But they work great for me. Question: how do I know it is actually the drug working and not simply the placebo effect? Answer: I don’t. Nor do I care. Whether the drug actually does something or my brain is just gullible does not matter to me at all. Interestingly, another study just came out in the journal PLoS ONE (bad name for a medical journal) showing that placebos are still effective even when the patient knows he is taking a placebo. In other words, if a doctor gives you a sugar pill and tells you it’s a sugar pill, it can still be an effective treatment. So no, I have zero idea whether it’s the drug or my brain telling me it’s the drug; all I know is that I feel better when I am on my meds than when I am off.
The other thing I’ve tried recently is booze. I know that alcohol is itself a depressive, but so many people seem to have such a good time with it that after abstaining for my first thirty-five years or so, I thought I should at least give alcohol a try to see if it made my life better and more enriching. The results so far: encouraging.
Kids in my hometown started drinking around seventh grade. Not me. Alcohol scared me. Part of my fear was the belief that any consumption of alcohol at all, no matter how little the amount, would give me bed spins and nausea. I hate nausea. I also believed myself predisposed toward addictive behavior. Once I started drinking, I thought there was a good chance I might never stop. Then I would end up like Edgar Allan Poe. Where this fear originated I do not know. There is no history of alcoholism in my family. (Nor is there any family history of writing Gothic horror stories.) I rarely saw either of my parents drink at all, so perhaps growing up in a dry household made me less likely to take up drinking myself.
Once I made my decision to become a teetotaler, I committed, despite the fact that it seriously affected my ability to endure parties or any social gathering in which alcohol was served, which is to say every social gathering. I hated parties. Hated all the slobbery philosophizing and slobbery dancing and slobbery make-out sessions I witnessed. I also found myself having the same boring conversation regarding my drinking again and again:
“Aren’t you drinking?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t drink.”
“Did you ever drink?” (This is code for: “Are you an alcoholic?”)
“No.”
“Wow. That’s so great, man,” they would inevitably say while walking away, drinking.
Of course they walked away. Who wants to hang out with Judgmental Sober Guy? Nobody. Even Judgmental Drunk Guy hates Judgmental Sober Guy. Because he feels judged.
And the fact is, I did judge everybody around me. My only defense against feeling left out was to feel superior. Looking back, I’m amazed my friends ever invited me to go anywhere at all. Worse, I continue to do it.
This creates problems in my relationship with Martha. She is a moderate drinker, usually consuming about two glasses of wine over the course of a night. Before I started drinking, I found it inconceivable that somebody could drink that much and not be an alcoholic. Yes, I knew the French drink that much, but they are an obviously troubled people. My own ignorance made me worry for Martha, even though she has never shown any symptoms of having a drinking problem. She is simply an aficionado. Martha is to drinking what an enthusiastic bowler is to league night; she can always be counted on to show up and bowl a good game but she is never going to turn pro.
On the rare occasions when she did end up drinking too much, Judgmental Sober Guy was not much help. For example, if she found herself throwing up in the middle of the night, I might help her out by walking into the bathroom, watching her puke for a few minutes, and then saying, “Serves you right,” before going back to bed.
The decision to start drinking actually sprang from a desire to improve my relationship with Martha. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true. In an early session with our therapist Suzy, she asked if we had any “rituals,” regular activities we enjoy doing together. We couldn’t think of any besides watching TV at night, which seemed like the least interesting ritualistic activity imaginable. Earlier in our marriage we had tried playing chess together, but most games ended with me winning and her throwing the pieces across the room and telling me she hated me. Our lack of rituals scared us because Suzy seemed to believe that ritual was a vital component to a healthy marriage. I took it upon myself to begin thinking more seriously about activities we could share. Martha does not enjoy most of the things I enjoy (Scrabble and Ping-Pong) and I do not enjoy what she enjoys (yelling at me). I felt determined to find a ritual. After a while, I did: booze.
I’m fairly confident that wasn’t what Suzy had in mind. Furthermore, after consulting the mighty Internet, I discovered a real lack of marriage counselors advising couples to “drink more.” But in our case the results have been good.
Cocktail hour begins between five and six each night when the kids have been home from school long enough to make us feel as if we’ve earned it. That’s one good thing about being a parent—children really make you feel as if you deserve your liquor. When they get crazy, as they do in the late afternoon, the only way to get through it is either to tranquilize ourselves or them. For legal reasons, we choose ourselves.
Martha usually initiates the ritual because she is the bigger lush. Several years ago when we were young and pie-eyed about our future, we found ourselves at Crate & Barrel, where we fell in love with and purchased a gunmetal black “apothecary cabinet.” At the time, I thought I would use it to display museum-quality objets d’art like Napoleonic era lead soldiers or crystal hippopotamus skulls. But I don’t have any museum-quality objets d’art, so we ended up just sticking all our hooch in there.
Typically, Martha fetches a couple of glasses and pours us each a bit of whatever is open. Usually it is wine, but once in a while she makes cocktails. She likes martinis. I like gin and tonics. Drinks in hand, we stand around the kitchen sipping and talking about how annoying the children are.
