by Dina Kucera
Carly has been gone for more than a week. I go to the bookstore because I am trying to act normal even though all I can think about is Carly and what she is doing and who she is doing it with.
I get home and John is sitting on the computer, also trying to distract himself. I lay my book on the counter and then suddenly, I break down and start screaming and crying, “Where is she! I want her home!”
John comes over to me and tries to console me. I’m grabbing his shirt, “You have to go find her! Bring my daughter home! I want her home!” I fall on the floor sobbing. “Go get her! I just want my daughter! Please, John, find her! Please! I’m begging you! Go find her! I want her back! Please!” Now John is crying, too.
He leads me to the bedroom so I can lie down, but I keep saying, “You have to go get her! Please, bring her home!” I lie on the bed crying, “Please God, bring her home! Please help us! I want my daughter! Please, God, please!”
John and I cry ourselves to sleep. The whole time I’m mumbling, “I want my daughter back. Please, someone, find her. Please.”
The next morning, we could hardly get out of bed. John and I lay there looking at the ceiling, silent. Mom was ringing her bell, waiting to be serviced.
We stumbled through that day the best we could. Mostly lying on the couch, clicking through all two hundred channels over and over again. Sniffling through our tears and not saying anything to each other.
That night we got a phone call from Carly. She said she was at a convenience store and that she was hiding from people, but she didn’t know exactly where she was. She put an employee from the store on the phone, and the employee told John how to get there.
The store was an hour from us but only five minutes from John’s sister, Cheryl. So John called Cheryl and told her to go get Carly. Five minutes later, Cheryl pulled up to the store, screeching into the parking lot in her hot Mustang. Later, we got the full story.
Carly is at a little store in our area and she’s trying to find a ride home. But she doesn’t call us. Instead, she accepts a ride from a Hispanic man. An employee at the store says he knows the man, and that the man will give her a ride home.
Carly and the Hispanic man walk to the car. He puts a thirty pack of Bud Light in the back seat, Carly puts her bag in the trunk, and they drive off.
The man gives Carly a bag of cocaine, so she sits on the floor of the car, doing lines off the seat. When she gets up, she realizes they are on the highway.
Carly points in the other direction and tells the man he is going the wrong way. The man says things in Spanish and something about the cocaine.
Carly says, “Just let me out.” But the man doesn’t stop.
They drive for about forty-five minutes to the other side of town. Carly realizes she has made a huge mistake. Nothing is free.
The man drives Carly into a long alley, and every time she tries to jump out he grabs her arm. He finally comes to the end of the alley where another really big man is waiting. The man walks toward the car, smiling. Carly makes a run for it now that the car is stopped. The first man tries to stop her and pulls her earring out of her ear. Carly jumps out of the car and runs as fast as she can down the long alley. The men jump into their car and drive behind her.
Carly keeps running until she gets to a store. She tells the store clerk what happened, and then she hides because she’s afraid the men will come looking for her. The clerk is kind and says she will keep Carly safe. Carly calls us, and John’s sister goes to the store to get Carly. The next day, Carly goes into detox. Again.
During this time, I became obsessed with learning about drugs. I was reading books and literature and information on the Internet about drugs and addiction, day after day after day.
I did this for a year. Most of the time I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t booking any comedy jobs because I didn’t feel funny. All the information I was putting in my head was heartbreaking. It was drugs, drugs, death, heartbreak, drugs, drugs, drugs.
After dropping Carly off at yet another rehab, I was officially done. I didn’t want to talk or hear or read about drugs anymore. I got rid of all the books and information that had to do with drugs and addiction, and as a result, I suddenly felt very free, like a weight lifted off my shoulders or like I had taken a hot bath. It wasn’t up to me anymore. Of course, the rational part of my brain knew all along that I could not fix things for Carly. But that didn’t stop me from trying. I finally realized that the only person I am responsible for is me—and most days that’s a huge task in itself.
I have had panic attacks since I was a kid. At one point in my life the panic was so bad I didn’t leave my house. I had a constant feeling that I was suffocating.
I couldn’t go to a drive-through window because if a car got behind me, I would hyperventilate because I felt trapped. I only went to the grocery store at six in the morning or eleven at night because again, if someone got in line behind me, I felt like I couldn’t escape. Many times, I just bolted out the door leaving my groceries.
If someone opened the front door when I was at home, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. If I was left alone, I would spiral off into a full-blown panic attack. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t drive on the highway for ten years. Back streets were also off limits because they frightened me. At one point, when I was feeling better, I booked a trip to go overseas and perform for the troops as a comic. I ended up canceling the trip. In fact, I canceled any comedy job that required me to travel. I just sat in my apartment, drinking, for years.
I remember praying every night that God would take my fear away. I was very limited as to where I could go outside of my home, and the only time the fear left me was when I had a few drinks.
Then I stopped drinking and went on an antidepressant. It was the most amazing thing I could have done to get rid of my panic. I was almost normal. I could drive on the freeway and flip people off like a normal person. No anxiety at all.
