As his mom was paying the bill, Zac texted Ali again: “sorry if your embarrassed by me. I’m sure a lot of ppl are”
Ali: “Zachary joseph in no way am I embarrassed by you. Never would be.”
Texts and calls came from friends and family. It seemed like people didn’t quite know what to say. His old roommate Jake Powers texted him that night: “Hey bud, heard ya got got come home today! Just wanted to check in with you, and make sure you knew we were all thinking about ya this past week.” Zac apologized: “I gues I’m literally losing my shit mental lol.” He joked about it. He told Jake about his roommate in the psychiatric unit, there because he was a sex addict. Zac promised everyone he’d hit bottom and was on the road to recovery. The day after he was released from the inpatient psychiatric unit, he was scheduled to come back for a psychiatric evaluation.
But deep down, Zac wasn’t so confident he could fix his damaged brain or the accompanying addictions. “The sober life sucks lol,” he texted Ali. He told her about the night terrors that he’d been experiencing, searing dreams that woke him up in a choking fear and that made a good night’s sleep impossible. He was always tired but could never sleep. During waking hours, his mind skittered like a dragonfly, a hundred things a minute. But the primary emotion was shame—shame that the big, strong Zac Easter, football captain and army badass, inheritor of the Easter Mentality, was now the talk of the town after his darkest, weakest moment. “If you could kind of keep it on the down low,” he texted Jake, “I appreciate that.”
Text exchange between Zac and Ali, Tuesday, November 17, 2015:
Zac: I got to tell you truth I’ve kind of been holding back on, I feel highly emotional unstable right now lol
Ali: Can you try to explain in what ways you feel emotionally unstable . . .
Zac: idk my emotions are truly just fucked and all over the place. One minute I’m all happy and the next minute I just feel hopeless on life
Ali: Can I call ya
Zac: it might be easier for me to txt for a min
Ali: We can text then! When you say you feel hopeless do you know why you feel hopeless or is it more of an unexplainable feeling of hopelessness—like you don’t know why you feel that way?
Zac: Yeah idk why. It’s miserable lol. Actually sometimes it’s both
Ali: Sometimes it’s both what
Zac: Sometimes I know why I feel that way and sometimes I don’t
Ali: Well when you know why, what’s the reason
Zac: Just all my shit is not going to get better and I feel like I just lie to people and say yay I’m going to get better, but in reality it’s really a long shit in hell
Ali: Why don’t you think you’ll get better
Zac: Let’s be honest lol. You can’t fix a brain
Text exchange between Zac and Ali, the morning of Saturday, November 21, 2015:
Zac: Aren’t you a little mad or embarrassed by my actions?
Ali: I am in no way embarrassed or mad by last week. I was only extremely worried and upset and anxious until I got to talk to you. Please believe me when I say in no way was/am I mad at you or embarrassed.
Zac: I know but I feel bad because I totally about committed suicide and went to the loony bin lol
Ali: Zac in that moment you weren’t you and you had a lot eating away at you because you haven’t felt like you were in control of your life . . . but you shouldn’t feel bad. What’s important is that you’re still here and that you’re getting help. If I was mad or embarrassed I would’ve left by now—clearly that hasn’t happened :p
Zac: Yeah I’m still not feeling to well overall ;(
Ali: It definitely takes time babe and that’s why I think it’s really good to go to a therapist once a week for awhile. Do you wanna try to explain what/how you’re feeling right now?
Zac: Not something you want to hear, but most day I wonder why I’m still alive . . . the hopelessness just gets to me
Ali: Well I think you’re alive because there’s a reason for you to be. You’re the incredible person who has so much potential and so much ahead of you and you’re alive because of that. You’re one of the strongest and most resilient people I know because there’s a reason you’re supposed to be here and be alive . . . even if you can’t see that some days.
