The Daily Durvy

I’ve only been in the AA Program for about a month and a half, and my meetings have almost exclusively been in Davis at the local Lutheran church. (A fact that almost turned me off of the whole Program… a topic for another time.)

Alex and I flew down to LA to spend some time with our families before school starts up again, and I decided to go to a meeting while in my beloved hometown. I not only wanted to continue my program while on vacation, but also seeing the different types of meetings that take place in a major metropolitan area, versus THE COW TOWN THAT I LIVE IN.

So a few days ago, I went to a meeting at a meeting hall- a building used for nothing but AA meetings. Not only was this most certainly NOT a church but is was also NOT in Davis. Both were awesome.

The Hall was in Hollywood, it it was filled with Hollywood types: older men with long grey hair, young men and women in 5-inch stilettos and everyone with more hair care products in their hair than I have in my bathroom. I have never felt so at home.

This hall was simply a large, square room with mildly uncomfortable chairs and exposed bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The walls were unpainted brick and pleasantly unspectacular. The coffee was more horrible than anything I had ever ingested, and that includes the time I ate spoiled chili and pooped liquid for 3 days.

And as I sat in this large hall in my expensive shoes I felt at peace. I felt understood. But really, more than anything, I felt at home.

I got my 60 day chip on Friday.

I have debated whether or not I wanted to tell the Internet and the world and more specifically Alex’s mom and my dad that I am in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn’t know if I wanted my friends to know, or if my telling would somehow impair the way I am perceived by those around me. Since going to meetings, I feel like everybody knows what I’m up to on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

I know that it’s nobody’s business but mine, but I am finally in a place where it’s okay if other people know. I am usually so afraid of people and what they think of me that I collapse under the weight of fear and hopelessness. So now I am taking a small portion of my fear back by willingly revealing my secret: I am an alcoholic.

Alcoholism has always been in my life, though it took me years to call it by name. My mother is an unhappy woman, with problems that I do not pretend to understand. She has been a mother to me and my siblings and a simple drunk to those who cannot see her for who she is. To me, she has been both loving and spiteful, my mother and my arch nemesis, always complicated and always more than just a drunk or just a mother. I love her, but I cannot and will not be her.

It was not until I was 13 that I realized that my family, my mother, was different. It did not occur to me that other mothers did not get drunk, and many did not even drink. Not even wine with dinner. Even in the tender early teenage years the thought of not having wine for dinner was scandalous, and that forgoing the after dinner cocktails was only done with eye rolls and for a damn good reason.

When I first named the alcoholism in my family, I was about 15. It started as a dirty word, spoken only in private, scribbled only in my diary, and bounced around in my head when left alone to think. It was the reason I never had my friends sleep over at my house and why my parents were so glad that I was going to be getting my license soon; I was going to be a permanent sober driver.

When I turned 18 the word came bursting out of my body. I started to tell my friends why I didn’t want them to come over and why sometimes I was sad for no reason. It started as cathartic, telling everyone that I had an alcoholic in the family and that it wasn’t my fault and that I love my mom but we have a different relationship than many mothers and daughters do. And it would all come tumbling out just like, half ramble, half confession, with a dash of release for good measure.

At 20, my therapist asked me if my willingness to talk about my mother’s disease was a way of avoiding my own emotional pain. I looked at her as if she trying to sell me a bridge. Um, hello. I am one of those people who talks about it. It. The Problem. I am obviously emotionally evolved. Duh.

Then she suggested Prozac and I said that that was probably a good idea.

And when I turned 21 I started drinking so much that I would black out. I would insist that I was sober, but really I would be falling down drunk and I just couldn’t tell. I finally started to admit that maybe I wasn’t so emotionally evolved and that perhaps I don’t let people in like I think I do and maybe my cathartic ramblings are only that: ramblings. When Alex suggested that I don’t let him in and that he sometimes feels like he doesn’t know who I am I scoffed him. And I kept drinking to prove that not only am I emotionally stable but I can handle the drug that has taken my mother down. Because I am not and will not be her.

When I turned 21 and a half in June Alex suggested Alcoholic Anonymous and I suggested he go take a nice long walk off a SHORT FUCKING CLIFF.

When I turned 21 and a half and two days Alex told me that I need to save our relationship by getting better. I needed to get sober so we could have a chance at the life we wanted together.

So I went. Because the look in his eyes told me that he loved me enough to leave me if I didn’t. So I did. Kicking and screaming and crying and literally using God’s name in vain just to be spiteful. I went.

And I kept going back. I’m thinking it was the free cookies and coffee and cigarettes. But I kept going. And now I go. It’s what I Do. I’m the official coffee lady at the Friday Night Davis Young People’s Meeting. And when I go there at 6:30 they greet me with hugs and smiles and a genuine interest in how I’m doing.

And so on Friday, I turned 2 months old. 60 days. I have a sponsor and friends and people call me. I do things now. I even go to parties. SOBER. I KNOW. IT’S FUCKING WIERD, ISN’T IT??!?!?!?!

The other day, I was at a newsstand, buying a few magazines. After I picked up my copy of the newest Oprah Magazine, I walked up to the counter to pay and there was a large display of Snickers bars on the counter.

I looked at the display, and all I could think about was buying 5 or 6 and eating them in quick succession. I started obsessing about the creamy chocolate and smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts; I had a vision of myself laying on a big white bed in a long white dress stuffing my face with Snickers bars. It bordered on an erotic fantasy.

I quickly realized that even if I did buy 5 or 6 or 10 bars and ate them in quick succession, there would be no white bed or silky dress or euphoria. There would be me, cramped in a corner, eating until I couldn’t anymore and then riding out a stomach ache of epic proportions. There would probably be tears, and there would definitely be regret.

Not my finest quality, true. My “secret” food and eating behaviors are less “secret” and more “totally unsurprising because I will tell you if I’ve known you more than 10 seconds.” I am not a private person, by any stretch, but my motivations are often are buried beneath the act itself, and my immediate jump to speak on the superficial acts betrays my fear of the deeper emotional causes. The reckless abandonment and the free spirit that I so desperately crave in my life often manifests itself in food. I want to be carefree and free of constant regulation, and to do get that I often go to unhealthy extremes in eating, exercise, and physical appearance in general.

Look at me using my therapy in real life.

In the 2 second space between seeing the Snickers display at the newsstand and placing my items in front of the clerk, all of this rather depressing information flashed though my mind. I stood there, drooling at the candy isle and I heard Alex say behind me, “Babe, do you want the candy bar?”

“Um… errr… well…” HELL THE FUCK YES I DO!

“Yeah, we’ll take the Snickers. Do you want 2?”

“No. One is fine. Thank you.” ONE TIMES TEN MAYBE.

So I took my candy and put it in my purse. I carried it around with me for the next couple of days, waiting for the perfect moment to eat it, to enjoy it as much as I possibly can. And then, I was sitting on the couch with Alex, totally content. Calm. Serene. And I looked in my purse and pulled out the Snickers bar. Without looking at the nutritional information, without lamenting about the hours at the gym this was going to cost me, without regret or mania or tears, I ate it. The creamy chocolate, the smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts pleased me without a heavy heart, and after I finished I didn’t want another one. I smiled and continued on with my day, pleased with myself and my brief and oddly sexual Snickers bar experience.