First, career. Here I was in a prestigious graduate screenwriting program, studying with respected teachers and an elite crop of aspiring writers. Here I would apply my long-neglected talent. Here I would focus diligently on the craft of writ—hey, who’s that guy? And that one. And…
There were lots of cute guys in my class: Dominic, an atheist genius; Kurt, a former hockey pro; Danny, a painfully shy stand-up comic; and Butler, a rakish Harvard boy with Guy Pearce cheekbones. They were all cute, cool, likable guys. Well, except for Butler. He bragged about his studio connections and his Harvard buddies who were writing for Conan. He wrote scripts about anorexic astrophysicists in bikinis. And then he had the gall to do something chivalrous, like walk me to my car. Butler was the worst combination of talent, debauchery, and manners. And I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Fortunately I was intelligent and therapized enough to back away and recognize what I was attracted to, what notes he was playing. One: testosterone. Apart from Pedro, I hadn’t been around much of that. Two: focus and discipline. When other students went out partying, Butler went home to write. Three: Butler was a brilliant writer. Even through the neoprene bikinis, I could see it. Well, then, perhaps Butler was strumming the creative chord that I was only beginning to learn. Very admirable of him, glad I figured it out, moving on.
Except I couldn’t move on. Butler sat near me in class, he teased me, he made suggestive comments, and then he’d compliment my work or buy me a latte. And he never, ever missed a chance to pinch up those Guy Pearce cheekbones into a smirk that I’m sure he practiced in the mirror. Jackass.
I started to feel the familiar, paralyzing dread that something awful was approaching and I could do nothing to stop it. I was in that boat headed for Niagara Falls, and all I could do was watch the riverbank glide by on the way to the drop. But wait! I knew what was happening. I had a hand free and an oar! I could grab that oar and steer the boat to safety.
Then again…I kind of wanted to feel the rush as I went over the Falls.
I ended the semester on an academic high: I pulled straight A’s and managed to book acting gigs on Lois & Clark,Married with Children, and even Seinfeld! Maybe that’s why Butler was flirting with me at the Christmas party. I brought my friend Gwen for protection, but she got distracted in a conversation with Danny the stand-up. Butler, the Rake of Harvard, sashayed over with a martini and a cigarette.
That’s another thing I began in grad school: drinking and smoking. Alcohol loosened me up; smoking calmed my slow-burn resentment toward the Still, Small Voice that was maintaining squatter’s rights in my head.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” Butler smirked.
“Neither did I,” I replied through a smoke ring.
“And aren’t you a Christian?”
“I’m trying to quit.”
Butler laughed. “Well, then, Merry Christmas to me.”
A week later, I was at Butler’s apartment. (We’d gone to the movies four nights in a row, and every night ended making out in his car, after which I went home to drink and smoke away my anxiety. At least I wasn’t overeating!) I even drank before I came over, to silence the Still, Small Squatter.
Nevertheless, I informed Butler that no way was I going to have sex with him. (It had been…Yeesh, fourteen years? I was not going to admit that!) “I’m not comfortable, Butler. I need time to get to know you as a person.”
“I respect your integrity.” Butler smiled. Those cheekbones. Those eyes. Jerk. “Let’s just go slow; let’s know each other well.” Well, a guy who honors your boundaries is really, really hot. And so with a great deal of alcohol and denial, I ended my self-imposed fourteen-year sabbatical. Whoosh! Over the falls I went. It felt great. As long as I kept drinking.
“That misogynist?” Gwen exclaimed. “You passed on Pedro for the Rake of Harvard?”
“I don’t know what got into me. It won’t happen again.”
But the semester resumed and it did happen again. A lot. Butler was great! He was smart, educated, and funny; he could even be romantic when he wanted. Yes, I had concerns. I didn’t go back to grad school to major in obsessive relationships. But I could manage this for a while. As long as it didn’t interfere with my writing.
But it did interfere with my writing. I had to drink to relax, drink more to silence my guilt, then smoke to calm my resentment over feeling guilty, then rationalize my drinking and smoking. I was too exhausted to write. My secular friends ate, drank, had sex, and went on with their day. They also fell in love, got married, had families, and recycled. Premarital sex didn’t turn them into monsters!
