May 192009
I remember exactly where we met. I remember the intimate lighting and the view of all the boats. A marina restaurant on Chickamauga Lake in East Tennessee. I kept looking around to see if anyone was there who knew me. But the more I got to know her, the less I cared about that. There are times in your life when you try something you’ve held back on in the past, and you cross over and find yourself in a new place. She was that place.
We had only a short time together that first night. But at home, later on, I knew I must be with her again. Soon, I hoped. The next day I came up with all sorts of reasons why this was a very good thing, a thing I deserved, a thing that gets offered and you have a right to. A thing that might go against your upbringing, sure, but also against the stupidity of social restraints we submit to. Restraint be damned. I was ready for this.
As you might guess, we began to meet when and where we could. She was intoxicating. The more I was with her, the more I needed to be with her more. I constructed all kinds of excuses and occasions. I found myself planning my days around chances to be with her. For when I was with her I was new and different to myself. I was freer, funnier, wiser, manlier, braver–everything. And that was intoxicating too. I loved her, yes, but also I loved what I became in her presence, under her spell.
Now and then I would ask myself where this was headed. After all, I did have a job, and a wife, and two children, and a reputation to uphold, and a church I went to, and work to do around the house that I paid less and less attention to. I paid less and less attention to everything, actually. And people may have noticed this, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it. I went on paying more and more attention to her.
For years I did.
Finally I did ask myself where this was headed. In my sober moments, I realized that I was not in control of this relationship. It was in control of me. I was spending my life covering up, making excuses, and offering apologies. I was no longer the free and funnier man I had been. I was a man caught in circumstances of his own making, whose life had become unmanageable.
Six years ago, in great desperation, I told her I had had enough and could not go on. She thought I would change my mind, and that surely we could see each other occasionally and be friends. But we had tried to do that over and over, and it never worked.
I walked into Joe’s office, closed the door, sat down, and told him my story.
“I have to make a change,” I said.
I did not forget her the day I made this change. I missed her terribly.
For a long time I was more of a wreck without her than I had become with her.
But I did not waver, and have not until now. “One day at a time,” as they say. As we say. We alcoholics.