Everything went like that for years. Then came Carly’s overdoses, April’s boyfriends, more of Carly’s overdoses... trying to work and smile because it’s part of my uniform... taking care of Mom and Moses and juggle it all. That’s when I started taking the Klonopin.
In the midst of the carnage, April told me I needed to get away, and that she and her girlfriend were going to Vegas. Yay Vegas! They wanted me to be their designated driver, and as I soon found out, they were going to begin partying in the car. Not ideal, but hey, I’m going to Vegas.
Vegas, baby. I love it. John and I go two or three times a year. He will only allow us to go for one night.
You will not see a happier me than when I can harass John into taking me to Vegas. I am all over him until he actually gets in the car to take me. I mean for weeks I won’t let it go. We get in the car moments before he has a complete mental collapse. Then I smile and sing the whole way.
When we do go, John has me on a very short leash. He keeps all the credit cards and cash. I have to ask him for money, and I hate it—but I’m in Vegas! John says we have “X” amount of dollars. That’s it. I hate that. And trust me, he will not go over that exact amount. If John says we have twelve dollars to spend, he will not spend thirteen, no matter what I say.
I say, “I can double our car payment!”
John says, “You’re ridiculous.”
“No I can! I can double our rent!”
“Come with me. Keep walking.”
“I really can. I have a system!”
“Don’t stop walking. We’re going up to the room.”
We go up to the room, and I harass John until we fall asleep.
The next morning, I steal a pillow and then we go home.
John watches me steal the pillow and says, “Why are you doing that?”
I say, “What? I paid for it.”
Vegas is just fun. That’s all there is to it. Vegas is the complete opposite of John’s and my real life at home.
Now that Michael is
there I harass John into the ground even more about going.
I say, “Wow. I really miss Michael. Don’t you?”
John stares at me. “We’re not going to Vegas.”
“But... Michael probably misses you, too!”
“Dina. Stop. We’re not going.”
“I could double our...”
“Jesus Christ.”
I play slot machines. I don’t like to talk. If I have the misfortune of sitting next to a talker, I have to move. I just sit and stare at all the little things spinning around. I focus.
The phrase I use most in Vegas is, “Give me twenty bucks.” John says I’m like a recording. Another popular phrase is, “I was up.” Although I say that much less than I say, “Give me twenty bucks.”
We go for the one night, and then in the morning John has to hog tie me and pull me out as I’m screaming, “I can double our electric bill!” Then we do it again in three or four months.
So I am April’s escort to Vegas. I am going to Vegas to double the amount of highlights I can put in my hair.
We’re in the hotel room. It’s ten o’clock at night and the girls are going out. I suddenly begin to have a panic attack. I have no idea why but I’m freaking out. I feel like I can’t stay in the hotel room alone, but I can’t go with them because I’m old and they’re going “clubbing.”
I explain this to April. She says, “Don’t worry about it. I have a painkiller. It will make you feel better.”
I have never taken a painkiller, but I am having a heart attack. I grab it and take it fast.
Ten minutes later, I am not only feeling no pain, but it is the happiest day of my life. I am mumbling and helping them dress, and I am happier than, as they say, a pig in shit. Twenty minutes later, I am sound asleep.
So, like any normal person, I take the pain pills every day for a month after that—just in case I may get some pain later. I take the Klonopin with it. April runs out of the pain pills, and the best thing I can get is Xanax, which is an even happier drug than the pain pills. I now understand crazy Grandma: “Make me my biscuits!”
I’m taking everything I can get my hands on, and I do this for three months when it dawns on me that I’m out of my mind. It has to stop.
So I stop. I go back to my old self, and thank God I didn’t go completely off the deep end where I couldn’t come back.
How could it be possible to have so much fake happiness in one little tiny pill? It is so easy for me to see how people become addicted. I completely understand. The greatest thing a pharmacist can say to me is, “Don’t drive or operate heavy machinery after you take this.” I nod my head because my day just got better.
The Klonopin makes me a little tired. The Rolling Rock makes me break things and say “fuck off” to people I love. The pain pills make me so happy it has to be wrong.
Ever since I can remember I’ve been trying to take the edge off. I bet I was a seven-month-old baby standing in my crib, holding the bars thinking, This is stressful.
Have you noticed how I make all my addictions sound funny? They’re not funny, but that’s how I deal with it. If you have a better way to deal with it, you should write a book, too.
This is how it feels. You are in second grade. You do all right with your grades, and you get along with your classmates. People see you and think “cute little girl,” and your parents think you are the most beautiful person alive. But something is wrong. You’re little so you don’t understand. But you can feel that you are not like the other kids. They like you, but you don’t know why. Everyone around you acts like you fit in, so you try to fit in.
You grow older, and still, you just don’t quite fit. You don’t feel connected to other people. But you play along. You’re in high school and you really can’t let anyone know you feel this way. You never feel comfortable. Some days your skin crawls. You’re nervous. You feel moments of panic like you are gasping for air. But no one knows because you’re still blending. You look around and wonder what the secret is. Why are you never quite good enough? Meanwhile, you try to act normal and be the person people think you are.
