From that first night of drinking with her friend, Jane would learn later, a monster grew inside of her soul. It grew slowly, as it generally does. And Jane didn’t recall her “drinking really becoming a problem” until she left Germany in the early 1990s and returned to Virginia to start a new life with new husband Warren.
“I surely had my fair share of wine and beer while living in Europe, but it was never enough to interfere with my work as a school nurse, or my reserve duty at the air force hospital in Wiesbaden.”
But upon her return to the States, moving to Virginia, Jane said, “Alcohol became a problem.”
But also a friend.
One of the reasons was that Jane had retired from thirty years’ service in the military, both active and reserve, and also from civilian nursing. She had worked her way up to colonel before retiring from a Pentagon position, in fact. Throughout her life Jane had always kept herself busy. Then, she said, one day she woke up and that routine was gone. She had, effectively, nothing left to do—but drink.
At first, I did not think they were related—the rape and my drinking—as my drinking was not a problem until many years after the rape. However, after much consideration, I can see a connection. My drinking took off when I retired from the military.
One day I’m working at the Pentagon, with the rank of colonel, my rank alone demanding respect. The next, well, I feel like a nobody. Taking off my military uniform for the last time and wondering what the heck I was going to do the rest of my life was a rude awakening. I was used to being in charge, being in control, and I liked it.
Having been tied down, gagged, and blindfolded during the rape, I had realized as time went on, no one would ever be in control of me again. I wanted to give orders, not take them. I was a bit selfish and self-centered, which is thought to be the root cause of my alcoholism. So, here I am with no more work-related responsibilities, feeling sorry for myself and drinking more wine, vodka, and, at one time, whatever was around.
I had time to finally reflect on my past and the horrors of my rape. I also had time to face my fears, my disappointments, and my character defects. I was Jane-centered, not God-centered, and that was my biggest problem.
I drank socially for years, but not to this extent. Now my drinking was affecting every facet of my life. Alcohol became my savior and my friend.
Drinking had become the central focus of Jane’s life. With her being home alone, bored, and not filling her time with work-related projects, that monster broke out of its shell and began to grow exponentially. Before long, Jane was hiding bottles of gin and then driving around town looking for a Dumpster to toss the empty bottles into so nobody would uncover her secret. The alcohol filled a void. It became something to lean on, to turn to. With her vocational life now completely gone, Jane was forced to confront the past.
Throughout her life, she had always found a way to divert focus from the rape through work or family or something else. But she could no longer do that—and alcohol never talked back. It never told Jane she wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t able to continue working. It never told Jane that all that had happened in her life had manifested into an obsession with a liquid. Her obsession became buying the booze, hiding the booze, drinking the booze, planning her next day of drinking, planning where she was going to toss the next set of bottles. Her job, essentially, became drinking too much and killing any pain she felt, either from the rape, from retirement, from being lonely, from having a son in the military with a perpetual war on terror, or all of the above. Jane was now tied to those bottles. She couldn’t let go. She didn’t want to let go.
Then Warren and Jane moved to South Carolina after Warren retired, and this, she said, “slowed my intake for a while as I was busy getting settled in a new home and starting a new job.”
Something else was working here, too—which is another important deception that addiction, which I like to call the most prolific serial killer in the world, keeps hammering into you: Jane had no idea (she never saw it) that she was addicted to alcohol—that she was suffering from a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. She wasn’t a skid row bum. She wasn’t having problems getting up in the morning. She was able to function normally, for the most part. All of which is part of the lie that alcoholism propagates.
“Having an addiction to alcohol never entered my mind,” Jane recalled. “I knew I drank a lot, but I believed it was no more or less than any of my friends.”
CHAPTER 28
A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP
Jane’s son survived his tour of duty and returned home. As Jane and Warren settled in the Deep South, she leaned heavily on alcohol to keep her company and stifle any emotional pain, anxiety, or fear she was experiencing. She opened the door one day and in walked another brush with death.
Jane’s stomach had been increasing in size for months, which she attributed to weight gain. She ignored it for quite some time and tried to exercise more, eat better, and lose some weight.
“Some days it would look smaller than others, so not once did I ever think that something was wrong.”
Jane knew there was a problem, however, when she began coughing and urine would escape her bladder. And even then, she’d tell herself, Well, at my age, this must be normal.
“Denial was my middle name,” Jane said of her life then.
After a few months I decided I may need to see a doctor, as my lower abdomen had also enlarged and I looked like I was six months pregnant. Because of the urine leakage, I chose to see a urologist.
After taking one look at my stomach, he immediately sent me to the hospital for a CAT scan, which subsequently showed a large, tumor-like growth. The surgeon said there was a 50 percent chance that the tumor was malignant.
Hearing this news, Jane relied on something that had been coming up in her life time and again as she faced challenges—yet, she wasn’t willing to allow totally into her daily routine. The presence of God was growing. Jane had felt it ever since that doctor said he’d pray for her after arriving late to her bedside because he was in church. She couldn’t shake it. Whenever something would come up, Jane would move toward prayer.
