Heartbreak Hotel (Requiem 8)

Some people view 12 step programs as a type of group therapy. On some level that is right, but if that was all they were, nobody would stay sober. It is a 2 pronged approach: the fellowship of recovery, and the program of recovery. Meetings are the fellowship. Spending time with other people in recovery is the fellowship. We show up and talk to other people just like us. We see we aren't alone. It's what keeps us coming back at first. At some point, though, the fellowship will stop keeping us sober. In order to do that, we need to work the program. The program is the 12 steps. It's getting honest, cleaning up our pasts, and passing it on. Both are vital, although around the time I moved in to the Heartbreak Hotel I did not know it. I saw the fellowship as the sum of what recovery had to offer.

My days began like this: I would wake up in the downstairs room I stayed in. Usually exhausted, I would go upstairs and take a shower. Back downstairs to grab my things then I was off to work. After work, I'd head back to the house. I'd usually find one of the guys hanging out and go catch a meeting with them. Afterwards we'd invite some people back to the house and hang out. At 10:00 each night we'd have closing group. Anybody was welcome to come and many did. Imagine your first year at college. You're excited to be on your own, people over at all hours, you have arrived at last. Those were the types of feelings I felt during that first month.

I was feeling so good that I didn't pay much attention to my 'break' from Jess. Then one day I got word she was getting married. This could only have been 3 weeks or so since I moved out. I was shocked and confused. I didn't understand. A night or two later I had a dream. In this dream, Jess told me she was pregnant and felt compelled to marry the guy. I woke up in a cold sweat and mustered the courage to call Jess. I called her and asked her what was going on. She stuttered a little bit so I just came out and asked her "Are you pregnant?". As it turned out, the dream was right. She told me that she was pregnant and felt compelled to marry the guy. It was a kick in the gut. Only in the next couple of days did I get wind of the fact that she was due at the end of February. Doing the math, that meant that I could be the father. I later learned that it wasn't a possibility, but at that time I just knew that I either was going to be a dad or else she had cheated on me. Neither possibility was one I wanted to look at. Jess always maintained that she never crossed the line before I moved out. Even still, that would put her pregnant the weekend I moved out.

A lot of us alcoholics tell ourselves that we aren't hurting anybody when we're drinking. Take this example, though. Jess wanted me to marry her. She wanted me to stay sober and be responsible and start a family with her. I wanted to get drunk and use drugs. When it comes right down to it, can I blame her for stepping out? I don't think I can. I'll venture to guess that I forced her into it. I didn't force her to become pregnant, but I held her hostage in a relationship where I wasn't showing her love or affection. I wasn't even trying that hard to stay sober: a bare minimum for any alcoholic relationship. Sorely missing the love our relationship was lacking, she looked outside of it. She was desperate to find what our relationship was missing and perhaps made some poor decisions because of it. It's taken time to come to this understanding, but when I catch myself thinking 'this decision won't really affect anybody else' I remind myself about what my drinking did to Jess's life.

A week later I had a doctors appointment. The doctor prescribed some anxiety medicine. I brought the prescription home without filling it. Talking with the guys in the house, we decided I should not fill the prescription. Making a show of it, we shredded the prescription and may have even set fire to it. The next day I called the doctor and told them I had lost the prescription. They called one into a pharmacy for me. I picked it up and took a few. I showed up to a meeting that night, but the pills were beginning to hit me. I crawled into the back seat and fell asleep. The guys at the house found me asleep in a car with a bottle of pills in my hand. The heater was blowing full blast (It was set to cool, but I was having overheating problems with my car) and it was already 90 degrees outside. They saw it as a suicide attempt. (once again I hadn't planned a suicide attempt. at least not consciously). I tried to explain to them it wasn't what they thought, but they weren't buying it. The house voted and decided that I needed to stay away from the house until I was 72 hours sober. That night I went to Jess #2's house. The next 2 nights I stayed in a pop up trailer outside of Rob's house. They had borrowed the popup trailer for the annual campout. When it came time to get back in the house, I had to drug test. I passed the test, but I also had to be voted in by the other guys. In the few days since I was out, they had brought in a guy named Paul. At the meeting to be voted back in, the guys went around telling me honestly what they thought about what I was doing to myself and what I needed to do to stay in the house. Having to hear what a dirtbag I was from a guy I didn't know was more than I could stomach. I started a resentment that I held onto for a long time against Paul.

The campout was a lot of fun that year. I got back ready to stay sober. At work I was doing well and got along with most of the people I worked with. One girl, Katie, and I would flirt around. It was nothing serious, but we got along pretty well. Things mellowed out at the house. I was sober for about 6 weeks when I went to go to sleep one night. I looked at the clock and seeing that it was 12:30, I had the sudden thought that I had better get to the gas station before it was 1:00 if I wanted to buy beer. Nothing was out of the ordinary, I just knew I had to get to the gas station.

One thing you hear in meetings is that at times, we are without a mental defense against alcohol. I wasn't upset, I just had the thought that I had to buy beer. I lived in a recovery house and went to daily meetings. I was doing everything I could think of to not drink. Still, though, after this thought I didn't even put up a fight.

I went to the gas station and as I was buying a 12 pack a cop walked in. I smiled and nodded my head at him as I walked by with the beer in my hand. I got into my car, opened the box and grabbed a beer. Before I started backing up out of my parking spot, I cracked the beer. Backing out of my spot, I looked at the cop in the store with his back to me. I smiled, took a drink, put my car in drive and got on my way to Wendover.