My early efforts at drinking were not particularly successful. I drank everything too fast because I found the taste so terrible. As a result, I became a gulper, which doesn’t look that classy. Wine connoisseurs are unappreciative when you shotgun your 1996 Atlas Peak Cabernet Sauvignon, make a face, and say, “Wow. That really tastes like shit.”
Once I learned to slow down, however, I discovered that I could, with some effort, maintain a pleasant equilibrium between mellowness and complete apathy. I think this is what people mean when they say they drink to “take the edge off.” It is the pleasant recognition that somebody else is saying or doing something stupid and you don’t care. Drinking also makes me feel as if whatever boring thing I have to say is slightly more interesting than it actually is.
After a couple of drinks, I might say to Martha something like “I got a really good score on Boggle today.”
“Great,” she might reply without even a trace of sarcasm. When that happens, I know the booze has gotten to her, too.
To this day, the only drinks whose taste I actually enjoy are “girl drinks.” Anything with ice cream and paper umbrellas is okay by me. When we go out, sometimes I just skip to the back of the drinks menu and order the most effeminate-sounding item they serve.
“I’ll have a glass of the house pinot noir,” Martha might say.
“And for you, sir?”
“I’ll have the Breezy Tampon.”
For those wondering if Lexapro and booze are safe to combine, the answer is yes, as long as the alcohol consumption is moderate. If you’re wondering if Lexapro and booze and Ambien are also safe to combine, there doesn’t seem to be as much reliable information on the Internet, and I’m sure it’s not recommended by medical experts, but in my personal experience, the answer is also yes.
In addition to the Lexapro and the booze, I have also started taking Ambien. Mostly for fun. I know that sounds terrible, but it’s true. Throughout my life, I have rarely had a problem sleeping. In fact, I have the opposite problem. Honestly, I am about a half step a
way from narcolepsy. Any form of transportation will put me to sleep: train, plane, automobile. I fall asleep on couches, in hammocks, under desks. Yet I take Ambien—not once in a while, but every night.
I am an Ambien addict. Happily so, I might add. I take it because I like it. There is something that happens when I am on Ambien that I find impossible to replicate with regular sleep. I don’t know how to describe it except to say I feel as if I am surrendering to a deep and mystifying blackness. It is a dreamless sleep, a sleep without the awareness of sleep, and therefore a sleep without the awareness of self. I love that feeling—the feeling of nothing at all. I call Ambien my “little death,” which is also what the French call orgasms because they are, as I said, a troubled people.
This state of selflessness is also what Buddha called Nirvana, although I am sure that he would take issue with my use of Ambien to achieve it but that’s only because Buddha didn’t have a CVS nearby.
As a person in constant existential dread, maybe it’s counterintuitive to ingest something that mimics the annihilation of self. But I find it comforting for some reason. It’s like practice death. And if death is anything like Ambien, I have nothing to fear. One minute I’m awake, the next I am obliterated. No muss, no fuss.
I used to think there was something noble about abstention, as if self-denial led to greater clarity of thought or maybe even greater happiness. Turns out, that’s bullshit. For me, abstention was about fear: If I am afraid that is usually my signal to pursue something. Walking toward my own fears works for me just as well as pills.
The older I get, the more I allow myself to experience everything out there, and the happier I get as a result. Any new pill that finds its way into my hand will find its way into my mouth. At this point, I’ll pretty much try anything. That’s neither good nor bad, but it’s the truth. Perhaps this is not the most responsible line of thinking for an adult man with two small children, but it works for me. Besides, you have no idea how annoying my kids are.
CHAPTER 15
antivert
Springtime in New York. I’m eating takeout Chinese food at my friend David’s apartment. It’s my favorite dish: some sort of chicken in some kind of brown sauce.
About half an hour after eating, I stand to leave. As I do, the world starts to go wrong. The wrongness begins as slight dizziness, and then grows in intensity until, within a few seconds, I find I am having trouble remaining upright. I fall back onto the chair, cradling my head in my hands to steady myself. I don’t understand what is happening. My first thought is, Somebody dosed my food. My second thought, despite my mounting discomfort and panic is, Awesome.
David asks me what’s wrong. I tell him I’m feeling really weird.
“What kind of weird?” he asks.
“The bad kind,” I say.
I feel like I am strapped onto the Rotor, that amusement park ride that spins people around in a giant salad spinner until they are sucked against the wall while pummeling them with dance music. I shut my eyes to eliminate as much visual stimuli as possible. It helps, but not enough. Even with my eyes closed, I can still perceive this awful spinning.
Sitting now is too uncomfortable. I slide from the chair to the floor so that I am flat on my back as the world kaleidoscopes around me. This is awful. Worse, I don’t even know what “this” is, although there are only two possible explanations. One is that somebody slipped something into my Chinese food, possibly David, although his motive for doing so is unclear. The only other possible explanation is the one I am inclined to believe: brain tumor.
