DRY
C. Gray
After nearly 21 years in the service industry and an equally long ride with the hard living synonymous with it, my body had had enough. I found myself struggling with crippling and violent detox and decided to break the unstable relationship with alcohol that had governed me for the better part of my young adult life. After nearly 48 hours of constant dry-heaving, I picked up the phone and made the call out to the only person I knew would be home on a weekday afternoon. Forty minutes later, I was in the admissions office of the E.R. unit. That first hour in the E.R. is relentless uncertainty. The constant shuffle of feet just past the thin cotton curtain, the only thing separating you from the trauma and reality of the E.R. Then, when someone finally peels back the curtain, it’s just the admitting nurse with more forms to sign. And finally, blood drawn, pulse and vitals checked….more waiting. Nearly three hours later and my pulse and shakes finally a little more under control, I was placed on fluids and an oxygen tube to further bring me down. Some time around 8:00, they came and told me they were checking me in and taking me upstairs to a room on the 11th floor. The first step taken, I slid back on the cold bed and was able to relax…as much as anyone can be expected to relax when riddled with alcohol tremors.
Day 1: After the pm nurse came to give me meds, the night went quickly and I was able to sleep the lofty, chemically cushioned sleep provided by the slow-drip narcotic and saline cocktail hooked to my arm. The first thing you learn in the hospital is that the day begins early. 5:30 am early. As much as they try to take your vitals and check your fluids without waking you…the day has started and you’re in that bluish-grey, pervasive glow of fluorescent lighting. Lucky for me, it was a quiet floor. Not like a trauma unit where people are screaming and kicking until all hours of the day and night. My corner of the 11th floor was mostly elderly and infirm folks just as eager for quiet. Three years working with Developmentally Delayed adults had taught me a few things about hospitals. One being, when you’re feeling anxious, say so and a nurse will be there to add more medication to your drip within minutes. I counted 5 times I hit the nurse station call button that first day. And that’s a day of deep narcotic sleep for me.
The drink gets its grip on you slowly. It’s really quite an unnoticeable change, it comes on so incrementally. It’s much more sadistic and cruel than any of the known addictive substances we’re warned about from a young age. The problem, at least within the U.S. is that it’s not only socially acceptable but celebrated at the 21st year. Then there are the paradigms that go with it; as if you’re somehow broken or strange if you’re not at least a casual drinker at a certain age. That at a younger age, if you’re not out engaging in social drinking before the legal age, you’re stigmatized and taunted. The calendar makes certain considerations for many celebrations that revolve around social drinking. May 5th, St. Patricks Day, New Years Eve, Easter, Thanksgiving…come to think of it, there isn’t any particular holiday that doesn’t pay tribute to imbibing.
The term Happy Hour can be traced back to the American Navy in the 1920’s, where sailors were allowed a short break period in which to unwind and enjoy a break in the monotony of months at sea. The term gained civilian roots during Prohibition and was typically a time prior to dinner where booze was sold at a discounted price in speakeasies. After a Saturday Evening Post article on military life in 1959, the practice become commonplace in taverns and clubs around the country. With social acceptability came the more insidious acknowledgement that blowing off a little steam after work with a couple drinks was not only OK, but natural. It’s natural to want a little stress relief after dealing with the work world for 8 hours a day and then for extended release on those short weekend breaks.
For me, it signaled the end of another battle waged in a hot, fiery and sharp commercial kitchen.The sting of sweat on my brow and powerful aroma of all manner of food stuffs on my clothing and in my hair, it was time again to strip off the whites and apron and attack the bar. To funnel as much alcohol through my system before 2am, rush home and pass out only to do it all over again the next day. Then it was a necessary sleep aide. Unbearable insomnia is but one red flag signaling the encroaching grip of a habit. I honestly don’t remember the progression of events that led me down the road to insatiable thirst that saw no end but more, more, more….but it became who I was and transformed and took over my life for the better part of a decade. Food became secondary to the buzz and then it became physically difficult to eat, to the point of catering to my habit with foods which were friendly to my stomach and yet, wouldn’t interfere with later consumption of more intoxicant.
