I was pissed. I couldn’t believe she gave Jen the car and that she left us there. I closed the door, since Kathy had returned to her making-out session again. Ted shrugged and said, “You can crash with me,” and flashed me a sly, shit-eating grin. I was flattered by his interest and thought he was a really sweet guy. After all, we had just sat on the couch and talked for hours without him so much as touching me, so I thought it might be innocent enough to crash there, but I was nervous as hell. I just nodded and said, “Okay.” He led me to his room across the hall and turned a light on low. The room was tiny, with a dresser, a desk, and his twin bed pressed up against the length of the wall. There was a little window above the side of the bed. He sat down and began getting undressed, and I felt the heat rise in my face. I began wondering what the hell to do. I slowly took my shoes off and asked him if he had a T-shirt and boxers. He handed them to me, switched off the light, and climbed into bed. I was left in the dark in some guy’s room with his boxers and T-shirt in my hand. I slowly got undressed, my head swimming with a million and one different scenarios of what might possibly happen once I slipped into his bed.
I had spent my entire sex-filled years lying under men, giving in out of some assumed responsibility I had built within me for fear that if I didn’t they would take advantage of me or hurt me. I didn’t really know what it was like to want to have sex and then act on it while not using. Matthew and I had only tried to have sex a couple of times, and when we tried it didn’t feel right. But maybe that was just Matthew, I thought.
I quickly crawled into bed and rolled over to my side with my back facing Ted. He rolled over and threw his arm around me, his hands quickly beginning to fondle my body. He began to kiss the back of my neck and moved my hair away to access my shivering skin. I could feel him get hard up against my back, and I froze in total fear. I didn’t know what to do, how to handle this, so I just lay there while he kept kissing my back and running his hands over my body. It felt wrong, but still I just lay there. After a few minutes, he tugged on my shoulder and rolled me over and quickly pushed himself on top of me. It was dark, so I am sure he didn’t see the pure fear in my eyes. He leaned down and kissed me, and that felt okay. I kissed him back a while, and before I knew it, his hand had slipped between us. He pulled his penis out and attempted to wriggle his boxers off of me. My head was screaming, “NO! NO! I don’t want to do this. I don’t know this guy. NO!” But of course, nothing came out of my mouth. As usual, it all stayed in my head—my strength, my voice, my choice was all in my mind.
He pushed himself inside me and began to thrust as my head swam with memories of every sexual encounter I had ever had, good and mostly bad. They were spiraling around in my head like a tornado, and I began to panic. A rush of strength came to me from somewhere in the whirlwind of memories and I yelled, “NO!” out loud. Ted stopped and looked down at me with a puzzled look on his face. “What? Are you okay?” he asked in a panicky voice. I replied, “No, actually I am not. Can you please stop? I don’t want to do this.” My voice was shaking but strong. And just like that, Ted rolled off me and curled up next to me, trying to stare into my eyes, although it was too dark to see.
I couldn’t believe what had just come out of my mouth. I felt a rush of relief and fear come over me all at once. I didn’t know what he would do, and I didn’t want him to think I was a freak, but something about the whole experience felt so wrong that I couldn’t remain silent. Silent was how I had been for so many years, for so many men and so many sexual encounters. He gently reached his hand across my forehead, swiping my hair off my face, and asked if I was okay. I felt embarrassed and proud as I responded yes and thanked him for stopping. “Dude, I would never do anything you didn’t want me to. I’m not like that,” he replied. He scooped me up in his arms and fell asleep. I lay there in his arms in amazement, not just at what I had just done and said but also at his response. All these years, I had been so fearful to assert myself with men because of my past sexual abuse and my incredible insecurities about wanting and needing approval, that I had never realized I do have a choice in this whole sex thing.
13
LETTING GO
SATURDAY MORNING I’D AWAKENED TO KATHY knocking on the door saying her sister Jen was there to pick us up. I got out of bed with Ted still half-asleep next to me. I bent down and kissed his cheek, whispered “thank you,” and left. He didn’t know it, but he had just given me a really important lesson.
We were supposed to go out that night to a local bar to see a band play. Kathy pulled the liquor bottle out of the freezer and poured herself and her sister drinks in preparation for us going out. She then grabbed a lemon out of the cooler she had brought and began slicing it. I knew what was about to transpire. Kathy would start throwing back shots as she always did and would get out-of-hand loaded in no time. That is exactly what she did, but on this night in particular, it was as if she were on a whole different kind of roll. She did more shots than I had ever seen her do.
I was starting to get annoyed with Kathy and her behavior. About three hours and who-knows-how-many shots later, we were ready to head out to the bar. Kathy was stumbling all over the place and was drunker than I had seen her in a long time. I drove us to the bar, and she was slurring and singing her head off out the window. We got to the bar, one in State College that I had never been to before, because why would I have been there? And I wasn’t sure what I was doing there on this particular night except that this was what I had always done with Kathy. We never went to movies or just hung out playing games or any of the things that were beginning to occupy my days and nights now. Kathy, already drunk out of her mind, bellied up to the bar the minute we walked in and ordered another shot and a beer. I sat down next to her and lit up a cigarette. I ordered a diet soda and slowly scanned the crowd. The place was pretty packed with tons of frat boys and sorority chicks, the band was in full swing, and the whole scene reminded me of my old days. The bar stool felt shaky under my ass, and I really didn’t want to be there. Kathy had ordered a couple more shots for her and Jen. She slammed back her shot, got up, and stumbled her way to the bathroom.
