Recovery is a Bitch
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” – Carl Jung
I hated AA. At twenty-five, I was the youngest person in the meetings near Drew. I arrived as they started and dashed out the door after the Serenity Prayer. I didn't ask anyone to be my sponsor, crucial to a happy sobriety, as most alcoholics are liars, loners, and deniers. My self-esteem was still very low, which kept me from asking any woman in the room to sponsor me. Instead, I gave several newly sober men my attention and my phone number, providing them with rides back to their rehabs and listening to their prison stories. Despite all the information to the contrary, I felt responsible for how much I drank, the effect alcohol had on me, and for not stopping when my mother shouted, “Stop!” Although I wasn't drinking, I refused to allow AA to make my life easier, and without the drinking and the drugs, I felt overwhelmed, angry, and lost.
I kept my secrets. Secrets were important. No one should know how it felt when your father hit your mother or when someone forced you to have sex. Secrets made it possible to keep breathing, and when people in AA said things about secrets killing them, I would nod and pretend to agree. Really, I had my fingers in my ears and was singing “la, la,” la as I had when the glass shattered and people screamed in the middle of the night. Although we slept in the attic, it was impossible not to feel the anger, the raging happening downstairs, the sound of things breaking, my father's voice, harsh and incoherent, my mother's pleading. I was closer to the staircase, so after I had heard enough, sitting halfway down the stairs, I went into Brigid's room and whispered my fears.
”Go back to sleep,” she'd say. “Stop crying. There's nothing wrong and nothing to cry about. Baby.”
It was so dark up there at night, the noise of my parents fighting, the sound of cars passing on the road in front of our house. I wanted to be in one of those cars, in one of those happy families in a station wagon with a dog, not a Volvo or a Fiat or a VW but an all-American car with a normal family, a happy family without a shadow side. I'd give up all the glamour, living abroad, taking ocean liners, holding one of my father's novels to be safe in my bed, a girlish canopy bed, my room, all soft and sweet like other little girl's rooms, instead of the wooden box my mother built, the slanted white ceilings and the bare wood floors, the uncurtained window framing the woods behind our house. My dad would leave for work early in the morning like a proper father and come home and hug me and kiss me instead of flinching when he looked at me when I became a sexy girl, turning away, telling me love didn't exist. My parents would make sure I did my homework and check things with my teachers. They would think about me and care about what happened to me instead of never paying any attention except to look up occasionally to say something cruel about how disappointing I was, how selfish and spoiled.
photo by Vinicius "amnx" Amano
”Put your fingers in your ears,” Brigid's voice was kinder. “Close your eyes and count to a hundred.”
I decided if Wendy died, I'd drink again. I was fully aware that this was a deal with the devil and that it was unfair to both her and me. Five years after Cindy's death, my grief and anger over losing her were still strong, and Wendy's accident added to the burden of my secrets while forcing me to remain sober. Taking care of Jack while he was drunk and trying to deal with Wendy's angry little sister made it easy for me to ignore my own story, and an alcoholic's story is crucial to getting and staying sober. Wendy came out of the coma in February. Her mother had returned from Saudi Arabia and was renting a house in New Jersey. When I walked into her hospital room, Wendy's eyes were finally open. Her hair was growing back, but she had tubes attached everywhere, her skin was white as paper, and she was extremely thin.
Overwhelmed, I leaned down, tears filling my eyes, “Oh, Wendy! Thank God!”
”What did I get on my GREs?” was her response.
This was unexpected. However, even after the coma, Wendy's ambition to enter graduate school had survived, and she hoped I had brought her test scores. She then explained she planned to repeat the test, and if her scores were significantly lower, this would strengthen the lawsuit she filed against the driver who forced her off the road. After a few more weeks, Wendy was transferred to a rehabilitation center to learn to walk again, and I moved back to Hoboken, renting a tiny house in the backyard of a brownstone owned by an Italian family. There was a statue of the Madonna right in front of my door. The house consisted of one huge room, a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen, and the entire space was heated by a part of the stove.
Catherine was pregnant with a baby boy, and we finally spent time together as adult sisters. She was the only person in my family who accepted I was in terrible trouble and would speak openly about AA. I could tell her what was happening in my life, and she didn't sigh, roll her eyes, or change the subject. Catherine was in the PhD program at Rutgers, focusing her dissertation on Emerson, and had married a young lawyer named Beckman Rich, now pregnant with her first child. Since she lived in Brooklyn Heights, I met her at the Atlantic Avenue food festival, trying to consume as much food as she could but failing miserably. Every vendor offered her generous samples and beamed when she liked his or her cuisine. Catherine's charm was staggering. Her happiness was palpable. After Henry was born, she approached motherhood with the same fierce devotion and attention to detail she had once applied to drugs. Watching her be such a good mother helped me believe I could be one someday.