Zac: I won’t lie, and I’d like to get this off my chest. Some days I almost think it would be best for you if you didn’t have a guy like me. Like yes I know I’m a good guy in general, but I do carry a lot of baggage and I just don’t want to hurt you by doing some actions I feel like I can’t always control. Like last Friday, that was my 4th suicide attempt . . . like clearly something is fucked up in me . . . I feel like I’m sliding down my mountain and I’m doing all I can to try and to go back up
Ali: I get what you’re saying, but what is best for me is for you to get better. And I don’t care about how much baggage you have—I love you and want to be with you and there for you and want to help you get better in any way I can. Your baggage isn’t scaring me away. But I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass when I say you can get better . . . I truly believe theres a reason youre still here and that as hard as things are now, they will get better and you will get past this and achieve all the amazing things you have ahead of you . . . especially now that you’re not doing it or dealing with this on your own anymore.
Zac: Your best babe! Your truly a special person that I don’t even understand yet, I mean that in a good way ;) But yeah your right. I’ll get it figured and now I have more of a support system! Especially you :)
Text exchange between Zac and Ali, Tuesday, November 24, 2015, before Ali returned to Iowa for Thanksgiving break:
Zac: Omg I did this to myself but I can’t go [to therapy] today lol
Ali: Yes you can babe. It’ll be okay. The hardest part is getting up and going but this could be really beneficial for you and help you get the ball rolling on getting past all of this. And I’m here to talk whenever you need me today. And just try stay calm. Remember why you’re going to get better and healthier—and just keep looking forward to seeing me :) Baby steps
Zac: Lol I know babe! Your the bestest
Ali: Text me whenever you have a break and tell me how its going. It’s all about attitude, remember? Just stay open to letting it help you!!
Zac, a bit later: Yeah fuxk I can’t do it
Ali: Did you go for any of it?
Zac: no just sat in the parking lot
Thanksgiving 2015: a chilly, rainy, windy day in the cornfields surrounding the Easter household. As the family gorged themselves on traditional Thanksgiving fixings, the skies turned to a nasty wintry mix of rain, snow, and freezing rain. That did not discourage most of the Easter family from heading to early-bird Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving night.
Zac turned Ali into a football fan, and they watched his Green Bay Packers together.
Alone in the Easter basement, Zac and Ali burrowed into the ratty old couch. They cradled plates of leftover Thanksgiving food and tuned the television to NBC. Zac was excited for another of America’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions: football. Zac’s beloved Green Bay Packers were taking on their archrival, the Chicago Bears, at the wet, wind-whipped Lambeau Field in Wisconsin. The game was certainly important for football reasons: The Packers and Vikings were tied atop the NFC North after the Packers had just gone to Minneapolis and won a road game. The Bears were 4–6 and desperate for a win. Zac shouted at the television in glee in the first quarter when Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hit running back Eddie Lacy for a twenty-five-yard touchdown pass for the first points of the game. But this game was important for nostalgic reasons, too, and as it entered halftime—traditionally when the eighty thousand fans at Lambeau Field flee to bathrooms and concession stands—fans instead remained in their seats. Zac stared at the television as the cameras focused in on his favorite football player of all time. That player waited nervously in the stadium tunnel for the ceremony to retire his number, the giant yellow 4 f
orever hanging above the box seats in Lambeau Field’s north end zone.
Brett Favre had played sixteen seasons for the Packers, winning one Super Bowl and three NFL MVP awards as one of the top quarterbacks of his generation. But Favre’s legend was based more on his attitude, the swashbuckling, devil-may-care way he approached the game of football. He played through pain and injuries. He started an NFL-record 321 consecutive games. He didn’t miss a single game from 1992 until 2010. During that period, though, the sport took its toll. In 1996, Favre suffered a seizure during a hospital visit. It was later revealed that he had developed an addiction to the opioid Vicodin to cope with the daily pain of being an NFL warrior. He went to in-patient treatment for forty-six days in the off-season. Yet he never missed a game.
