insult the universe and all its goodness because i can’t find what it is i am meant to say thank you for.
on sunday morning, i woke up ready to drink as soon as noon hit. that’s civilized, right? on a weekend, right? instead, i wandered around the apartment until i felt something like an electricified blue glow around my head. i know i fell but i don’t remember doing that. i dropped a glass of water, but i only know that because i woke up on the ground with the remains around me. i had had a seizure. something i had dreaded. i was a mess. i couldn’t brush my hair. couldn’t figure out the shoe situation. wallet and keys seemed a problem more daunting than d-day could have been to eisenhower.
i took an ativan. i started packing for monday. i drank with a friend, thinking i have to do everything in my power to stop the shakes. on monday, i made it to my appointment. and was sent to the emergency room. i’m now in the cardiac unit at evanston hospital. i have withdrawals.
for anybody who is thinking of quitting drinking, i have this: it doesn’t matter who knows, doesn’t matter if you feel you want to be anonymous or to hide yourself. what’s more important is to do what’s necessary (not that i even know what that is right now). you should also talk to your doctor about whether you’re at risk for withdrawals.
i went to my doctor and asked for help. i have known him for a long time and i’m not sure what i expected but “stop drinking and good luck to you” wasn’t it. if you’re serious, find an a.a. meeting. if somebody gossips about you, own it. after all, some of the most glamorous hollywood luminaries have the same problem. and if your doctor brushes you off as if you were crumbs from yesterday’s breakfast pastry, try a new doctor. neither of those things work, email me. i might not be in the best shape, but i am ready to put my hand out in friendship to you.
so i’m wearing a hospital gown that smells like desperation. i have quite a number of tubes coming out and into me. i’ve gained nine pounds in fluids overnight. i have no idea whether i have the strength to reach the distant shore. but i swim.
st. vitus was a saint martyred in 303 a.d. during the persecutions on the christians by the emperors diocletian and maximian. a disease characterized by uncontrollable ecstatic dancing is named for him. i would prefer to have a perfume named for me! but i have been experiencing shakes like st. vitus for several days.
February 12th, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Wow, I really missed the boat here, ArLynn. Hadn’t been to your blog in months. Used to read it because, years ago, as an active alcoholic, I’d suffered panic attacks which, oddly enough, ceased when I got sober. Nonetheless, memories of those attacks were still fresh, and I could relate to your journey. But I don’t remember ever reading anything about struggles with alcohol in your posts before. When I read the last three posts over my lunch hour, I suddenly felt helpless … really, totally powerless. Your posts, everything about them, read like every day of my life in 1993, which was, to use your terms, a year of pure hell–from treatment to hospitals to the nearest bar, then back to the hospital, eventually to jail, and finally out to AA, and then in and out of AA for a long time after, loving it and the people one day, then hating it and leaving the next. I feel powerless because I know there’s not a damn thing I can do to help you except to tell you that once all was said and done (the hospitals, the treatment centers, the jails, the love and the hate), I ended up in a meeting of AA, and I found my own way out of hell. I did the very dance you’re doing now from 1991 to 1998–with varying degrees of sobriety ranging from 2 days to nearly 3 years–before I finally surrendered to a sponsor, the fellowship, and ultimately the 12 steps as you know them, on October 31, 1998. I surrendered in spite of all the BS (the gossip, the judgement, the many, many imperfections of the program) because
i finally took time to see how very much I was exactly “like” the people I was myself judging in those rooms. You’re almost home, ArLynn. I hope you get there. I hope the next 14 years of your life are as incredible as the last 14 of mine have been. I hope you find that one person you can let yourself relate to, that one moment of clarity that makes you realize you have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose by making a fairly simple surrender. Good luck. Don’t stop coming back. AA is one place you can’t fail too many times. You succeed just by showing up.
February 12th, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Hope you’re feeling better. I think the most important part of 12-step anonymity is not that you’re hiding (which is what those people out there think) – it’s that everyone’s in the same boat. When our ex-Congressman goes to a meeting, he’s not a member of a political dynasty – he’s just a struggling person trying to get healthy. Same with anyone else…
February 12th, 2013 at 7:37 pm
My heart breaks for you. I’m glad you are getting help. You are in my prayers.
February 13th, 2013 at 1:09 am
I am with you in spirit, I know you can get through this. You are a strong woman. We never know what the next adventure in life will be.
February 13th, 2013 at 3:34 am
You’re going to make it Arlynn. Everyday is a fight, each one of us have our own wars with our own personal enemy and we only lose when we stop fighting. Sometimes as Pogo Possum used to say, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Rest when you can, exercise when you can, and get some nourishment in you. I think that you’ve kind of worn your self out and you need to get strong again.
February 13th, 2013 at 11:28 am
My rock bottom was being. wheeled from intensive care to the psych ward, While in transit I was looking for exit doors to run out of even thought there was a security guard walking with us and I had no shoes on and yes in was February.
And that’s when it hit me. That kind of thinking – trying to run from my problems or worse yet ignoring them is what got me here in the first place.
I surrendered my fate. I signed the papers and went in, Definitely not the Ritz but finally the focus was on getting better I’ll spare the rest of the details except to say the the climb from the bottom had begun.
We are all different and have our own solutions. With that said I wish to be blunt. As they say “Take what you want and leave the rest.” Alcohol, Ativan, anxiety, agoraphobia, This is a complex mix in need of a support team. Dr., Psychologist, Psychiatrist, support group, friends.
The last thing I wanted to do was go to the hospital (in-patient care) It took a rock bottom moment of clarity to get me there and start my road to recovery. At the risk of losing a Facebook friend I ask you to consider that option, And fight for it. Remember, you need a team to help but you are in charge.
With much loving kindness.
February 13th, 2013 at 2:45 pm
tony, you’ve told me the rest of the story in person and i totally am that rock bottom too. at one point, they couldn’t get a bed for me at evanston and advised me to drive up to highland park hospital. they’d call ahead. i remember the fleeting thought of “could i stop off and get just a last one” and then i thought “jeez arlynn you are absolutely nuts”. . . . you’re still my facebook friend. intake is still on the table. so long as i can get somebody to show up with whopper juniors with cheese no mayonnaise.
February 13th, 2013 at 3:16 pm
cheese no mayo it is!