If only religion hadn’t blimped sex into this life-altering, spirit/soul/body transcendent unto-the-Lord moment that you can enjoy only when you’re married, which of course you can’t do until you get the sin out of your life and go through inner healing. No wonder Christian men escaped into Internet porn and Christian women escaped into trashy novels. Religion had screwed us over! At least, that’s what I told myself when I was tweaked on booze and nicotine.
Some nights, after the alcohol and nicotine had worn off and I was alone, I thought back on the early days, when all I wanted to do was talk to God and listen to his reply. Had I ever heard him speak? Yes. I had heard words of comfort; I’d felt God’s love. He’d encouraged me, even healed me. But wasn’t God’s love just as conditional as my father’s? Didn’t he love me only as long as I loved what he loved, thought what he thought? “Stand up or you won’t get the blessing. Get healed or you won’t get a life. Laugh like a hyena and repent of your pride!” Yes, I’d heard from God. Now I wanted to drown out any sound of him. Turn up the music and drink. Still I could see the Nice Jesus moping in my head.
“You are a stalker!” I cried into the dark. “I broke up with you, and you keep stalking me. What if you got me back? What would you do? You’d go back to treating me the same way. You’d control me or neglect me or turn me over to some abusive pastor friend. Well, it’s not going to happen. I’ve moved on. You should too.”
But I couldn’t move on. How could I erase God from my memory? He was in everything I wrote. What other language did I have to describe my longing for beauty and goodness and transcendence? What other Person existed who could fulfill that longing? I could not escape him. Maybe I was just as obsessed with God as he was with me. And what if I did succeed in drowning him out? What would the world mean then? Try as I might to cast God as Bad Guy, deep down I knew the story went another way. That’s why I did whatever it took to avoid going deep down.
A relationship based on chemistry alone eventually combusts. After a few months, we broke it off and Butler went back to his life, as if the romance hadn’t mattered. Maybe because it hadn’t.
But it had mattered to me! He was the first guy I’d been intimate with in fourteen years! Sitting in a classroom with him after that was like sitting next to pheromonal plutonium. I tried to keep my cool. We’d be polite; then we’d be warm. Then he’d ask me how I was, tell a joke, walk me to my car, throw out a “miss you,” and leave. Sooner or later there would be a knock on my door and we’d be back in our cycle: passionate, silly, enmeshed, arguing, breaking up, calling a truce, and obsessing. This went on for close to a year; a year when I was paying buckets of money to learn to write.
During one particularly radioactive détente, Butler announced to our film structure class that Doctor Zhivago was playing at a revival theater. “I don’t know a film that so captures the sense of beauty and loss,” Butler waxed.
“Mmm,” I replied. He was so poetic, that Butler.
“We should get a group to go,” Butler announced to the air in the room. So he organized a group to meet at the IMAX. Only he and I showed up. Whaddya know.
The lights went down, and up came that lush, haunting, “Lara’s Theme.” Butler reached over and wrapped his pinkie finger around mine. “I’ve got it at home on DVD,” he whispered. We were gone before the opening credits were finished.
Later that evening I asked him what we
were to each other. “We’re each other’s harbor,” he said with a sigh. “That safe place we come back to before we venture out again. We’re not sure where we’re going. But it’s this journey that matters.”
“You’re no Boris Pasternak,” I replied.
Later, as I drove home, I felt that nudge; the Still, Small Squatter in the back of my head.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I interrupted, “and I don’t want to hear it! You had plenty of chances to bring around Christian Mr. Right. And you didn’t!”
There was a moment of silence, and then I “heard” a reply.
“One question, Susan.”
I huffed. “What?!”
“Do you feel loved?”
I began to cry. No. I did not.
Christmas was our anniversary, if two years of hooking up and breaking up constituted a relationship. “I don’t give gifts,” Butler said. “I give experiences.” Butler wanted to experience a ride to the airport.
When I stopped by to pick him up, he reached for his carry-on, and out fell a box of condoms. An entire box. “Got a date in Bar Harbor?” I asked.