As his Hall of Fame career continued, Favre kept battling through injuries—some of them quite serious. There was one summer when he didn’t remember a single one of his daughter’s soccer games that he attended. His consecutive game streak came to an end in December 2010, when he missed a game due to a sprained shoulder. One week later, though, Favre was back on the field, and he sustained a concussion while playing for the Minnesota Vikings. A Chicago Bears player had sacked Favre. He was knocked out for at least ten seconds. As Favre lay on the field, the Vikings trainer shook him. The trainer heard him snoring. Then, Favre came to. Woozy, he was helped to his feet by the trainer. The legendary quarterback looked at the trainer and said, “What are the Bears doing here?” That marked Favre’s final appearance in an NFL game.
Now, though, Zac watched as the crowd gave him a hero’s welcome. As the public-address announcer lauded Favre as a “possessor of legendary durability,” the camera captured the legend, the hood of his raincoat obscuring part of his face. He looked unnerved. His eyes darted back and forth. “At quarterback,” the announcer said, “from Southern Mississippi . . . number four . . . BRETT FAVRE!”
The crowd cheered. Zac turned to Ali. He recognized in Favre the same tics he’d experienced himself. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he has CTE,” Zac told her. “He looks so anxious right now. And his face is all red.”
At midfield, Favre stepped out from under his umbrella, and the Packers’ president passed the microphone to him. Of course, Favre first gave an homage to toughness. “This is Green Bay weather!” Favre said, as winds slapped against thousands of yellow number-4 flags fans held in the air. “I love it. I love it.”
Zac had been struggling with being in front of people, had become terrified of public speaking, which he blamed on the concussions. “I can just tell that’s what he’s feeling, too,” Zac told Ali.
In 2018, Favre opened up to journalist Megyn Kelly on NBC. He told her he suffered “probably thousands” of concussions during his playing career. He said that he learned at a young age from his football coach father that you should never come out of a practice or game just because of “a little head ding.” You didn’t want to be called a “sissy.” Yet at age forty-seven, Favre now said his short-term memory was already failing him, and that coming up with the right words in conversation was becoming difficult. He worried that he might be experiencing the early symptoms of CTE.
“No matter what I do to try to take care of myself physically, that is a part of my future that I really can’t control,” Favre told Kelly. “And that is very scary.”
He told Kelly he’d prefer that his grandchildren played golf, not football. Around the time of that year’s Super Bowl, Favre appeared on CNN to speak with journalist Christiane Amanpour about head injuries. “Tomorrow I may not remember who I am, I may not know where I live—and that’s the frightening thing for us football players,” he told Amanpour.
“How does one make the game safer?” she asked Favre.
“How do you make the game safer?” he replied. “You don’t play.”
Zac’s moods weren’t just ping-ponging. They were rocketing back and forth. One minute, he was pledging to go to all his therapy appointments and conquer all his demons. He was going to be the old Zac again. The next minute, he was filled with self-loathing. It was after midnight when Ali left his parents’ house. Their Saturday night had turned into a Sunday morning on November 29, 2015. In a few hours, she would head back to law school for her final couple of weeks of the semester. At 1:55 a.m., Zac texted her, his words filled with gratitude: “Thanks for being my Winslow, I’ll never be able to say it enough. P.s please please watch for deer!” Then, he went to sleep. But two hours later, he was up, bulldozed awake by another bad dream. Instead of trying to go back to sleep, Zac walked outside and opened the trunk of Big Red, where he had stashed a bottle of liquor. He took it to his room and started drinking. He sent Ali a drunken, rambling, 356-word text shortly before sunrise. It read in part: “I guess one thing that’s holding me back from [trying to get better] is to still being kind of on the edge of just wanting to die, and just say fuxk trying to get better because I’m tired of it . . . thanks for saving my life that night, I know you may not want to hear it but if you wouldn’t of called id be a goner . . . I love you so much it’s stupid!”
The next morning, Zac went for a walk in the woods. His mother peeked in his room and found the empty liquor bottle. She confronted him about it and gave him a lecture: He’d never fix his brain unless he stopped drinking. And she’d found something else, too, while searching online: an inpatient clinic in California that specialized in people with brain injuries and chemical dependency issues. She pushed him to try it. Zac didn’t want to. His dad joined the discussion, too.