I have always been remarkably healthy. I almost never get sick, which is a source of great irritation to Martha, who comes down with at least a couple of debilitating colds a year. Although I am obviously fortunate that I do not contract ailments with any frequency, I have always speculated that this might be a bad thing. Perhaps a number of minor afflictions are necessary for the body to purge itself of accumulated toxins. And if the body does not flush these poisons gradually, perhaps over time they will build up until they express themselves in one big fatal blow. As I lie on David’s floor, I am convinced that blow has manifested in the form of a (probably inoperable, almost certainly fatal) brain tumor.
David asks if I have any idea how long I’m going to be stuck on the floor like this because he has someplace he needs to go. His utter lack of concern for my well-being is reassuring in a way because it means at least one of us does not think I’m dying. I rub my eyes, trying to get the sensation to clear. I try drinking water. Doesn’t help. Several minutes go by. I’m starting to get a little panicky. (I was already panicky. Now I’m getting panickier.)
At no time does David offer to call an ambulance or even his brother-in-law, who is some sort of world-renowned doctor. He doesn’t even bother going online to check my symptoms. While I moan on the floor he impatiently flips through TV channels, waiting for whatever is going on with me to resolve itself so that he can get to his next appointment, which I find out later is a squash date. I would like to point out that David is one of my best friends.
Then, as quickly as it started, the sensation stops. Everything just kind of snaps itself into stillness, like a jet fighter landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. I peek out my eyelids, cautiously sit up, and slowly pivot my head from side to side. When I am satisfied I have regained my equilibrium, I gingerly rise to my feet, keeping a hand rooted to the chair at my side.
“Are you okay?” David asks.
“I think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Do you think you can leave now?”
My drive home takes more than an hour and I am nervous. Hopefully, if I start to feel ill again, I will have enough time to pull over, but it happened so suddenly and without provocation the first time that there’s a good chance I will not have time to get to the side of the road, in which case I will be putting a lot of trust in my air bags.
I arrive home without incident. When I get there, I tell Martha what happened.
“It might be a brain tumor,” she says.
I know it might be a brain tumor! She’s supposed to tell me it’s not a brain tumor! God, she’s annoying!
“It’s not a tumor!” I say, before realizing that she has just made me inadvertently spout Arnold Schwarzenegger’s catchphrase from the movie Kindergarten Cop, which annoys me even more.
She shrugs. I’m not sure if her shrug means, “You’re probably right,” or “I hope you have our affairs in order.” I storm off, pissed. Why does nobody else seem upset that I am dying? Maybe I should tell the kids I’m dying; maybe they will give me more of the terrified reaction I’m looking for.
That night, I can’t sleep. There’s got to be some reasonable explanation for what happened other than a brain tumor. I just don’t think a brain tumor would announce itself so loudly, only to retreat again so quickly. Plus, young men like me don’t get brain tumors. I mean, yes, I’m sure young men exactly like me get brain tumors every day, but not young men with my rugged good looks.
Should I see a neurologist? What if I go and he tells me I do, in fact, have a brain tumor? What then? Will they have to do surgery? The only other person I know who underwent brain surgery is my dad, and he died.
The next morning, I feel okay. I putter around the house, monitoring my physical condition. All systems seem go. I even jump up and down a few times to experimentally jar my brain. Nothing. After several hours of careful monitoring, I feel my shoulders descend, my breath deepen. By evening I have recovered enough to feel comfortable bundling yesterday’s unpleasantness into a mental box reserved for “unsolved mysteries,” something to unpack and wonder over when I am old and not dead from a brain tumor.
Then it happens again. I am by myself upstairs when a sudden whoosh of dizziness throws me to the ground. Within seconds I am flat on my back, nauseated, the heels of my palm pressed against my eyes to blot out any light. I try to stand up, but if I lift myself more than
a few inches from the ground, the horizon line tilts and I collapse. I am scared and I need help.
“Martha!” I call.
She’s downstairs in the kitchen making dinner and cannot hear me. The kids are down there, too. I’m up here alone. If I want help I’m going to have to go down to get it. Keeping my eyes pressed shut, I crawl across the carpet toward the stairs. Then I hoist myself to my feet, grabbing the banister with both hands to prevent myself from flopping down the stairs like a Slinky. I stumble into the kitchen, falling to the floor on my back. She turns.
“It’s happening again,” I say.
Emergencies bring out the best in some people. Martha is not one of those people. “What’s happening to you?” she says in her outdoor voice. The kids are in the next room playing and I do not want them to panic.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“You’re not okay! Should I call an ambulance? I’m cooking dinner!”
How much does it cost to ride in an ambulance? It seems to me we should work out the economics here before she makes any rash decisions. Before I can say so, however, she is on the phone with 911. When she hangs up with the emergency operator, she yells at me: “You’re going to die and leave me alone with these kids!”
This is not what I want to hear in these, my final moments. I am very sorry that my impending death will be an inconvenience to her, and I am sorry she sees it in those terms. I wonder if soldiers are ever like that in battle? One guy gets shot and instead of reassuring him that he’s going to be okay, his buddy says, “You’re going to die and I’m going to have to carry all your stuff!”
Several years later on Christmas Eve, our roles are reversed. We are in the kitchen preparing dinner with her friend Yoonsun. Martha is chopping vegetables when she stops suddenly and says, “I just chopped off the tip of my finger.”
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