“Susan,” he said, recovering quickly, “my dad taught me to always carry condoms. You carry tampons in your purse.”
“I never get the urge to menstruate.”
He sighed. “We’ve been so up and down. Life is funny. I might meet the girl of my dreams on the street tomorrow.”
“Well, then, she’s not me.” I turned. “Thanks for the experiences.” I walked out and never came back. I felt like a rock star. And I had the alcohol problem to prove it.
I entered graduate school with confidence and left in obscurity. I came to write and left obsessing over men. I did manage to belch out a few decent screenplays. They would have been terrific, I told myself, if I hadn’t been distracted. Next time I’d be focused. An agent liked one script and asked for a rewrite. I was afraid my rewrite wouldn’t be good enough. So I drank and procrastinated, and the agent moved on. “Next time, I’ll be prompt. I’ll be focused and prompt.” And I had another drink to forget about it. I had blamed God for holding me back. Now I was doing it all by myself.
The only alcohol I remember as a child was a bottle of rum over the stove. Mom used it to make rum cake. That cake rocked. I got drunk once in high school and spent the next day praying for a coma. That was enough. In my twenties I discovered chardonnay, like everyone who lived near Trader Joe’s. I could take alcohol or leave it. After I ran out on God, I took alcohol more than I left it. And I kept taking it.
Breaking up with Butler solved my boy problem. But now I had a new set of problems: resentment, self-loathing, and regret. Here’s the thing about booze: It never makes the problem go away. But it sure puts it off nicely. So I put it off. I started to crave booze. I started to drink during the day. I slept in the afternoon. I drank alone at night. I woke up with hangovers and drank more with my coffee.
I went to parties trying to forget Butler: school parties, friends’ parties, even the occasional Christian party so I could remind myself why I disliked church guys. One night I got hammered and went home with a church guy. I had a one-night stand with a church guy! He was actually a decent guy—he wanted to get to know me after that. But I didn’t even want to know me after that. Surely this was not what I was made for. Surely this must be what it was to hit bottom.
“Dear God,” I prayed, “I can run toward you or away from you, but I cannot make you disappear. You’re written on my palm too. You are in my DNA. But how can you forgive me after all I’ve done? How could you love me after this? How can I trust your church? It feels too broken to repair.”
I waited in the darkness for the Still, Small Squatter’s rebuke. He did not speak. Instead a picture came to mind. It was the prodigal son, limping home in rags. I saw the prodigal’s father cry out from the gate. I saw the father nearly tripping just to get to his son and embrace him in tears. But the son? The son stood there frozen in disbelief. How could the son grow up with such a generous father and still be unable to recognize love when it draped in tears around his body?
I finally wanted to stop drinking. Only now, I couldn’t.
“They have a 12-step program for that too,” Cheryl reminded me.
I’d dropped out of OA when I started grad school (and drinking). I didn’t have the time for meetings (or accountability). Now I had to hit another 12-step group for drunks. The next morning I was sitting in a dingy room with a bunch of bottom-feeders who were chain-smoking and inhaling donuts. But they weren’t drinking.
I knew the lingo—I could fake it. But then the guest speaker shared her story. “Sophie” was just like me: my age, churchgoer, faker, drunk. When she called on me to share, I burst into tears. It was the bottom-feeders who came over and lifted me up: “It’s okay, sweetie. Just take it one day at a time.” Sophie came over and gave me her number. I promised her I’d be there tomorrow.
At four p.m. I called Sophie in tears. It had been a frustrating day. I’d been driving all over town. Coming home I neared the supermarket and lost control of the wheel. Someone took over my body, went into the store, and bought a single-serving bottle of crappy Chablis and drank it. Why did I drink when I wanted so badly not to? Maybe the day was too much. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was a loser.
“It’s okay,” Sophie said. “You didn’t drink because you’re a loser. You drank because you’re an alcoholic.”
I was hit with a one-two punch of relief and horror. Relieved I wasn’t a loser; horrified I was…an alcoholic? No, no! I drank responsibly for thirteen years. I only binge-drank for two years. That’s only, like, two-thirteenths of my drinking life. Couldn’t I stop for a while and go back to normal drinking later?