But you’re not who people think you are. Inside, you are a shaking, frightened teenager. It feels like you are under water—that little bit of panic right before your head surfaces. You feel different, and not in a good way. You can feel the pressure on your skin. And you have to get out. Because you’re suffocating and no one has a clue.
Then one day, you’re hanging out with friends and someone has something to drink or a drug. So you give it a try. Immediately you can feel your body coming up out of the water and you take a huge breath of air. You can feel the rush of relief. You can feel the warm sun on your face. You want to stretch your arms out and scream because you’re not dead after all. For the first time in your life you can breathe, and it is fucking amazing after an entire life of suffocating. You are not just you—you are more you than you’ve ever been. You don’t feel high—you feel like everyone else. Your skin stops crawling. You’re not in complete panic. You are for the first time in your life alive and safe and calm. And you never want to go back to the way you were.
People who are not addicts do not have this reaction to drugs or alcohol. Normal people have a few drinks and feel a little floaty and think, That was fun. Or they take a pill for an injury or an illness, and feel kind of happy and silly. But the brain chemistry of an addict or alcoholic is completely different. A drug or a drink is a life changer. It’s an awakening from a life spent in loneliness and fear. You have saved your own life. And once you’re awake, your brain will never let you forget it. From that moment on your brain says, “Get it, get it, get it, get more, get more,” and it never quiets. It is relentless. It is bigger than you. It’s so loud it’s deafening. To tell an addict or alcoholic to stop is the equivalent to saying, “Go back under the water.” But that’s impossible. An addict will do the most horrifying, demoralizing, immoral acts to avoid going back under the water where they will no doubt die.
So what do you do? You have to learn to live above the water without the drugs and booze—to feel the sun, and stretch your arms out and embrace and love life. You don’t have to go back under the water, but you must find that tiny flame that burns in each of us and help it grow until that fire is so big, the stalking “get more” voice in your head shuts the fuck up. Until then, you must protect that tiny flame because at the end of the day, it will be the only thing to build a new life on.
The fact is that I am still struggling. I had six years in sobriety. Then one day I didn’t anymore. But some day I will take that big breath of air without the aid of alcohol or drugs. I will choose life. One day I will be under the water, and the next I will be looking for something to pull me out. I won’t self destruct to such a level that the flame inside me blows out. I can still feel the little flame in my heart, but right now it’s like I’ve got my back to the wind and I’m cupping that flame with my hands.
Alcoholism and addiction is a lifetime deal. If I’m lucky (and most of us aren’t), I will be around long enough to come out of the water without help and feed my fire. And then, I will feel peace.
There are five people in my family. My mom reads. My dad plays golf. He loves golf. My sister Jennifer is sixteen. My other sister April stays outside really late. I like to go to the water park with my family. I have two fish. Plumpie and Goldie. Kiwi is my favorite food. Corduroy is my favorite book. Grease is my favorite movie. Gymnastics is my favorite sport. My favorite game is Jehga. I collect baby feathers. I like to blow them up in the air.
Carly
six years old
High On Life
Carly had been to detox and she was doing well. She came and sat on my bed. She was so pretty. Seventeen years old. I don’t know why, but the words just came out of my mouth and I wasn’t even thinking about saying them: “Let me see your arms.”
I must have caught her completely off guard because she just gave me a blank look and showed me her arms. I took one look,
and a sickening thud hit the bottom of my stomach.
I turned away and pulled the blanket to my chin and closed my eyes. Carly sat silent.
After a few minutes, she said, “They’re infected. I think I have to go to the emergency room.” Andy, who had also relapsed, took Carly to the hospital.
I was lying on my bed with my eyes closed. I felt like I had to be completely still. My skin felt thin like if I took too deep a breath, I would rip apart.
It occurred to me that it was never going to end. The boyfriends would always be addicts. I didn’t see Carly dating a sweet fellow who worked at the bank around the corner. I’d like that, but I didn’t see it happening.
I also realized that I didn’t know Carly anymore, and that I was going to watch her kill herself. Oh, God, help me. I can’t do this anymore.
I thought over and over about what I was going to do when Carly overdosed and died. How would we go on? And then I knew: I wouldn’t go on. And then I realized that it was just going to be too painful to actually have to watch her die. Right in front of me. My daughter was dying. That’s when I snapped.
John is speeding down the freeway, taking me to the mental hospital. He is driving as if I have an enormous open wound that is bleeding all over the seats.
He has to drive that way because he is feeling the same things I am feeling. He knows. He is in the same pain and it frightens him. So he has to get me there fast before he snaps, too. We have spent the last four years of our lives suffocating with fear.
As we drive to the hospital, John is swerving in and out of traffic on the highway, crying and screaming, “These fucking kids are going to kill us!” I sit in the passenger seat, also crying. Two people swerving in and out of traffic with their hearts broken wide open.
I have to be clear. It wasn’t Carly who sent me into the psychiatric ward, but she was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Say I’m a camel, and I’m carrying forty-six years of complete chaos on my back. Eventually, it gets too heavy. Even for a big strong camel like me.