I don’t even know how it happened. When I woke up the next morning I had only a sketchy recollection of the night before—my memory was a blacked-out city—nothing. The monster was gathering power, and I was getting a little frightened. It was like something out of a fucking Stephen King novel, the kind where you have an evil-twin personality who takes you over and does stuff without your knowing. Scary shit.
I’d been seeing a talented actor in Edinburgh, a young fellow who performed improvised skits in ancient Sanskrit to drunken highbrow audiences. I liked him a lot but, hey, Cyprus beckoned, so I returned the call.
The good news was that Cyprus was lovely. The bad news was that I couldn’t recall a single detail of my lovefest with the northern guy, so I had no idea what he expected or even what he looked like naked. I had a feeling it involved something anal, otherwise the poor guy wouldn’t be so bloody excited. And one thing was certain: I wasn’t going to touch a single fucking drop of alcohol.
We’d both been dreadfully sick on the flight over. My body just quit after a month of work on the play, and he contracted food poisoning. But now that we were in the five-star luxury resort being massaged and eating fabulous food, things would improve. Right?
Now I’m the last one to judge people’s behavior whilst they’re imbibing. I’ve fallen asleep at my own dinner parties and slept with far too many strangers to be the one pointing the finger. But I’m usually a happy lush, never mean-spirited or cruel. This guy wasn’t a mean drunk, but he was a whining drunk. After he’d had a few he started complaining about everything. I laughed too loud, the service was dreadful, the pool was too cold, the room smelled. None of this was true; we were in a Cyprian paradise and I was a sober little church mouse on her best behavior. Really.
I figured that I must have been way toasted the night we had sex, because now the beer goggles were off and I could barely stand to look at him. I was struck with horror by his yellowed, crooked teeth, his calloused feet, and his fungus-infected toenails. I wanted to scream in frustration at his wardrobe of different-colored but otherwise identical golf shirts. I was back in hell, and I hadn’t even had a drink.
Luckily the diarrhea that went with his food poisoning kept on running like Niagara Falls. He hadn’t approached me sexually, but as in a B horror movie, you know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of time until the hand creeps over and goes for the grope.
When the moment came he couldn’t get an erection, and I thought the horror flick was over until he leaned in close to me and said, “Maybe if you did to me what you did in the bathtub that night we first met . . .”
He was talking about the night I’d blacked out. What the fuck had I done to him in the bathtub? It didn’t bear thinking about; I had to get out of there. I offered my condolences about his inability to perform and locked myself in the bathroom for a few hours on the pretext of secret women’s business. When I came out he’d gone to the bar and I made a hasty retreat to the next village, where I booked into a shithole hotel, then flew back to London the next morning.
“Nothing’s free, baby,” a voice in my head kept on repeating.
Was that the monster or the voice of wisdom? I figured they might as well be one and the same since the fucking voice of wisdom, when it can be bothered raising its head, always does so after you’ve jumped headfirst into the shit heap.
By the time my fortieth birthday came around I’d been dry for almost six months. I was sober as a judge and just about as boring.
Long ago I’d set forty as the goal by which I’d be free of my problem and have my career back in full bloom. My career had wilted and dried up, but at least my disease seemed to have followed suit. I’d been seeing a new guy, and he encouraged me to come celebrate my birthday with him in Ibiza, the Spanish island where Brits go to let loose and party. I went to sunny Spain, stayed stone-cold sober, and had the worst vacation of my life. The travel agent booked us into a hotel on the wrong side of the city. We were supposed to be staying in the sexy party zone; instead I found myself sharing the beach with fat German businessmen and obnoxious Brits who wore black socks and were orbited by screaming, sunburnt kids. I was unemployed, sober, living in a foreign country, and my birthday sucked. Life didn’t begin at forty, it damn well ended.
I went back to my flat in London totally miserable only to discover that the annual Notting Hill carnival was taking place right outside my front door.
