146 Days

It’s been 146 days — nearly 5 months — since I had any alcohol or painkillers or sleeping pills. I think this is impressive? It feels impressive. There have been some truly great days in there. Today is the kind of day where I want to claw my skin off. Today is the kind of day where I want, desperately, to down a few Vicodin with half a bottle of Makers.

I want to understand why I’m the way I am. I’ve burned through 3 therapists (one of whom I really liked but wasn’t covered by my insurance.) I’m trying desperately to find one — it’s way harder than it should be.

I do this mental exercise sometimes where I try to travel back to key moments in my past that made me want to numb myself silly with booze and pills. A nasty breakup in college. The night I kicked my dad out of the house and afterwards sat on the roof and drank until sunrise. A fight I lost badly in middle school. What else?

The thing. When I travel back too far I get too close to it, and when I get too close to it I sweat and I panic and it takes all of my energy to not go to a liquor store. I haven’t even figured out a way to talk to my therapists about it. How weird is that. Sobriety is the only way but it hurts. And it fucking sucks for this kind of stuff.

I texted my mom a few weeks ago, “Sort of out of nowhere sorry but did I have a babysitter for a while named Carla?”* (name changed) It always takes my mom an hour or so to text back. This time she called me five seconds later. Sometimes an instinct kicks in, I guess.

It’s hard to describe the rest. Carla was in her 40s. I remember her and her shitkicker, awful husband and their weird son and the shitty house she took me to even though mom had given her strict instructions to keep me at our house until she got home. They were hunters right? Yes. Yeah, I remember that. He hunted birds. They made me touch the dead ducks. I almost remember that more clearly than anything else. The dead ducks lined up in a row in the back of his pickup truck.

Sometimes I drank to knock out the dreams. Valium helped. Valium helped a lot on nights like this. I remember you. I remember the bed. It gets foggier after that. I travel back too far my heart races. I travel back too far I wake up with bruises where my fingernails dug into my palms. It’s difficult to access for a reason, I think.

I just wanted you to not be angry with me. I remember that most of all. I still remember that feeling. I wonder if you would remember my name now. Or if you’re even still alive or if you still live in Illinois or Missouri or Indiana or you’re probably long gone by now. I wonder if you could wrap your head around how much alcohol I’ve consumed and how many pills I’ve taken over the last 17 years to keep you buried and I can’t even blame you for what a shitty human being I’ve been because I can only remember the edges. The burning in my gut. Quick, fragile scenes. I almost have it and then? I used to have the perfect tools to keep it away, and it’s gone now. I guess I blame you. The dreams weren’t dreams. What would I even say to you now.

Every time I think I’ve rounded the corner on this — on staying clean — something happens to sabotage it. I’m usually the something, is the thing. Tomorrow I talk to a promising new therapist, and that’s something. Tomorrow I’ll be 147 days sober. I’ll try to find the words to articulate it. What I remember and what I can’t forget by beating it to hell with blunt objects anymore.

Some days are good. Today I was really lost. And then there’s tomorrow.