Like Magic

About three weeks ago, I ran into an old nemesis.

I drank. I felt guilty and a little dehydrated the next day. Other than that, I escaped unscathed. I have not drunk since.

I’ve discussed my drinking problem elsewhere online. One individual known for her tough love registered concern about my attitude. “You seem to have the idea that you drank and got away with it,” she wrote, “No big deal.”

She’s right; I do think I got away with it. What I’m unclear about, however, is how I got away and what “it” actually is.

I just finished reading The Year of Magical Thinking. In the book, the narrator describes her inability to throw away her late husband’s shoes. When he comes back, he’ll need shoes, won’t he? Such chimeras are a part of grief. They give voice to that chunk of the self that wants to deny that some situations are irreversible. This chunk tries to be like Superman in the 1970s movie; it wants to spin the planet backward and save Lois Lane from the earthquake.

Recovering alcoholics talk about “crossing the line.” The line represents when your drinking stops being fun, when there are (all of a sudden, it seems) serious consequences to drinking in the way that you do. You start missing work, for example, or you start enduring more aggressive hangovers. You start sabotaging your relationships. You start experiencing panic attacks. You start getting arrested. You start feeling like dying is okay.

Recognizing that one has crossed the line causes grief. Recovering alcoholics sometimes express the remorseful desire for life to go back to the way it was; they want to return to being the people they were before they became alcoholics. Because I drank for so many years without consequence, I’ve shared this grief acutely.

Just before I stopped drinking, I was miserable. I understood that I could not go on living this way. After I had been sober a little while, I noticed a number of pleasing changes. I was cheerier. I was more relaxed. I was more conscious of others. I liked all of these developments. I also remembered that life could be interesting and exciting without drinking; this fact had been eluding me.

Then, I attended a Special Occasion. A really special occasion, one not likely to be repeated. I sat in candlelight at a table with new friends. Servers poured wine. As I watched this happening, I thought, “You can choose to look beyond this local moment and see the big picture. You can choose to be the enlightened person, the strong person.”

I didn’t want to be strong and enlightened. I wanted to be like everyone else. I gave the pouring waitress a nod of assent.

Did the universe give me a break? Did I cheat destiny?

Nothing about this momentary return has gone the way recovering alcoholics have said it would:

“If you relapse, it will be worse. You’ll pick up right where you left off.”

“Going back ‘out’ is never worth it.”

“For us, to drink is to die.”

Holistic recovery from alcoholism seems to depend upon turning alcohol into an all-powerful demon. Maybe we are not really addicted to drinking but to absolutes.

Lately, I’ve heard myself say, “See? You can drink without a hassle. You successfully bent the rules. Why not try it again?”

Instead of doing this, though, I sip my lemon-lime soda and remember that even Joan Didion cannot perform magic.