When his parents finished lecturing him, Zac texted Ali: “I’m so sorry Winslow. Idk what happened to me last night ;( . . . I’m a fuck up ;(”
The next day, a Monday, Zac went to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
He told Ali that he was feeling delusional, that the world was trying to manipulate him.
At 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday, December 1, 2015, Ali texted Zac: “Baby are you ok”
“Oh lord no,” Zac replied. “I woke up and had a minor freak out. I drank again . . .
“I’m worthless”
Text exchange between Zac and Ali on Friday, December 4, 2015:
Ali: I’m sorry you’re having an off day
Zac: I know, sorry you have to deal with it. It’s not fair to you
Ali: Nothing unfair babe. And nothing I have to ‘deal with.’ You’re my boyfriend and I love you - just our current situation and you’re just dealing with stuff that I’m helping you through. I choose to and want to
Zac: Thanks babe. Please run though whenever I get to bad. You deserve better ;)
Ali: I deserve what I choose and I choose you. And you deserve all the best just the same. I’m never gonna run - already told you you can’t get rid of me. And no more getting bad babe—this is a turning point in your life and you’re gonna get better.
Zac: You have a lovely brain ;)
Ali: You do, too.
Ali: Also, i know you don’t want to talk about it but I just want to say that I really think you should go to treatment tomorrow/this week and definitely therapy and i hope that you do. Not just because we have a headbutt [their phrase for a pinkie swear] on it but also because you can’t do this on your own and you shouldn’t have to and if you let it, those things will help you get better.
Zac apologized. He apologized for his mood swings, he apologized for skipping therapy, he apologized for feeling hopeless and just wanting to drink away the pain.
Zac: Idk I’m just a fucked up soul . . . I’m hopeless sometimes, I’m hopeful sometimes, and then there’s when I’m happy just drinking and jamming to music. I’ve been depressed for so long idk what feeling in a normal mood means. I’m sorry but honestly you are beating a dead horse and that’s me, I’m just scared shitless and my emotions are all over the place. You deserve better than me, I wish I wasn’t that guy. I know we’re in love and we mean it. It’s just hard and I’m scared I’m wearing both of us down sometimes. But one thing I do know is that I’ll make it
like I always have. You may seem annoyed and I get that. But I will always come around because I always do. I guess I’m waiting for myself to catch on to that mindset and fight through it. With the mindset I have now, idk if I can make it.
Ali: You’re not weighing us both down and you and I are fine. I know you’re scared. I know that’s what is holding you back, but that’s also why you need treatment (and most importantly, to see your therapist weekly)—to help make you realize that being sober isn’t scary and will actually help you feel happiness and love and excitement ten times stronger because it’ll no longer be clouded by substances . . . You’re not a fucked up soul. And you’re not hopeless.
Zac: I know you and my family love me and it keeps me going, but some days shit is just messed up in my head. Another reason I’m scared of being sober is because when I’m sober I can’t feel anything. I could cut myself sober and not feel a thing. I’m not a cutter by any means and I have done it once before to just check myself, but just saying. The numbness I feel sober is what kills me inside. I need to figure out how not to be numb sober. I know that and therapy will help. It’s just exhausting even thinking about it. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it earlier. Substances help me feel and that’s not okay . . . When I’m with you I don’t feel so numb.
Ali: I know you’re fighting babe, I’m just trying to help and don’t want you to do it alone or feel alone.
Zac: I guess I’m just mentally sick and there’s no certain medicine for it. I wish I could pick you up on a private jet and chain you to the wall like 50 shades. I’m tired of this like I promise and it’s either sink or swim. And I WaNT to learn how to swim lol.
Zac’s dad took all the guns out of the house, packing them in a big toolbox and stashing them at his brother’s house. They took all the alcohol out of the house. Everyone in the family was constantly on edge. There came to be a morbid rhythm to Zac’s daily successes and failures: He went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but then he’d wake up in the middle of the night and start drinking.
Love, Zac Page 20