Combatting a Subtle Foe

On being neither cocky about nor afraid of alcohol

Last week, I was at a social gathering when I noticed a bottle of wine 20,000 leagues away. That’s not a thing, of course. When it comes to units of measurement or numbers in general, my mind goes blank. Let’s just say the bottle of wine wasn’t in the room I was in—it was down a hall, on a table, at the far end of another room. 

It was as if my brain did some Termo-vison scan like the Terminator, slowly searching the room, taking in data, until it landed on that bottle of wine. Beep beep beep, target found. (Read in a robot voice.)

Currently, in my home, there is one bottle of red wine on my dining room hutch left over from my 50th birthday party a year and a half ago, and seven beers in a cooler in the garage left over from Thanksgiving. Maybe you’re thinking, of course you know the inventory of your liquor; you’re the homeowner. Well, my husband Chris may have some vague notion that we have leftover alcohol, but he certainly doesn’t know that it’s four Yuenglings and three Rolling Rocks.

By the way, the other day, Chris accidentally put too much vanilla extract into a yogurt parfait. I was like, “I can’t eat this; it tastes too much like alcohol.” And he was like, “It’s just vanilla extract.” And I’m like, “Don’t you know vanilla extract has alcohol? Don’t you remember that episode of Famly Ties when Uncle Ned, played by Tom Hanks swigs from the bottle of vanilla extract?” No, Chris doesn’t know or focus on any of this. He is not an alcoholic like me.

Let me break here for a moment to say my usual caveat: I’m speaking about my own experience. Not every alcoholic Termo-vision scans every room they enter, searching for bottles of booze. I will say, though, that when I told my sober friend sitting next to me at the gathering how I had immediately spotted that wine so far away, she laughed and said she does that with liquor stores. “There’s one on that corner, and there’s one there …” she notes as she drives by—a superpower leftover from when she needed to know where to obtain alcohol as quickly as possible. 

In early recovery, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable having any alcohol in the house. I remember years ago, Chris chasing after my cousin as she walked out the front door on Thanksgiving, thrusting a bottle of wine at her so it wouldn’t have been left behind to tempt me. In fact, many of my memories from early recovery are of Chris removing alcohol from my path. 

On my first sober vacation to Fire Island, an annual destination with the fam, I walked into our rental house and spotted the largest, nicest-looking bottle of Grey Goose vodka standing tall and proud on the kitchen counter. In my memory, it shined like a diamond, framed by a spotlight of sun. Who would leave behind a bottle of Grey Goose??? Amateurs! I immediately turned around, walked out of the rental house, and called my sponsor. Chris went into the house and, working like an octopus with eight arms, poured bottle after bottle of booze left by the previous renters down the drain. Ah, the waste!

But I’m “far away from a drink” now, which is what they say in the rooms when one has a decade or so of sobriety under their belt. My main issue tonight as I write this post is not “Don’t drink that Rolling Rock.” It’s: “Stop eating the cookies from the cookie swap yesterday.”

If I’m spiritually fit, I can be around alcohol, no problemo. I’m neither fighting it nor avoiding temptation. (Alcoholics Anonymous, aka “The Big Book,” p. 85) 

What do I mean, or I should say, what does my sponsor mean by “spiritually fit?” 

Being spiritually fit means doing *all the things* suggested by my 12-step recovery program. Going to meetings, calling my sponsor and my sober network, reaching out my hand to newcomers, and finally, meditating and praying to a higher power.

But this disease I have is “cunning, baffling, and powerful.” 

There is a story in the Big Book about this guy, “a man we shall call Jim.” (That’s a direct quote from the book.) “Jim” was on a sales call when he stopped at a roadside joint to have a sandwich. (The Big Book was written in 1939 and has some weird outdated language.) 

“Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk, it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach.” 

Ew, gross, “Jim.” But you see my point. Everything was going fine, and then all of a sudden, his alcoholic brain thought: milk + whiskey = good idea, and he was off to the races. 

Alcoholism is a subtle foe. I may be making jokes here (or trying to, at least), but I do not think my disease is funny. 

In general, I avoid being around alcohol if I can. If there is a reason I have to go to a bar, for example, to see Chris’s excellent band play, I will go. But there is a saying in recovery. (We have a lot of sayings if you haven’t noticed.) 

If you hang around the barber shop long enough, sooner or later, you are going to get a haircut.

If I don’t need to be at a bar, then I don’t go. If I have to go to a party where there is drinking, I can attend without fear if I’m spiritually fit. But the minute, I mean the minute, people start getting drunk, that’s my cue to leave. I don’t want to be around drunk people. It’s rarely cute and funny like they portray in the movies. At least, if you’re sober, it’s not.

So what’s my point? I try to be neither cocky about alcohol nor afraid of it. (Big Book, page 85). If I start scanning rooms for bottles of wine, maybe it’s time to make a few extra calls and squeeze in another meeting. But I also don’t avoid alcohol like I did in early recovery. If I’m doing *all the things* to keep me spiritually fit, and my feet are firmly planted in recovery, that bottle of wine will stay on my hutch until my 52 birthday. (yikes!)

Well, “I’ll be back” next week. By the way, both The Terminator AND that Family Ties episode with Tom Hanks came out in 1984. Weird! I guess that year is on my mind tonight.