“Do you want to risk hitting a lower bottom?” Sophie asked.
I’d started with food. Now it was booze. What was next? Heroin?
I met Sophie at that bottom-feeder meeting again the next day. And the next. And the day after that. I stayed sober for a week. Then two. I liked the program’s spirituality. I couldn’t handle church yet. But they waffled about God. They said I could pick whatever god I wanted, as if the Supreme Being had a job vacancy? How lame, I scoffed. They may have been sober, but I knew the real God.
Then one day a huge thug got up to share. He’d gone to a party, drank and used, got into a fight, and drew a gun. Nobody got hurt, but he could have killed someone. He dissolved into tears, some guys got up and hugged him, and the next guy got up to share. As if that kind of brutal honesty happened all the time in those rooms. It did. Had I ever been that honest? No, I wasn’t really bulimic; I only threw up sometimes. I didn’t drink that long; I only smoked ultralights; I knew the real God. Know what I was? A fake. A fake who didn’t think she was a fake. Meanwhile, these bottom-feeders with their waffly gods were more honest and repentant than I was. I kept going.
I got thirty days of sobriety. The alcohol was out of my system. I was no longer numb. I started to feel what I’d been drinking about. Now I understood why I wanted to be numb. I still missed Pedro. I felt violated by that Roidhead. I missed being close to God. I didn’t feel safe in church. I had degraded my body and soul. I had squandered two years of grad school. I had lost a shot at an agent—she liked my writing and I drank it away. I had drunk the last three years of my life away!
Why had I ditched God again? Then I remembered. One: The church preached a gospel of passivity. Maybe. Or had I picked passive churches to fit my preexisting passivity? After all, sometimes it was easier to wait on God and then blame him for the outcome. Two: The church screwed me up about sex. Maybe my church and my family had tweaked my ideas about sex. But even if I ignored every Scripture warning against premarital sex—which would take a lot of ignorance—I could not ignore the effects in my own life. Sex erased my objectivity (which identified Butler as a player). It erased my self-respect (which happens when you get involved with a player). And it erased my sense of direction (which happens when you become glued to some J
ames Bond wannabe instead of following what God wants for your purpose and direction). The church didn’t screw me up: I did it all by myself! Three: The church held me back artistically. Yeah. But now I squandered my imagination on fantasizing that Butler cared about me. I wasted my brain cells on alcohol. I used my creativity to find ways to abuse my creativity. I had wasted three years of my life, and they were never coming back.
Rudy sat silently, waiting for me to speak.
Susan: Aren’t you going to quote me that verse about God redeeming the time or restoring the years the locusts have eaten?
Rudy: (Shaking his head) Too often we quote those verses to get God to erase our blunders. What if you had driven drunk, crashed your car, and become paralyzed? God could restore your emotional life, but you’d never get your legs back.
Susan: And I’ll never get those years back.
Rudy: No, you won’t. (After a moment) How do you think God felt through this?
Susan: Please don’t. Not yet. I can’t face him.
Rudy: You can’t face his ire, or you can’t face his love?
Susan: I can’t face myself. My first concern isn’t over the pain I caused him; it’s over what I lost. I can’t even repent with a clean heart.
Rudy: If your heart was clean, you wouldn’t need to repent. You’ve got to talk to him.
If I closed my eyes I might see the Nice Jesus, brokenhearted. I might see God profoundly (and rightly) disappointed. I left my eyes open and stared at the carpet.
Susan: I’m sorry, God. I know I screwed up. I blamed you for what happened at that church. But what I did to myself was far worse. It’s okay if you’re angry. It’s okay if you hate me, because I hate myself.
God: Susan, stop.
Susan: Stop apologizing?
God: You apologized years ago and I forgave you. This is the same thing you did when you were eighteen: “I know you’re angry and you hate me; I’ll do everything right so you’ll love me.” I didn’t hate you. And I never loved you because you were good. I loved you because you were mine.
Angry Conversations with God Page 12