Meanwhile, I auditioned for plays and studied to be in commercials. My niche was "sassy neighbor," I often practiced my delivery of lines with her, trying to sound sincere and natural. I'd visit Catherine and wash her dishes while reciting my lines about washing up liquid, trying to sound genuine and positive.
”You're the best fox ever,” Catherine said after I appeared as a scheming fox with a giant red tail in a children's theater production of The Adventures of Reddy Fox. My character was a sneaky fox who stole a fat chicken and then got chased by various animals and the farmer. The part required lots of running and hiding under various props, which was difficult since my bushy tail was enormous.
”Wasn't Aunt Molly a good fox? She's got the title role!”
Henry looked at me from across his grilled cheese sandwich. I could see he was confused. How could I be his aunt and a fox? Catherine was gentle and kind with Henry. I was proud of her and hoped other people saw that my sister was a really good mother. ”I can't believe you came to see the show. Mom and Dad think I'm a complete loser.”
During my senior year in high school, I visited Catherine in Boston after she graduated from Radcliffe and worked in an early tech position. I worried about her as I had when she was taking drugs in college. Now, she only seemed to drink, but her isolation and sadness frightened me. We spent several evenings watching bad television, drinking wine, and eating takeout. At the same time, she spoke about our parents and how she viewed them as destructive egotists who didn't care about our welfare. She said they had married so young they found everything in each other, and unlike most parents, they were indifferent to how their children felt. “They think about themselves nearly all the time," she said. They love us, but it's conditional. You have to be very strong.”
I didn't tell her about the rape because she seemed fragile. I listened to her explain the source of my father's rage and my mother's denial and agreed with her conclusion that their affection was based on our being pretty, smart, and funny. Catherine was brilliant. Her teachers had always been in awe of her intelligence and wit, which was sharp and could be hurtful. I loved her because she was the funniest person I had ever known, able to describe people and life so you felt and saw exactly what she was talking about. Worrying about her was a familiar feeling. First when she had scoliosis, then when she started college in 1968, and the campuses were war zones, and after she graduated from college because she was deeply depressed and alone, her amazing brain was wasted on People Magazine and sitcoms. I felt safe and happy when I was with her, which was rare in my experience. She protected me, and she answered my questions. We laughed at Henry, who was trying to understand how his aunt once had a big red tail but was now sitting next to him, feeding him grapes.
I returned to my tiny house in Hoboken and lay in bed, thanking someone for allowing my sister to be happy. Even though I knew better, I still believed that loving someone as I loved Catherine would keep her safe from harm. I had resigned from my security job and started working at a snooty squash club in Midtown Manhattan, Fifth Avenue Racquet Club, at 37th and 5th, which catered to wealthy squash players. Squash was a favorite sport for Wall Street types, some famous writers, and some players who simply loved the game. I sat behind a mahogany desk handing out towels, scheduling massages, and smiling like the pretty, young thing they hired. I read scripts and wrote things but didn't ignore the wealthy clients who needed my full attention. I was expected to flirt and banter, which I did, although most of the time I found a way to cut these sessions short. I tended to be a bit of a show-off, reading Lorca, Beckett, and novels like Middlemarch, not wanting to be stereotyped as an airhead, but I also tried to be kind.
Despite their wealth, many members were clearly lonely, socially inept, or shy. I tried to remember their names while paying less attention to the arrogant stockbrokers and bankers who frequented the club during lunchtime. One man in particular, tall, dark, fit, and handsome, tended to ask me questions that demonstrated a person with broad interests and a good education. Unfortunately, nearly every discussion ended with him asking me out and my refusing the invitation.
Memory is a funny thing. I remembered so much while managing to forget how hard it had been to stop drinking. I managed to forget the skin-crawling terror I felt the morning after I fell into the empty goldfish pond. The night I had actually taken down that bottle of tequila from the refrigerator, allowing the heavy bottle to rest in my hands, imagining what a relief it would be to feel the burn and the cold stroke of alcohol. By avoiding situations like sex, dating, and parties, I managed to deceive myself into believing I had conquered the addiction to anything that would block how I felt. Viewing my life from the perspective of a rear-view mirror it no longer seemed so hopelessly sad. The scar on the back of my skull had healed. I had never been arrested. I told no one about the abortion or the fact I had been dating a man in California who kept a loaded gun in his glove compartment. Degrading and terrifying events became minor setbacks or funny stories. I didn't drink, but I was in stasis, a fly in amber, unchanged, no longer waking up to the hideous "Four Horsemen Terrors” of bewilderment, frustration, and despair as described in my now neglected AA literature. I lacked acceptance, and I still hated myself. I felt cheated by Cynthia's death, and as I lay sobbing alone in the dark in my Hoboken studio, I still regarded life as a hurtful, horrible ordeal.