The bartender looked at me and watched cautiously as Kathy crawled back from the bathroom and slid onto her bar stool, almost missing it altogether and slouching over into my lap in a fit of giggles and nasty burps. She pulled herself to the bar and yelled at the bartender to give her another shot. The bartender looked at her in familiar disgust and motioned to me that he was cutting Kathy off. Kathy attempted to bring her body into alignment and got belligerent, slurring obscenities at him. Midway through “Get me a fucking drink,” Kathy crashed to the floor. I looked down and saw her feet all mangled and her hair all over her face. She was laughing hysterically. The bartender motioned to the bouncers, and before I could reach her they grabbed her under each arm, hoisted her up, and swiftly glided her drunken ass out of the bar. I quickly grabbed her sister, and we took over for the bouncers outside the club. I was so embarrassed, just shaking my head at the bouncers and apologizing as Jen and I struggled to get Kathy to the car. We threw her in the back seat, where she continued laughing and rambling on about how the bartender was an asshole and how she wanted to go back there and kick his ass.
Somehow we managed to get Kathy out of the car and up the flight of stairs into my apartment. We dumped her now half-lifeless body onto my bed, where she rolled over and passed out. I was drained and disgusted. I pulled out the couch and made a bed for Jen while making one for myself on the floor. This whole night had been a disaster; in fact, the whole weekend was becoming too much. My connection and friendship with Kathy was being strained more and more every time we hung out. We just weren’t in the same places in our lives anymore, and the drunken “let’s get ripped and out-of-hand” bar scene no longer sat well with me. I fell asleep sadly knowing that things between Kathy and me were about to really change. At least we had the Pearl Jam concert to look forward to the next day.
I woke up to Kathy’s raspy v
oice talking to someone on the phone. I heard her crying and saying that she was out of control and she didn’t know what to do. I pretended to be asleep until she came out of the room fully dressed with her bag in hand. She shook Jen awake and said good morning to me. Jen rubbed her eyes, looked at Kathy, confused, and asked what she was doing. Kathy looked over at me and said, “Sorry, kid, I was messed up last night. I’m just gonna head home. Sorry about the concert. Here are the tickets if you still want to go.” Disappointment and anger flooded me as I looked at her and shook my head. “Whatever, dude. Drive safely,” I said as I passed her and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
I was so hurt and so pissed off. I couldn’t believe she was just going to leave and not go to the concert she promised me for my birthday, which we had planned for months and that I was so excited to see. My blood began to boil, but when I opened my mouth to say something, nothing came out. Kathy’s eyes were bloodshot, and she looked so pathetic. My anger quickly dissolved into pity. I knew that look. I knew she was badly hung over and feeling like death. I knew my saying anything would have just made her feel worse. So I helped her load the car and waved as she and Jen pulled out of my driveway.
I knew our friendship was over. There was no longer any substance to the relationship, and I began to wonder if there ever had been. I had moved past her and past that lifestyle. Instead of going to the concert, I cried all day as I grieved for the friendship and my loss of her in my life. Everything I once knew as truth was different. Everyone I once knew as my family and friends was different, and it was incredibly painful. I felt very alone and incredibly sad. I had to fully understand that I had nothing in common with the majority of the people from my past, and that was a crushing revelation. These were the people who made up my history, my life—the ones I thought knew me the best. And now I had to face the reality that without the partying, there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to most of my friendships.
That weekend was the first time in recovery that I was truly and deeply disappointed and hurt by someone I was so close to. I had to be careful how I dealt with these emotions, because in the past this was the stuff that used to cause me to pick up a drink or drug.
I went to therapy the next day and shared my whole weekend and the mess it had been. I spoke about Ted, and how I almost made the same mistakes that I always made with men, but that something stopped me, and somehow for the first time in my life, the loud “No!” in my head actually came out of my mouth. And, surprisingly to me, he respected that and left me alone. I talked about Kathy and the conclusions I had come to about our friendship. My therapist just sat in silent agreement; these conclusions that were new to me were things she knew already. The beauty of therapy is that you have to figure things out on your own.
My therapist could have easily judged me and told me that what I was doing was dangerous and that I put my recovery at risk every time I walked into a bar or a party. But instead, she let me make mistakes and come to my own conclusions, and then she gently led me to deeper understanding of myself and my actions by listening and providing positive feedback. Because of this, I never felt that I had to hide anything from her. I didn’t keep any secrets because I knew she wouldn’t judge my actions or try to scold me for my sometimes ridiculous behavior. She let me be human, which was exactly what I needed.
I would just let it rip in her office, no filter on, rambling all over myself with my newfound dialect. I was so liberated by being able to express myself freely for the first time; my inner thoughts, fears, and experiences all spilled out at the feet of my very capable and, surely at times, amused therapist.
