Leaving Las Vegas (Requiem 11)

During the period of time I was going through IOP, I had a routine. Monday through Thursday I was busy from dawn until dusk. The weekends, however, were mine. I still went to meetings, but I had time to myself. I had got a new sponsor by this time and I would meet with him on Sundays. He read to me from the book our program is taken from. I started to work the program. I went out to eat with people in recovery. At a restaurant with a group of people one day, the waitress was really flirty with me and gave me her number before I left. I hadn’t really given girls much thought since Jess. It’s like Chris Rock says, though, (to paraphrase): I can’t run fast enough to avoid a girl chasing me.

At work, I would tell Katie about her (her name was Xanie – pronounced Zanny- short for Alexandria). Katie and I were becoming pretty good pals. I felt comfortable around her and would tell her pretty honestly about what was going on.

One thing about being an alcoholic is that people have these ideas about what an alcoholic is. I’m sure most people have visions of burning garbage cans under bridges. Of old men with big red noses always carrying brown bags; covered in multiple layers of dumpster retrieved army jackets and wool sweaters. Most of us aren’t like that, though. I was 24, but couldn’t have passed for older than 18. I’m a small kid anyways – 5’5” and 130 pounds at this point. I dress conservatively (preppy some might say) in polo shirts and shorts. To look at me, you couldn’t assume I was alcoholic. Yet I was. I found it funny how people perceived me. I think a lot of people saw me as an enigma. I looked like a high school kid, but I spoke of things far more serious than most high schoolers. When I told Katie of some of the things I had done and been through she seemed appropriately shocked, but I don’t think she really understood that I am the same as the bum under the bridge with the bottle surgically attached to his hand. The only difference between that guy and me was that I hadn’t burned all my bridges. Yet.

After I had been sober for 2 or 3 months, some of the guys in the house had a trip planned to Florida. I hadn’t been on a vacation in probably 7 years at this point, so I was looking forward to it. We flew down to Orlando and spent the night a friend of ours’ girlfriend’s house. We did DisneyWorld the next day and then drove over to St Petersburg. It’s on the gulf of Mexico and it was fantastic. We fished most days. One day I caught a baby hammerhead shark. During the trip, I called Xanie once or twice and experienced excess levels of drama. When I got back I called her and told her that the relationship was over. I’ve received my share of being yelled at through the years, but never have I ever (nor do I ever expect to) received the verbal onslaught I took on that phone call. Everything I had heard about fiery latinas was true. I let her speak until she said everything she wanted to. It was only fair.

I was talking to Katie one night not long after I got back and we decided she should come over. It was snowing pretty hard and by the time she came over it was late (probably 1:30 in the morning). She stayed over until morning when I had to go chair a meeting. I got busted for having a girl over and had to do all the chores in the house for a week. I did them without too much fuss. The next week my old nemesis Paul had stepped out of line and was responsible for all the chores. He didn’t do all of them, but nobody cared. I was really mad because the guys had been on me like white on rice to get everything done. It was more fuel to the fire I was carrying against Paul.

Katie and I started hanging out on Saturday nights at this point. We went on our first official date to a steak house. The next night I went to a family Christmas Party. For a few weeks prior to this, I had been telling anybody that would listen what a dirt bag Paul was. (One of my biggest defects of character is my mouth. Despite my small stature, I’ve been known to mouth off to guys much larger than me – Paul was one such guy) I let it get to me so much that every aspect of my life was affected by it. I was constantly irritable and unhappy. So I was at this family Christmas Party and I saw people having a glass of wine or a shot of tequila with impunity. They were having a good time and I was just angry. On my way home I made up my mind to go get trashed. I called Katie and asked her to meet me at a bar. She didn’t want to see me throw away my sobriety. Okay, I told her. I knew she’d come around. About 5 minutes later she called back and said she’d meet me there. By the time she showed up, I was one or two boilermakers to the good. A Boilermaker is a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser. When you want to get there fast, the boilermaker is the way to go. At some point we were asked to leave due to my level of drunkenness. I woke up the next morning at Katie’s apartment.

A week before Christmas, I was thrown out of the recovery house. I crawled back home to mom’s house determined not to slip into the level of addiction I was in before. I made a decision that I was done with 12 step meetings and recovery. I kept hearing in meetings that if I wasn’t done, I needed to go out and get done. While my friends in recovery had a New Year’s party, I rang in the new year of 2005 passed out in my sister's bed after a drinking a bottle of rum.