Are we sick of this winter yet? Lord knows I am. It’s been a
long day that included 70 miles of driving through irregular frenzied accumulations
of a blizzard that is here about a month or two late. When I finally got home
from work, it had been over three hours since I clocked out, and I got stuck
about thirty feet from my driveway for a good 45 minutes. It’s all over now, and I am warm and safe
inside.
The scariest part was driving with the girls for the last
45-minute leg of the trip. Now, I was well aware of my surroundings, and had
their safety first in mind, but the drifts don’t care about their well-being. I
topped out at about 45mph as we wound through the back roads of Wright County.
They both fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car, and they stayed asleep
when I opened my door at a stop several times to bang the ice off of the wipers.
I got stuck for about five minutes half way home from Monticello, but I was
able to get out and on my way unassisted. Done.
This post is not about this life, it’s about a former version of me from seventeen years and one-day-ago. It was April 14th, 2001. I was a skeleton and I had been on a bender for weeks but I had made one good decision in leaving my mom a note asking for help. I told her of my troubles, and we agreed that I would go to Hazelden Center for Youths and Families the following day. It would be the first time I applied myself in a treatment setting, but my fourth treatment so far.
My mom made me stay in a hotel the night before I went in because
she did not trust me in her home. She had learned. When she dropped me off, she
said she would be back in the morning to bring me in, and that I should get some
rest before I walked into the unknown. Here’s what I actually did.
I had $10 that I had stolen from a man sleeping on a couch
in a house in which I had stayed up all night doing drugs and drinking. I had
spent over an hour trying to get his wallet out of his pocket while he snored
away and nearly shrieked when it finally fell out. To my frustration, all that
was inside was the ungenerous $10. No addict can achieve the high of their
dreams for that little, so I left and eventually made the decision to stop at
my mom’s and write the note with a piece of paper and pencil I found near her
mailbox.
The hotel had a bar connected to it. That doesn’t actually matter;
I just wanted you to know. Even in 2001, a stiff drink was $5 and tipping has
always been part of my moral code, even though I often tipped with drug or
stolen money. So I decided that I could get a drink and a beer, tip $1.25, and
possibly come up with some sort of situation or lie that would harvest compassion
from a bartender or fellow patron, thus securing me at least one more drink.
The “forgot my wallet” trick wouldn’t work because I would surely get I.D.’d
and I would naturally have that in my wallet. Then I thought of charging a
blackout to my room, but I felt guilty about making my mom pay for another
bender. And then I decided I would just start a tab and walk out after a few
rounds.
I walked into the bar and sat down. She informed me that
drinks were $3 for hotel guests, and I had to give her my key to get the deal,
so I did. The worst possible thing for an addict to do is to start a drunk they
can’t finish. I had to leave the bar that night with barely a buzz, and I
stayed up all night thinking up ways to go steal or con the rest of the
alcohol. I was a miserable wreck when I finally woke up after a couple fitful
hours of sleep. And for the first few weeks in treatment I obsessed over that
last night and wished I had done it better.
When I sat in jail after getting arrested for my meth charge
over four years ago, I fixated on the night in the hotel room and what I should
have done differently. When I was released on bail, I spent six months doing
everything I possibly could to make sure I wouldn’t have any regrets when I went
to prison. Every minute I was high and trying to make money illegally. I think
that was one big difference in this round: I think that I got it all out of my
system, and I no longer obsess or think too much about the fun parts of
addiction. When I think about liquor now, or twirling the meth pipe, I get
queasy and nervous, so I quickly change my thoughts. It doesn’t happen often,
and I have plenty of tools in my belt to combat these random memories when they
occur.
If I had stayed sober after that night, tomorrow I would
have 17 years of sobriety. I did not. I made a series of catastrophic mistakes
that lead to nine years of drinking and drugging after nearly five years of sobriety. I still maintain that I have
no regrets. I am grateful for all of my experiences both good and bad, because
the combination of every event in my life has leaded me to this moment and who
I have become.
This moment I have three years, nine months, nineteen days,
six hours, and ten minutes of sobriety, and one hell of a story.