After that weekend I didn’t hear from Kathy again, and my visits home to Allentown came to a grinding halt. I knew I had to really let go of all of my past and simply start my new life in State College. I still went home to see my parents on holidays and they came to visit me, but there was no more trying to save my brothers or trying to fix my friends. I finally fully accepted that I was no longer one of them and that trying to masquerade around with them only brought danger and heartache for me.
14
NO FILTER
I WENT HOME TO MY APARTMENT AFTER THERAPY, STILL trying to wrap my mind around all the events of the weekend. I had so many feelings swimming around in my head and no real method to sort them all out. The thing about early recovery was that everything was excruciatingly real, and feelings came in and out of me like a freight train with no warning and no schedule. I was slowly learning how to feel and how to identify my feelings and how to appropriately process them, but it was a daily, sometimes minute-by-minute struggle.
One day, for example, I had the brilliant idea of buying this herbal supplement called ginkgo biloba, because I had heard that it aided memory. In early recovery, I found myself extremely forgetful and sometimes had a hard time concentrating on one task for a long time. From speaking to my therapist, I knew this was common for people newly in recovery, especially for those of us who used to smoke pot like cigarettes. It takes time for memory and cognitive function to totally return. At this point, I was constantly forgetting my car keys. I would often lock myself out of my apartment and have to go the main office to ask maintenance to let me in.
After the fifth time this happened, I decided to take action and went to the store and bought a bottle of ginkgo biloba. I took the prescribed dose, and after an hour, I started feeling really weird— almost like I was tripping on acid. My pulse quickened suddenly and everything around me became enhanced. The room felt like it was closing in on me and my chest tightened as I began gasping for air. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to the pills. I began to freak out and was so scared. I felt like I had used, like I had relapsed, and that feeling was pushing me over the edge. I pulled out the phone book, looked up poison control, and dialed frantically.
The staff person answered, and I rambled into the phone about how I had taken the pill for memory, explained how I was feeling, and at the end threw in that I was in recovery from drugs and alcohol. She listened patiently, and when I was done she calmly asked me what drugs I used to do. When I answered, “Cocaine,” she almost chuckled. She told me this was a common reaction for someone who used to abuse amphetamines. The way ginkgo works in the body is to help maintain blood vessels, thereby improving blood flow to the brain and extremities, which can re-create the sensation of being high. I wasn’t the first to call with a similar reaction, which made me feel a little less anxious and stupid. She instructed me to make myself puke to get it out of my system if I didn’t like the feeling.
I thanked her, hung up the phone, quickly ran to the bathroom, stuck my toothbrush down my throat, and puked. I sat on the bathroom floor for a while, shaken up by the experience. Here I was, hugging the porcelain god once again, but thankfully for a whole other reason. I still felt horrible, as though I had done something to jeopardize my recovery—and that paralyzed me. It was late, too late to call Rose, so I called one of my new recovery friends and told him what I had done. He laughed, and we talked for a while as he assured me my recovery was intact and fine. It is a learning process, and I just hit a little stumbling block. I tried to laugh it off because certainly there was some humor to be found in it. I decided it was better to forget my keys occasionally than to deal with that feeling ever again, so I threw the bottle away.
I hadn’t wanted to use since I went to rehab; however, I had thought about escaping because sometimes it was all too overwhelming to deal with.
This night was the first night I started to think about getting high again. I had just started working at the travel agency and decided to call in for a day off the next day, because when I woke up I was still shaken up. I wanted to scream like a fitful child in a state of rage—in many ways that is what I was. I picked up my journal and was shocked by what I wrote:
The pain, pain won’t go away.
There is only one thing I know, it’s the only way.
You say you got some and I’ll be by your side.
> With it all my pain and anger I can hide.
Just one hit I tell myself
and we’ll put the can back on the shelf.
200 bucks
and five hours later, I’m feeling that stiff junkie rush
and I’ve gotta have more.
Baby, baby, where can we score?
It’s 4:00 a.m. and I want more.
Can’t stop now and can’t have fun,
You say she’s asleep
but I don’t care because if you’re dealing to me
you better know it’s a twenty-four-hour job
and I’ll be your best client.
Just need a little advance to take me higher.
See I need it now and I will pay you later.
Cause the pain I’m feeling now don’t get any greater.
Just one more hit and I’ll be fine.
If that’s all you got then I will settle for a line.
I was a child who never learned how to deal, how to feel, and how to get through anything without detaching from it, escaping from it, or medicating it in some way. Surges of emotion ripped through me like electrical currents, and I feared at times that if I opened my mouth and spoke, I would shoot bolts of lightning directly into the path of whoever was there. I didn’t know how to speak my truth yet in a productive manner. Writing helped. It was always a great way for me to address the stuff that was flying around in my mind and place those thoughts safely outside my head into a journal. In recovery, we were told to expose our disease as often as it comes up. The reality of actually saying my thoughts out loud or seeing them on paper often took the power out of them and helped me to realize it is okay to have these thoughts. I am an addict, and therefore will most likely have thoughts like these forever. My recovery depends upon what I do with those thoughts in the moment. So I began exposing my disease every chance I could get—verbally and in writing.
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