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| 4/24/2008 |
Blackouts
By Tony O.
Many times at AA meetings I had heard the words that described my disease: cunning, powerful and baffling. I knew how strong and tempting alcohol could be, but I'd also learned that all I had to do, one day at a time, was not drink and go to meetings. For five happy years, I had done just that and was certain I would never touch liquor again. Nothing about my addiction seemed baffling at all.
But one night at a black-tie dinner, a charming, elderly doctor noticed I had not been drinking. I can still hear his gentle voice as he told me one glass of wine each day would benefit my health. Smiling, he filled my glass. To this day, I have no idea why I drank it.
That single glass of wine had no effect on me at all. Days passed before I had another. Nothing happened and after that, whenever I drank, I did not even get high. So I experimented, deliberately making myself feel giddy, and stopped. I decided I was not an alcoholic.
Three months later, to my amazement, I got drunk on scotch. The next morning I told myself I would stop forever. I didn't drink for two weeks. But during every day of abstinence, the memory of the black-tie dinner kept returning. That single glass of wine danced in my head like a chorus girl on a runway. Just one glass, it sang. Just one. Soon I was getting drunk every night and promising not to drink each morning.
Yet, bafflingly, I continued to believe I was not an alcoholic. My work was going well. I received promotions, raises and bonuses. None of the horror stories I had heard at AA applied to me. My life, I insisted, was not unmanageable. I told myself I could still stop drinking; I had simply decided I didn't want to.
But as the slip lengthened from months to years, there was one fact I simply could not deny. I began to have blackouts. Like my denial, this new misery was progressive. It started with small things -- the inability to find keys, an unremembered remark, a promise I had no recollection of making. In time, blackouts swallowed whole evenings and nights of my life. Years passed before these frightening ruptures brought me back to a meeting. By then my drinking had become so compulsive that I drank continually every night.
Driving to the meeting, I felt I had no real hope of getting sober. In fact, I intended to drink when I went home. But I did have one hope. In my confused thinking, it seemed possible I could stop the blackouts by cutting down on scotch. For the hour of the meeting, at least, I would not drink. When I had been to meetings before, at times someone might arrive drunk. But I had never seen anyone drink during a meeting.
When I walked into the room, I recognized no one. I took a seat and immediately noticed that the man in front of me had a pint bottle sticking out of his back pocket. Twice during the meeting he took a swig from it. Once, with a boozy smile, he turned around to look at me.
I almost raced for the door when the meeting was over. But outside the man with the bottle caught up to me. Could I give him a ride home? His name was Harry.
I was dressed in a suit and tie. Harry looked, and smelled, as if he had risen from a gutter. He was short, unshaven, and had a bad black eye. Massive arms dangled from his tee shirt and he wore denim cutoffs, over which rolled a huge, exposed belly. He had no socks, and his sneakers had large holes.
I asked where he lived and he gave me an address that was miles away. He told me he was a construction worker and had walked to the meeting. We got into my car.
"Mind if I have a drink?" he asked. Before I could answer, the bottle was at his lips. "I'm trying to stop," he said. "I really mean it. How long have you been sober?"
I told him I had just returned to the program. "So have I, buddy," he said, shaking his head. "I just got out of jail. The only reason I went to that meeting was because of a story the guard told me." He took another drink.
"Want to hear it?" I had absolutely no desire to have the man in my car, much less hear his jailhouse stories. Against my better judgment, I said "Sure."
"OK, buddy, but let's make a deal. I tell you the story, and you drive me to the next meeting."
I was certain he would never show up. But I began to think. What if he did? What if he kept coming? If I drove him back and forth to meetings, that would take the better part of another hour without drinking.
"Deal," I said. And he began to tell me his story.
One morning, Harry related, he had woken up in jail, with no memory of how he had gotten there. But, big as he was, he knew that he'd been beaten. The guard said he'd been found on a sidewalk outside a bar. In jail it took him some time to remember where he lived, and whether he had a job.
"The guard told me where this AA meeting was tonight and told me to come," he continued. "He said I reminded him of another guy who woke up in jail, just like I did."
That man, the guard said, was a drunk who had been jailed many times. He always did the same thing. First, he raised hell, demanding to know why he was in jail. When they told him, of course, he denied everything. Then he started yelling for his mother. “Let me call Mama,” he roared. "She'll get me out of here!”
And she did, the guard told Harry. She came every time and paid his fine, even though the judge begged her to understand that someday her son would have to learn to face the consequences of his drinking by himself.
Finally, one night, after a terrible row, the man was thrown into jail again. "He slept it off, as usual," Harry said. "And when he woke up, he began to rattle the bars and carry on, just like he always did. 'Call my Mama!' he yelled. But this time the guard said no.”
The man cursed and raged. "I have the right to make a call," he shouted. "Let me call my mother!"
"You can't," said the guard. "Last night you stabbed her to death."
I was too stunned to say a word. We drove in silence until Harry pointed to a dingy apartment house. "I live there," he said. "Now, don't forget our deal. See you tomorrow night?'
For the rest of that summer, I drove Harry to and from meetings. He told me the story of the man in jail many times, and I always listened as if I had never heard it before. I was sober again and Harry seemed to be getting better, too. I remember there wasn't a bottle in his back pocket the entire last week I drove him. Then, suddenly, he was off to a new job, and I never saw him again.
Now I know I have a cunning, powerful and baffling disease. And I still thank the Higher Power for sending Harry to tell me where blackouts can lead. It has helped to keep me sober, one day at a time.
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