I remember sitting in the dollar theater with my roommate, watching Nicolas Cage attempt suicide by alcohol in ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. It was a shocking portrayal of the depths of despair one can be pitched into though the addiction. And, based on a true story, Cage himself became alarmingly engulfed in the character, to the point of blacking out on a regular basis throughout the filming. I was so emotionally exhausted after that film that the only logical thing to do was to go get blacked-out drunk. Financial irresponsibility, spontaneity, bounced checks, out of control bar tabs, missing chunks of memory, embarrassment on the realization that you did something stupid that you don’t remember….someone else reminds you….these become commonplace until you’re dealing with life on a cash-only basis because no one will take checks anymore and your bank account has been closed due to overages and NSF fees and nothing else belongs to you but the habit and the means with which to support it. Lights turned off, no heat in the Winter, no cable for the TV and no telephone…they’ve all been shut off and you’re using a prepaid phone to keep in contact with only the most important people in your life.
It’s stress like no other when you come to understand that you are no longer in control over any decisions without first consulting with whether or not it fits into your schedule and is proportioned to your consumption. And none of my bartender/doctors turned me down because they all knew I wasn’t driving anywhere because I had no car and was only a few blocks away from my home. And if I wasn’t able to settle my tab with cash…no problem…I’d be back to settle on payday. I don’t even have a clear memory of dreams for most of that decade because if I wasn’t passed out, I was battling insomnia and sleep only came in respites between long periods of tossing and turning. I learned how to hide dry-heaving at work. I learned how to hide many things. Like being repeatedly evicted and at one point, almost living in a storage unit.
I began hiding bottles in my own house so that if I ran out, there was always the staggering, cold-sweat consumed manic Easter-egg hunt for hidden booze somewhere in the house. That only worked until I began to learn, while sober, where my favorite blacked out hiding spots were. I woke up with bruises and scrapes that had no explanation or source. Torn and muddied clothing that were beyond repair. Rather than have my neighbors see me taking out empty ½ gallon jugs of Vodka to the bin every other day, I’d just stack them in my closet, until the closet was full.
I gave up music. I gave up photography. What good is a photographer who can’t hold his hands still? I still wrote but I could only handle a pen in my hand for about ten seconds at a time before my hand would cramp up and I’d have to pause to reflect on what it was I was trying to say. I can go back and look at old journals and can see the progression from lucid and streaming consciousness that slowly begins to erode into a scrawl on non-sensical drunken jabbering and sometimes bordering on psychotic rumination on the ills of the world.
One morning, I woke up to my phone ringing and in a slow-motion blur and in retrospect, a kind of connect the dots as to how each fragmented memory was strung together that morning, I remember first hearing the sound of my Dad’s voice on the phone asking me if I “was watching”. What was playing in slow motion on the screen at first seemed to be the worst kind of 80’s action movie footage. Until I realized it was the morning news. I changed the channel and ran all through the networks, all playing the same horrible footage of a jetliner colliding with a skyscraper in a massive, bright orange ball of flame. The rest of that day should’ve been as clear and sharp as a slap in the face, but to me, it’s all very cloudy and unbelievable. I arrived at work early as usual and found the restaurant completely empty. No one was talking. Three people sat huddled at the big-screen in the lounge. I did my prep as monotonously and robotically as possible, trying hard as I might to not think about what was happening outside the little window of my protected existence in my little bubble of a liberal arts college town. Finally, I took a break and sat up at the bar with the other three customers and the bartender and broke into conversation about what was going on across the country. Even then, only hours after the attacks, there was talk about an invasion into Afghanistan. A retaliation. A retribution. My boss walked past at one point and made some crack about me slacking and to get back to work. It’s here that my memory is sharp and I just remember glaring at him and asking him if he knows what’s going on right now? That we just got attacked and that thousands are dead in the Big Apple. And that night, I began an 8 year bender to end all benders. I staggered home through the rain-soaked alleys after being cut off at three bars. The only thing worse than being cut off is the knowledge that you have no booze at home and the stores wont be selling again for another 4 hours.