Claudia, this is your chance to have a real party. You made it to middle age, you survived. You deserve to celebrate. Go and have a good time.
The monster had picked its moment well, because, right then, those words rang with authority. They made such perfect fucking sense!
So I listened. No falling off the wagon this time; I threw myself off the fucking thing, right into a tasty pint of lager at my local.
That’s one of the things I fucking hate about the monster. I’d lasted it out. I’d buckled up and ridden the fucking bull for half a year, and then one slip and I was back to square one. It’s beyond frustrating; it’s a disease that swallows hope.
When I was finally done with my birthday binge, I looked up the address of the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous and headed on down. I was desperate; I was a mess. The room was filled with cigarette smoke; I sat in the back row and kept quiet.
That wasn’t my first time at an AA meeting. During one of my visits back to L.A. I’d gone to the Beverly Hills meetings because I heard there were cute guys there. And one of them came right up to me and said, “We don’t shake hands here at AA. We hug.”
Something about that sent a shiver up my spine. It was as if they were there as a comfort group, to sugarcoat something that was deadly serious to me. A hug wasn’t going to fix the monster. You can’t wrap a viper in a knit-wool sweater, give it a hug, and expect it not to bite you. The monster doesn’t fuck around; the monster is playing for keeps.
And I’d been to one other meeting with my brother in Lake Arrowhead. That was mainly a bunch of old-timers talking about the shittiest things they’d done to their loved ones when they were drunk.
I hated the idea of AA. I hated getting up there and making my confession to a room full of strangers. The very idea was demoralizing, but this time I was desperate and I was in London, so maybe it really would be anonymous. I’d stick with it this time. I’d reverse my childhood divorce from God and really surrender to Him.
When it was my turn I got up there and said, “Hi. My name is Claudia, and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for one day.”
After I’d spilled my guts, we had a break and everyone rushed out to smoke some more. I was alone again and there was no relief. I’d hated saying it, it depressed me to say it. I thought, wouldn’t it have been great to get up there and say, “Hi, I’m Claudia, and I used to be an alcoholic”?
I returned to my seat and, as I listened to them talk about God, I couldn’t help but think that if there was a God, he would want us cured, not eternally suffering. The people I saw get up and talk on the podium were all in pain, all still desperate. I saw myself in them and it occurred to me that this wasn’t a cure, this was disease management. I knew management; I’d been struggling with my disease for years, wrestling with the monster, and this was a support group to help continue the struggle. This was a way to kill some time so you don’t drink.
I left the meeting. There was nothing uplifting or joyful, and the smoking rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed to me that they were just replacing one bad habit with another.
A week later I was back at AA, this time at the Portobello Road center. I reasoned that I had to overcome my own disinclination to be there. What if the answer to my problems lay on the other side of my inherited Germanic pride? I’d do it for real. I’d get up there at the meeting and do my thing, and afterward I’d go and work all of the twelve steps. And I did. I even did the one where you’re supposed to make amends to everyone you’ve ever hurt in your life. I tried it for half a year, but it didn’t change the disease. It didn�
��t change my genetic disposition toward alcohol. Some of the reports I read said that AA doesn’t work for the gross majority of the people who try it. The numbers are difficult to track because of their policy of anonymity, but I read one report that said less than 5 percent of people who rely on AA to stay sober do so after the first year. The relapse rate for people in AA is huge.5
I came to the conclusion that if some people benefit from it then great, good for them, but this was not the way for me. I was tired of fighting, I didn’t need support or love or strangers sharing their pain with me. I didn’t need hugs and handshakes from withered-up smokers or sugar junkies with fat bellies. I needed a cure; I needed my life back.
I went home and started buying books. I read just about every book I could find on addicts and their struggles. I pored over the pages of other people’s stories trying to find a common link.
