I Am a Woman of the 1920's Flapper Type
Speaking a language only alcoholics understand
I have something strange to admit. I have an incredibly deep and meaningful connection with two individuals that I have never met. I have not laid my eyes on either of these individuals, but we speak a language and share a common experience that bonds us intensely.
One of those people is a stranger who drove their vehicle through our alleyway one morning around 8 am as I was in my office space working. Each morning I keep the shades open until the sun light becomes too intense through my east facing windows. I was on a call when I glanced down from my second level overview of our alley and noticed a strange vehicle making their way in from the street. Our block’s not physically big, and we have quality relationships with all our neighbors, so I knew this to be a stranger and so I paid attention.
As they drove through the alley, I noted they were positioning themselves tight against the side that contained our garbage and recycling bins. I stopped listening to the phone call that was happening with work to pay attention to the scene that was about to unfold because I knew exactly what was going to happen next.
This stranger pulled up next to our recycling bin, rolled the window down and deposited something in the can before taking off quickly and leaving the alley. My gut sank momentarily knowing what just happened and feeling intense flashbacks to my own behavior during my isolated struggles with alcoholism.
I knew instantly that individual had deposited their empties from a drinking spree that they did not want a loved one to know about. I know because I did it too. I would stash my empties in a hiding spot in the basement, and then usually during a detox period, find some time to package them all up and distribute them to various trash locations around the neighborhood, so I didn’t run the risk of being caught by putting them into our own receptacles.
It is an insanity and a behavior that I shared with this unidentified stranger who for whatever reason chose our alley on that morning.
The second person that I have never met yet feel a tight kinship with is a woman who started her battle with alcoholism during the roaring 20’s. One of the personal stories in the back of the AA book is her journey to recovery, and her description of her life and struggles could have easily been written for me nearly 100 years before my own battle began to rage.
A little more than fifteen years ago, through a long and calamitous series of shattering experiences, I found myself being helplessly propelled toward total destruction. I was without power to change the course my life had taken. How I had arrived at this tragic impasse I could not have explained to anyone. I was thirty-three years old and my life was spent. I was caught in a cycle of alcohol and sedation that was proving inescapable and consciousness had become intolerable.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 268
Um… check.
Nor could I blame my dilemma on my childhood environment. I couldn’t have chosen more loving and conscientious parents. I was given every advantage in a well-ordered home. I had the best schools, summer camps, resort vacations and travel. Every reasonable desire was possible of attainment for me. I was strong and healthy and quite athletic.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 269
Right again, outside of the athletic portion.
At twenty-five I had developed an alcoholic problem. I began making the rounds of the doctors in the hope that one of them might find some cure for my accumulating ailments, preferably something that could be removed surgically.
Of course the doctors found nothing. Just an unstable woman, undisciplined, poorly adjusted and filled with nameless fears. Most of them prescribed sedatives and advised rest and moderation.
Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty I tried everything. I moved a thousand miles away from home to Chicago and a new environment. I studied art; I desperately endeavored to create an interest in many things, in a new place among new people. Nothing worked. My drinking habits increased in spite of my struggle for control. I tried the beer diet, the wine diet, timing, measuring, and spacing of drinks. I tried them mixed, unmixed, drinking only when gay, only when depressed. And still by the time I was thirty years old I was being pushed around with a compulsion to drink that was completely beyond my control. I couldn’t stop drinking. I would hang on to sobriety for short intervals, but always there would come the tide of an overpowering necessity to drink and, as I was engulfed in it, I felt such a sense of panic that I really believed I would die if I didn’t get that drink inside.
Needless to say, this was not pleasurable drinking. I had long since given up any pretense of the “social” cocktail hour. This was drinking in sheer desperation, alone and locked behind my own door. Alone in the relative safety of my home because I knew I dare not risk the danger of blacking out in some public place or at the wheel of a car. I could no longer gage my capacity and it might be the second or the tenth drink that would erase my consciousness.
Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 269-270
And with that I realized, I am a woman of the 1920’s flapper type. I am the stranger driving the alleyway in search of a private place to get rid of your shameful behavior. I am anyone and everyone who is battling alcoholism alone and in despair.
After my workday completed, I went down to look in the recycling bin to confirm my suspicion. I opened the lid and was hit with a sight that I was not completely prepared for. Not only was I correct about this persons action, but they had deposited the EXACT same drink that was my specific drink of choice at the end of my battle.
I shut the lid and said a quick prayer for this individual, hoping that they might find recovery and serenity as I had.
That’s all I’ve got,
Kyle