1970s, Chicago, Illinois

By Nell Karmen

I remember slinking into the church basement like a beaten dog; I had a bad case of dry-mouth, and my hands were shaking so badly I had to sit on them. Somebody put a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of me. It smelled good, nice and fresh, and I really wanted to drink it, but my hands were shaking too badly to pick it up.

I glanced at the people around the table – Yech. They were all old – over 40 at least – most of them worn as an elbow; and most of them were men, but not the good hunky kind. They all looked like burned out old drunks, down-and-out winos fresh off Chicago’s skid row. Alcoholics, for Christ sake. What was I doing there? I was a nice girl. I was 27. I went to a private girls’ school. I’d had ballet lessons, and I went to college. I’d been on the Dean’s list for crying out loud. But I couldn’t pick up my coffee, and they could.

I went to that church basement because Roz said she wouldn’t call me anymore if I didn’t, and I couldn’t risk that. Roz was the last person on earth who was still talking to me, even though we’d never met.

The week before that meeting, I had washed down a handful of pills with a quart of Scotch, then I called suicide prevention. I did everything backwards in those days. They told me to stick my finger down my throat, and after I puked they hooked me up with Roz, who was in AA.

I loved talking to Roz, but I didn’t know her phone number. Every day, while I waited for her call, I sat at the kitchen table staring at the phone, willing it to ring, sipping whatever cheap booze I might have to keep the shakes down. One day, Roz suggested I go to a meeting and I said, “I’m not that bad.” She said, “If you’re not going to go to a meeting, I’m going to stop calling. I’m wasting my time here.” I almost choked on my gin.

“Oh, no, please. I’ll go.”

“But you can’t go drunk.”

“OK.”

“You can’t have a single drink the day of the meeting.”

Was that even possible? “Um, OK.”

Two nice looking, well dressed ladies picked me up. They said they were alcoholics, but I didn’t believe them. I figured AA probably hired them to be front people – you know, ambassadors or poster girls, some shit like that. Those beat-up old farts at the meeting, now they were the real deal – they had bulby noses covered with spider veins and saggy, old-guy paunches. I remember one dangerous looking thug who was covered in tattoos and missing a couple fingers. That’s what an alcoholic is supposed to look like, not like me. I was still healthy (if you didn’t count that one hospitalization for alcohol poisoning or that yellowish cast on my skin). I still had all 10 fingers.

What was I doing there? By the time the meeting started the shakes had gotten so bad my teeth were chattering; I could barely keep my hands under my butt. The trembling was coming from deep inside.

They read something from a book, then they took turns talking about themselves. One man had spent half his life in prison. One of the nice looking ladies who picked me up said she had killed all three of her children in a drunk driving accident. Somebody else said he’d just been diagnosed with terminal cancer; but he added that it could be worse, he could be drunk. I had nothing to say that was half as bad as any of that, so I kept my mouth shut. I sat there staring at my coffee, shaking from the inside out.

I could have told them about the time I went out at midnight in my nightgown to try and buy a pint of whiskey with food stamps. The kid behind the counter at 7/11 looked at me with contempt. He said to his friend, “They’re all like that.”

I could have told them about the time I woke up in the bathtub fully dressed with the shower curtain ripped down and bruises all over me and no memory of how I got there.

I could have told them about drinking Listerine and vanilla extract because I didn’t have any money for real booze.

I could have told them about the time I was too drunk to get the cork out of the wine bottle so I smashed the neck off in the kitchen sink and cut myself up.

I could have told them about the night I was raped because I was too drunk to defend myself, and how I was too ashamed to tell anyone, and how the next night I was drunk again.

But none of that seemed as bad as prison and dead children and terminal cancer, so I just kept my mouth shut. And I shook.

After the meeting the poster girls and winos stood around drinking coffee, talking and laughing. I couldn’t believe it. After those harrowing stories, how could they laugh?

It had been a long time since I laughed. I knew I didn’t belong there, with those wrecked people, but I wanted to laugh again, so I listened. They said, “You don’t have to stop drinking forever, just for today.” I hated the idea of not drinking. I didn’t think it was possible, and in this fucked-up world probably not even advisable. But, I thought, what the hell, if it means I might laugh again, I’ll give it a shot. I went home and gave my sister the half bottle of vodka I had left. She looked skeptical.

Three years later my brother-in-law, who used to get so drunk at the corner bar he had to walk home with a cane, asked how I stopped drinking. I took him to a meeting, and he’s made a living from counseling drug-addicted teenagers for many years now.

Five years after that I designed a brochure for a chemical dependency program, caught the good doctor’s eye, and married him.

Nine years after that, my son came to me with his head hanging in that desperate, defeated way that I recognized. Cocaine. He broke my heart. My brother-in-law and I took him to a meeting. A few years later my son married. He has three beautiful children and a successful career.

Seven years after that I won a literary award for my first novel.

So it is possible and advisable. And I can’t say I miss the sauce.

Nell Karmen is a novelist. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 | Email This Post

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