There were common stories of trauma, of death and divorce and rejection, but there was something that none of the material seemed to cover—the change that had taken place in my body and brain. I’d changed. Everyone who told their stories in those books had. We all went from partying to becoming unwitting addicts. Why can some people drink heavily but not become full-blown alcoholics? Why was it so easy for me to give up cocaine? I’d never liked blow, never craved it. But wine, wine was a friend. I liked wine and I loved champagne, and now I’d changed. We had a symbiotic relationship; I couldn’t live without them.
I gave up on AA but not on God. I’m not an atheist. I’ve always had a strong spiritual life; it’s one of the things that’s kept me hanging in there. I’ve always felt that God was watching out for me, and when I maintained my prayers I felt strong enough to go head to head with the monster. At the same time though, I discovered that God cannot cure this disease just as He cannot cure cancer or make you grow back a limb.
So I kept on praying, but if God was saying anything back, then I couldn’t hear him. I figured it was just like the telephone that wouldn’t ring; I just had to hang in there and have faith. Just hang in there a little longer.
After five years in the UK I sat down and re-evaluated my life. It was crunch time. I wasn’t booking anything in London, I wasn’t booking anything in L.A., but I was hemorrhaging money in both towns. I’d moved to the UK hoping for a fresh start but instead felt like a tightrope walker again, swaying back and forth on a thin line between two lives with the abyss always there below me. If nothing else, my time away from the United States had taught me where my true home was and that I could never really leave it. My fascination with history, with the old world, would always be a part of me, but I was bound up with Hollywood body and soul. I missed the sun, the people, and the wheels of the entertainment industry moving around me, even if I was not an active part of it.
And do you know what the ultimate deciding factor was? I came to the realization that if I couldn’t shake the monster in time, if it broke me and I ended up just like my friend Jeff Conaway, then I had to decide where I wanted to die. That was my final moment of clarity that got me on the plane back to L.A.
I rented out my London flat to a nice American couple and headed home. I was done with optimism. There was no spring in my step. The monster was riding me hard, weighing me down. I didn’t know what I had to do to get things back on track. Nothing in my life was stable. I was flailing around, searching for the right combination of choices that would allow me to get my life back. The memory of the old Claudia was strong. The good times were still vivid in my mind’s eye, but the means to recover them were elusive. I was like Tantalus in the underworld, the fruit he eternally hungered for hanging just beyond his reach.
BUS STOP
From my diary, November 1, 2008:
It’s 8 a.m., and I’m clearing the dishes from last night’s dinner party. My boyfriend David is in the shower. One of my friends brought a few bottles of what appeared to be very good red wine. I didn’t read the label or smell the wine, because I’ve only been sober for three months this time around, and I didn’t want to think about what I was missing out on. But now there’s half a glass staring at me. A sniff can’t hurt. I lift the glass; it smells heavenly. The rich, deep red is still fragrant with tannins and earthiness. It smells like autumn, like Italy, like lamb shanks, like making love in front of a crackling fire. It smells like the good times, the happy times when I was alive, when I wasn’t an alcoholic.
If I drink this half glass of wine will it awaken the monster? Will I suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to binge? Will the last six months’ worth of therapy prove to be a waste of time?
If I drink this wine, I won’t be able to kiss David all day because he’ll smell it on me and probably never speak to me again. We have plans to go to the beach and walk around Third Street Promenade, maybe buy that new mouse for him at the Apple Store, and get some fresh fish at Santa Monica Seafood. These plans will be ruined.
I know that if I drink this wine I will be toying with the monster. I’ll be presuming that I am powerful when I am not. I am weak. I am a drunk just like the guy I saw passed out on the sidewalk in front of Starbucks. I am no better or worse.
I miss red wine. It’s like not being able to dance with your favorite partner. I sound like a battered housewife who keeps making excuses for her husband. I love the wine, despite the fact that it’s trying to kill me.
I pour the leftover wine down the sink. It’s All Saints’ Day. The veil between our world and the spirit world is still thin, so maybe Patrick’s watching over me today. But tomorrow it’ll just be me, myself, and I. Will I ever feel normal again?