“So, in this case, I prayed hard that the other fifty percent of that growth would be benign as well.”
But this prayer Jane was involved in on the night before her surgery was a bit more dramatic and soulful for her. She attended a church service the night before her surgery. The priest called Jane up to the front of the congregation and placed his hands over her abdomen.
He then said, Jane recalled, “the most beautiful, comforting prayer.”
After leaving church (and during the entire service), Jane recalled a peace she had rarely ever felt in life. When she awoke the following morning to face surgery, there was that same peaceful feeling: a calming, tranquil hum within her spirit that told her that everything was going to be all right. And as the nurse started her IV, Jane remained composed. She was smiling. She stared toward the sky. She thanked God for being there with her in the room and actually felt His presence.
“I actually felt Him enveloping me in His arms,” Jane recalled.
The other half of the tumor was also benign, and Jane believed she had been touched by God. Yet, within just a year’s time, death would once again come knocking on Jane’s door—and this time, Jane later said, “It was the real deal”—and challenged that growing faith.
CHAPTER 29
BOOZE AND CANCER—A DEADLY COCKTAIL
Jane had been working at an urgent-care facility near her home. It was “demanding, yet fun,” she said later, not to mention it kept her in the game of being out in the world doing something. On top of that, it seemed to have quelled her alcohol abuse somewhat and kept her drinking to a minimum. She was still hitting the bottle hard when she could, but it was certainly not as bad as it had been.
The year was 2003. While “pushing an obese patient in a wheelchair,” Jane explained, “I hurt my back.”
It was the first domino.
&n
bsp; The doctor who examined Jane wasn’t all that concerned about her injured back, but he told Jane to get dressed and remain in the room. He needed to speak with her about something else he found.
“I’m alarmed by what I see. You have an irregular, dark-shaped mole growing on your back, Jane. I want to refer you to a dermatologist and get it removed right away. After that, they’ll get it tested for you. We’ll take it from there.”
Jane was concerned. It sounded so serious. The doctor wanted the checkup and procedure done immediately. No waiting or putting it off.
It took a week. Jane got the results.
Malignant melanoma was all she needed to see.
I wasn’t even aware that the mole was there, due to its location in the middle of my back. Luckily, my doctor diagnosed the cancer as being “in situ,” meaning that it had not invaded outside of the immediate site. He was able to dig deep enough to remove all the cancer cells. And so my cancer was gone, but my lower-back pain remained.
As time went on, Jane slipped into a deep depression and chronic state of hopelessness. It was not one thing or another bringing Jane to her knees. It was a slow moving storm of emotions and a lifetime of baggage that had brought Jane to this point.
Now she was drinking heavier than she had ever been. Entire bottles of gin would last only a few days. She walked around with a perpetual buzz, maintaining (or chasing) that initial high. All alcoholics are essentially running after that first drunk—that first time the booze took away whatever pain they were feeling. Some spend a lifetime chasing this particular dragon, as Alcoholics Anonymous members might say. There’s no one moment in time, no one instance that alcoholics can recall that turned them from a sober member of society into a raging drunk, always high, always obsessing about that next drink, always working to hide their behavior. Lying, stealing, or whatever.
For Jane, her entire life had caught up with her. And here she was now, a grown woman, a grandmother, a wife, with so many friends, hiding this terrible, potentially deadly secret. She had survived all those life-threatening moments, including a major cancer scare, a brush with a serial killer, and it was a clear liquid now bringing her down to the lowest point of her life. Her body was shutting down. It got so bad, Jane said, she could not consider herself a “functioning alcoholic” any longer. The alcohol had, in fact, taken over.
“I had walked off my job as a breast-health coordinator at the local naval hospital,” Jane said.
She couldn’t do it anymore. The booze was running her life. Leaving that job, Jane had gone to bed, where she said she stayed for several weeks. She didn’t eat. Or sleep. Her hands shook as though she had Parkinson’s disease. She wasn’t talking to anyone, with the exception of her husband, but that was only on an as-needed basis.
“Total despair,” Jane said of that period.
And here’s the thing: Jane wasn’t sure what the problem was. She had no idea it was the drinking—that her body was now addicted to the booze.
“I just knew that I was very depressed and couldn’t function.”
Yet, when no one was around and Jane reached for that hidden bottle of gin she kept in her bedroom closet and took a swig, she immediately felt better.
I had been hiding alcohol around the house for years at that point, knowing that a quick trip to the bottle would be calming, relaxing, and stave off any anxieties I faced. It was an approach to escape from my world that had worked for a while, but had finally—obviously—caught up with me.
I was no longer in charge. Alcohol was my master. A drink was the first thought I had upon waking in the morning, and the last thought I had before bed.