Working graveyard is the job for the medicating alcoholic. My 8:00pm to 8:00am shift was absolutely fitting to my nocturnal schedule and photo-sensitivity. No hurrying down to the watering hole after work to try and get in the most drinks before the 2:00am closing hour. I could easily stroll downtown and and have breakfast with my Seagrams on the rocks. And since I had recently purchased a laptop, I could sit there and surf the web for hours and not be bothered by the banter of early morning drunks trying to solve all the worlds problems. Just hook on the headphones and drift off into Scotch-filled bliss before staggering up the hill at noon, when the rest of the world is heading out to lunch. There’s still something very tainted and soiled about being that drunk during the day. When sunglasses wont hide the level of intoxication. It reminds me of the corn scene in ‘Barfly’ where Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway get caught riffling through rows of corn, eating them raw off the stalk and pissed drunk, laughing like children. It’s funny until that’s your life. And I thought that attempting a balanced and nourishing diet would somehow counteract the affects of funneling a quart of whisky into my body on a daily basis. It does not. As much as you think homeopathic remedies and liver/kidney flush tonics will somehow alter the damage that you’ve already done, you’re sorely mistaken. The worst bone bruising bouts of dry heaves I’ve ever endured was after consuming milk-thistle after a bender and then going out for more drinks that same day. The only thing more depraved and pitiful than being wrecked-drunk in the middle of the afternoon is pulling off two or more drunks in a 24 hour period.
I was lost. As lost as a person can be. Lost physically, geographically, motivationally and blind to any sense of direction. One day, I had a good job, the next, I had cashed in a large portion of my 401K and was on a Southbound Amtrak with everything I could carry packed into a Kelty backpack. When I came around, I asked the porter where we were when I realized I was in the observation car and had a 180 degree view of the scenery breezing past at a comfortable 80 mph. We were somewhere on the Oregon Coast and would be in Los Angeles by night. My grandmother had died recently and her house sat empty while attempts were made to both sell it and keep it in the family by warring siblings. This was the house that I grew up in, surrounded by Aunts and Uncles, cousins and friends. As near as I could recollect, there had only been a recent and rapid packing up of things in the house after her passing and no one had been inside in months.
My Aunt dropped me off but wouldn’t come inside. I’ve gone back so many times and tried to remember what I would’ve taken, if I had the ability to carry more. So many memories in that little house on Los Coyotes. After getting settled in among a large pile of photo albums, I walked out into the Los Angeles September night. Warm and smelling of the Eucalyptus trees I remember from childhood, I took my time wandering down the hill towards Imperial Highway. I found what I was looking for where once stood another icon from my past. The Shakey’s pizza had been turned into a local watering hole for the college crowd from Whittier College. I was initially just looking for a liquor store close to the house when I was reminded that California privatized liquor sales a long time ago and it was sold in corner stores. So I sullied myself with more booze and staggered up the hill back to the house, fifth of Absolut in one hand, cheap gas station corn dogs in the other. I have very vague memories of talking to my grandma while sitting in the living room going through photo albums. My mother is superstitious enough to think she’s still around, watching us and keeping us safe and, for a brief moment that night, I felt it too.
I don’t remember when it started. I can’t recall the first time I had really bad DT’s and couldn’t keep food down. Like I said, it doesn’t come on fast like with cocaine or heroin. And, it’s much easier to conceal a liquor habit than with other substances. Not once did I ever come to work drunk or drink on the clock, but I worked with plenty of stereotypical crusty old cooks who, at 9:00am, already had their coffee cup full of whatever special beverage they chose. One guy just shrugged off any attempts to conceal it and just drank warm cooking wine. If I couldn’t find him, it was usually because he was out 'watering the plants’….kitchen code for dry-heaving out in the bushes. When I saw that image….it was a mirror and I shuddered at what I was looking at. It still took another 4 years for me to finally take that bold step and take back my life. Though the support of friends and family, I was able to break that tie.To sever that which had held me down for far too long and made me forget who I was. The creative person I used to be was able to wake up and refreshed, was able to finally start to enjoy life. To wake up ready to take on new projects and focus on important little things that had been placed on a dusty, ignored shelf. I’ve thrown myself back into not only music but writing and other creative projects…anything and everything I can get my hands on.
I still enjoy the occasional bourbon but it’s just that: to enjoy it and not let it become anything more than that. Ever again. I don’t believe in absolutes.