Relationships and Other Distractions (Requiem 6)

There are some jokes in recovery circles regarding alcoholic relationships. One goes something like this: What do you call it when one alcoholic moves in with another? A second date. Another says: What do you call dating a newcomer? The thirteenth step. As with most recovery-isms, they are steeped in truth.

Following the campout, I began to spend more and more time with Jess. She had been sober for about 7 months then and, as expected, received no small amount of grief from her sponsor for thirteenth stepping me. We weren't exclusive then, and I was still enjoying a newly found resurgence in the old libido category. Not that I was tramping around or anything, but before things got too serious with Jess I hung out once or twice with another girl named Jess. When I would talk to JM about things, it got complicated. I ended up having to call them Jess #1 and Jess #2. After double booking myself once, I realized that I was hurting Jess #1's feelings. It caused me to analyze what it was that I wanted. What I wanted was Jess #1. Once that decision was made, I concentrated on being with Jess (#1).

The next few months were a blur of activity. My dad was moving in with someone and getting rid of the apartment. At this point I could have probably moved in with Jess, but I still wasn't too sure if things would work out. JM was getting an apartment with his step dad and asked if I wanted to room with them. I decided I did and we moved my stuff one night. I didn't own a bed or anything, so moving was easy. I stayed exactly 1 night in the apartment. For the rest of our 6 month lease I stayed with Jess. After about a month, I decided the polite thing to do was to pay rent to Jess for living with her. So for 6 months I payed rent at 2 places. I got a cell phone. I still didn't have a car, but Jess was a saint and thanks to our work schedules I was able to get a ride to work with her in the mornings. JM would pick me up after work and we'd go catch meetings. I fell into a rhythm and weeks passed.

One day in October, Jess and I were driving to go to dinner with a couple of my cousins and their husbands. I was in the passenger seat reaching down by my feet for a book of cd's when we crashed into a car that had stopped in the middle of the road. We weren't going that fast, maybe thirty miles an hour, but my face was right next to the airbag when it went off. My face was swollen and bleeding and I was in shock a little bit. Somebody called an ambulance and I found myself in a hospital again. They did some xrays, gave me a prescription for pain pills and sent me on my way. This event was important for 2 reasons: one is that I was later to receive an insurance settlement that allowed me to get a car. Two, and more importantly, I was to learn that like cocaine and alcohol before it, I was incapable of using pills like a normal person.

I didn't drink right away. I used the pills like they were prescribed, but found myself looking at the clock to see if 4 hours had gone by yet. I craved those pills like mad. The anxiety I felt never completely subsided. At the end of October we moved from her apartment to a house near the avenues. By then the pills were all gone, but I was still not quite right. I went to meetings, but it was more like I was doing it to check something off of a list. Went to a meeting. Check. Called my sponsor. Check. The desire to improve myself was not there. As November turned into December, I stopped going to meetings. I did pick up a few 6 month chips around the middle of December, but for the next month I didn't hit a single meeting. I told myself I felt fine, but I was fundamentally off. The insurance company from the wreck paid me off and I used the money to buy a cheap car. I started going back to meetings in January, but a month later I found myself with a pretty bad cold.

At meetings you hear people warn against certain types of medicines. Pain pills, Sudafed, even cough medicines. These types of medicines often have addictive substances in them. To the average guy they get sick and buy a bottle of Ny-Quil. They take some for a night or two and then have half a bottle that sits there until it expires and then gets thrown out. To the alcoholic, they buy a bottle. Maybe they take a dose one night. But then the craving sets in and they finish the whole bottle. Not always, but just enough to cause most recovering alcoholics to avoid those types of medicines.

I woke up that morning knowing I needed something to get through the day. I went into the store looking for something without alcohol. I found some Robitussin and bought it. I took it out the car and dosed up. I drove off to work, but by the time I hit work I knew I had made a mistake. I was stoned something fierce. I managed to get through the day, reloading on cough medicine at lunch (of course). I left work with a purpose. I needed to get drunk. I stopped by a convenience store and bought a twelve pack on the way home. I called Jess and asked her not to come home, but she wouldn't hear it and came home anyways. I started on the beer when it hit me that I could really use a rock or two. I called my mom's boyfriend and he came by with a couple of rocks. I didn't have a proper pipe, so I used his for a rock or two. I must have been acting really weird because he told me he was taking his rocks back and left. I don't remember much of that night. The next day I woke up scared. I was right back at it. I got a ride to the hospital I had detoxed the first time at and checked myself in. They did some blood tests and took me back to the lockdown wing I had spent a week in almost a year ago to the day. A nurse came in and asked me where I had got the PCP. I didn't know what she was talking about. She told me they had found PCP in my system. That might have explained my lack of memory of the night before. The 24 hour tally included 1 bottle of Robitussin, about 10 beers, 2 rocks of coke laced with PCP, and an entrance into my third hospital. I was not getting this whole staying sober business.