Early on in my drinking, my “happy hour” would begin around four in the afternoon, when I would have a few glasses of wine while preparing dinner. It wasn’t long, however, before I was drinking at noon. After all, I thought I had every reason to drink. My son had been in danger in Iraq. I had faced serious medical issues. My mother—my best friend in the world—was facing health challenges. My back ached constantly.
To be honest, I really didn’t need a reason to drink. I knew I liked the feeling alcohol gave me and never considered that I might have a serious problem or that I developed into a raging alcoholic.
But there she was, in bed, severely depressed, obsessing about that next drink. Always the next drink. When, where, and how would she get it into her mouth and down her throat? Jane’s drinking had spiraled out of control without her realizing what was happening.
CHAPTER 30
DESPERATION AND DENIAL
Jane’s husband did not have any idea how bad things had gotten for his wife, whom he loved dearly. Warren didn’t know the extent of Jane’s drinking. In turn, Jane later explained, “The poor man had no idea what was wrong with me or how to help me.”
There had been times, of course, when Warren told Jane she drank too much after she had embarrassed him. But those occasions were rare. We’ve all been there. Someone we know ties one on and acts out. We write it off as that person “blowing off some steam,” or just having too good a time.
There were other instances in Jane’s life, however, that she could not overlook.
“Like driving while under the influence of alcohol with my kids in the car is not a fun memory, but something I must admit happened. No one was ever hurt and I never received a DUI.”
Still, Jane knew that it was deadly.
As she lay in bed, shaking, wondering what was going to happen now that she finally realized alcohol had taken complete control of her life, something happened that Jane could not explain. After struggling to get to sleep one night, upon waking in the morning, Jane said, she heard a voice.
“Tell him. Tell him. Tell him you have a drinking problem. Tell him you need help.”
There was no one else in the room. Jane believed the voice—which she said she heard clearly—was that of God.
She called her husband into the room.
“Sit down,” she told Warren. “I have something important to say.”
Jane explained what was happening.
Loving and supportive as he is, Warren held me in his arms and we both cried. A phone call to an alcoholic rehabilitation center in a neighboring state was our next move. When the intake person on the phone heard my story, I was told to report the next day, but be sure not to cut back on my drinking until I arrived. Guess they were afraid of what would happen.
There wasn’t much conversation between Warren and me on our way to Georgia. I cried the entire time. The crying turned to sobbing during what was a two-hour interview at the facility, and Warren was there by my side. There was no doubt in the counselor’s mind that I belonged there. I knew I was terribly depressed, but that was the extent of the acceptance of my misery. Being searched and stripped of my clothes was my first humiliating experience, with more to follow for the next ten days.
Looking around at the men and women in the group I attended—hearing their stories of jail time, broken marriages, and DUIs—gave me more cause to think I didn’t belong there.
Jane kept telling herself she was there for depression, not alcoholism.
I am not one of these people.
The day after she was admitted, Jane begged the psychiatrist to put her in the other program the same hospital offered—the one for people with mental disorders.
I need them to uncover the reasons for my depression.
“Absolutely not,” the doctor told Jane. “You will stay put and go along with the program.”
Jane broke down in tears. In fact, at group meetings every day, all Jane did was cry.
I couldn’t believe I had ended up in this horrible place with all these sickos who talked about how much they drank and drugged. I was just there for depression, I kept telling myself. I didn’t have problems like these people. I wasn’t like any of them.
Although many of us were from the same socioeconomic backgrounds, I felt like I was different—that I was special. I just wanted to get the hell out of there a
nd go home. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror.
Ever since she had hurt her back, Jane had been experiencing terrible pain. That pain, she later said, was a source of great depression for her. Waking up and knowing that the pain would be there in her lower back was enough to keep her down—and drinking—all the time.
“But something happened inside the hospital,” Jane said. “Within the first three days I was there, I experienced a miracle.”
Jane woke up one morning and realized her back pain was gone.
How can it be?
“I had suffered daily for two years with this constant throbbing in my lower back and now it was gone. Unexplainable. Then I remembered that the psychiatrist there had started me on a medication called Neurontin when I first entered rehab. She didn’t know how much I had been drinking, so she prescribed the medication in hopes of preventing the DTs. It is also used to treat back pain. It worked. I no longer had any.”
Jane realized how good life could be by just taking a substance.
I finally dredged up the nerve to call my mother and my children and tell them I was in a rehab because of my drinking. They were relieved. They knew I had a problem. I’ll never forget the love and support I received from them. My older son even sent me a bouquet of flowers.
At every group meeting, Jane began to take note, someone would start by standing and saying, “I’m So-And-So, and I’m an alcoholic... .”
It took her the entire time in rehab, but on the last day she was there, Jane stood and said those words. Before that day of reckoning and realization, Jane had been going to the meetings and saying, “Hi, I’m Jane—and I’m here for depression.”
She Survived: Jane Page 8