My diary was filled with entries like that one. I wrote hundreds of sorrow-filled pages about my struggle. Tear stains marked pages where I’d fallen off the wagon, coffee stains marked pages where I’d been sober for thirty or sixty or ninety days. There were copious musings about how much better my life would be if I were sober forever, and there were diatribes about how shitty it was that I couldn’t even have a glass of wine at a dinner party. There are letters written to my parents apologizing for my behavior and thanking them for their support. There are entries complaining bitterly about inheriting their fucked-up, alcoholic genes. My diary is filled with self-absorbed post-binge musings, manic scrawls, even suicidal rants. I have thick diaries and I like to write—a lot. It’s one of the ways in which I try to make sense of things.
When I came back from the UK I was miserable, still stuck in my sober-binge cycle, so I decided to stop waiting for the phone to ring and start living. I took classes in languages, art, and writing. I started hiking every day.
In the summer of 2008 I met a new man, master photographer and lighting guru David Honl. David was a departure from the kind of guy I normally dated. He was my own age, for a start, and he had a depressive streak, but also a very dry sense of humor that I enjoyed. And man, could he make me look good in a photo! He was very encouraging when he’d photograph me, very complimentary, just the thing I needed at that time in my life. He’d lived in Turkey for years, had spent time in Afghanistan and Iraq during the wars. I liked him—a lot—and I was determined that even if everything else in my life was fucked up, my relationship with David wouldn’t be, at least not as much as the last string of guys I’d dated.
The smartest way to do that was to try to stay sober most of the time and hide my disease from him. He couldn’t be allowed to see the monster. Our relationship was just budding, and the monster was emotional napalm, enough to wipe out a forest.
When I was recovering from a binge I’d pretend that I had a cold or some other illness. The swine flu epidemic bought me a whole week. He appeared on my doorstep unannounced one day, his brother standing beside him, and asked me to come out to lunch. I kept running into the bathroom to throw up, and I looked like shit. I thought I’d die of embarrassment. I’ll never forget the disappointed look he gave me as he left. Non-addicts take offense at all sorts of small inconveniences and slights, because they don’t share the same perspective; they don’t rea
lize that you’re fighting for your life.
I started meditating and read a book a day, even though it killed my eyes. It took my mind off of drinking and guilt and helped pass the time until I was once more socially acceptable.
David liked an occasional drink and was very supportive of my sobriety, but he got confused when I’d suddenly fall off the wagon and overdo it. He could see that something was wrong with me, but his vision was clouded; he was in love, and he just couldn’t connect the dots because he’d never known an addict. But I couldn’t hide the monster away forever. I knew she’d eventually emerge from her cave and then David would turn and run and never come back.
I was so scared of telling David the truth that I started running around like a headless chicken, trying anything and everything to make me well—anything except drugs. I’d seen where that had taken Jeff Conaway and other friends of mine. What started out as medication to manage one problem could quickly turn into a whole other addiction. What if I failed to beat the booze with drugs and then found myself hooked on both?
I made up a to-do list that included every kind of nonmedical solution I could think of and got to work on it:
1. GO TO DOCTOR AND GET LIVER TESTS.
“Claudia, your liver is ruined! How could you do this to yourself? Don’t touch another drop. One more mouthful and your liver will explode, leaving you to die the most horrible of deaths.”
That’s what I’d been hoping to hear, but the tests showed that my liver was completely healthy.
I amused myself with the theory that I was part cockroach, built to withstand even a nuclear disaster. My other leading theory was that the alcohol had pickled my liver, preserving it in perfect condition.
2. BECOME A VEGETARIAN.
I tried, and when that didn’t help, I even went macrobiotic and completely cut out sugar. Maybe those hippie therapists at the rehab resort were right. Maybe sugar lured the monster out of its cave. No such luck. It was nuts. I was poring over my past again like a detective, digging up old cases, revisiting past conclusions in case I’d missed one vital clue that would make sense of everything.
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