2010-08-27

Relief

I was fussing and kvetching a couple of days ago to my shrink of the past several years - a magnificently dry and sarcastic gay Jewish opera aficionado - about, of course, moving. I am not at all sanguine about it, even though it's been explained to me that we're essentially moving only four rooms of stuff, and a lot of that stuff is being jettisoned before the actual move. Doesn't matter. It's in my nature to be deeply freaked out at all times. And as I sat there, puffing and fidgeting and whining, my shrink leaned in and said, "Well, just don't DRINK OVER IT, kitten."

I almost got a little indignant. Because drinking very, very seldom presents itself as a viable option these days. Even when I was staring down the barrel of the possible end of my marriage, I would no sooner have considered a drink than I would have thought about a nice refreshing glass of DRANO. Drinking. Pfft. Don't be ridiculous.

But then yesterday afternoon, as I was heading home, juggling empty boxes I'd snatched from work and wondering how many dirty looks I'd get on the train, I saw a woman leaving the liquor store a few doors down from my office...one of the three liquor stores I used to "rotate" when purchasing my alcohol (you know, because if you go into the same store every day, they're going to KNOW you have a PROBLEM). She was carrying a single paper bag, and all of a sudden, I was struck with a very vivid sense of RELIEF. Not relief at the fact that I was carrying empty boxes and not a bag from the liquor store. No, I was distinctly remembering how relieved I used to feel knowing that I had a full bottle of something. I don't know if anyone but another alcoholic can understand that relief, and how it tends to be directly proportional to the level of liquid in the bottle.

Of course, the problem is that it's artificial relief. Whatever it is you're drinking to escape will still be there after you've temporarily stopped trying to drown it. In fact, it tends to remind you of its presence at 3 o'clock in the morning, bloated and furious and terrifying.

I know all of this. I've spent 8 years reminding myself, and others, that a drink has never solved a goddamned thing. But that knowledge doesn't keep me safe from seeing a woman leave Huntington Wine & Spirits and getting stupidly nostalgic over my own stupefying lack of judgement.

But I shook it off. I'm carrying a bunch of empty boxes because I get to move to a new place with my husband and my two cats, none of which I would have if I was still going into liquor stores every afternoon to "feel better."

What a relief.

lisamcc at 9:30 a.m.

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