This was not the serenity promised to me if I ceased drinking. Nor was it true sobriety. I ignored the necessity of finding a new way of life and working the twelve steps of AA. My self-hatred made it impossible to heal, and without that process, I was just a dry drunk. The light filtered through the fig tree in the garden, silver-grey, barely dawn, and there I was, alive, alone, tears rolling into my ears, struggling beneath a blanket of grief. I ran. I ran through the streets of Hoboken, along the viaduct that led to Jersey City, and back down to the track outside Hoboken High School. There was an old man, a really old man. Like eighty, dressed in polyester pants, a sleeveless t-shirt, and Oxford old man shoes, who also ran. He was not fast, but his pace was respectable. He kept going around and around while I did wind sprints and ran the bleacher steps, finally coming to a panting, sweating rest, my hands on my thighs, close to throwing up, worn out. He would circle past and smile, a small wave, and then I'd slowly return to my house, the Madonna guarding the garden. This wave might be my only human interaction outside of work for days. If I managed to make a meeting I didn't speak to anyone, bringing a book to seem busy, ducking out as soon as possible.
My acting career continued to crawl along. I was cast as a sexy neighbor in a play about an alcoholic dog. I answered an audition listed in Backstage and went to the open call. It was a terrible play, but the writer was bankrolled by her husband and gave herself a starring role. I was the “sexy neighbor,” and since we opened in Hoboken, later transferring to off, off, off, off Broadway. We had no dressing room; I walked down Washington Street in my costume, which consisted of a tight, black, leather miniskirt, knee-high boots, a leotard top, and a ridiculous fake fur, tiger-striped trench coat I bought at a flea market. Walking from my house on Bloomfield Street to the theater on Washington Avenue, I was catcalled by men who assumed I was a prostitute. In my commercial acting class, I was learning how to play different roles for commercials, “nice mommy,” “tired mommy,” “lady next door,” “sassy friend,” and “other women who smiled and sold stuff.” In between, I worked at the racquet club, handing out towels and directing non-members to the various locker rooms. According to Hector, the custodian, the tall, dark guy was worth tons of money. He was also a fierce, accomplished squash player. Checking his bio, I read that he was president of a family business, a linen manufacturing company that supplied hundreds of stores nationwide. When his games were finished, he frequently approached the desk and asked me what I was reading, what auditions I had attended, and whether I'd be willing to have dinner with him. I wasn't willing to have dinner with him or anyone else unless they were female or over eighty. I didn't say this, however. I told him I had a boyfriend.
”What kind of boyfriend?”
”A nice boyfriend. My age.”
”You need someone older. You're difficult.”
”I like my boyfriend. He's very smart.”
”Not as smart as me.” He put down his card. “Come to my office so we can discuss your future. You're a terrible receptionist.”
I put his card in my bag and returned to reading my script of The French Lieutenant's Woman. I was going to use the monologue from the film when Meryl Streep describes how the French lieutenant jilted her. I was obsessed with miserable, lovelorn, probably bat-shit crazy women like Adèle Hugo, Victor Hugo's daughter portrayed by Isabelle Adjani, who goes mad for unrequited love or the gorgeous heroine in the gorgeous film, Elvira Madigan who, with her hapless lover, tries to live on acorns in the forest but because of their ineptitude they eventually starve, and then he shoots them both. One wonders about this penchant for condemned romances since I had been virtually alone for nearly two years. But then everything changed; my imaginary boyfriend became real. Buck wasn't necessarily very “smart," but he was extremely handsome and seemingly besotted by me. I met him at a party I attended in Hoboken, a rare event since parties without drinking were pretty awful. I ended up going home with him to a nice house in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he lived and worked as a plumber for his father's plumbing business, which was, in fact, next door to his house. His mother woke us up in the morning, calling his name from downstairs.
”Who is that?”
”My mom. She brings me bagels on Sunday.”
He got out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. He was gorgeous. I had finally had sober sex. With a plumber. A gorgeous plumber whose mother brought him bagels on Sundays. Briefly, I imagined this scenario in my life, but it would never happen. My mother viewed bagels as a scourge. My father would not have been nice to a plumber who just had sex with his daughter and probably didn't attend college. Buck returned eating a bagel, got back into bed, tucked me under one perfect, muscular arm and said, “Where have you been all my life, Molly Moynahan?”
I took the train back to Hoboken with a gram of cocaine and a promise to return the following weekend. I didn't want or need the cocaine, but I still accepted it. I didn't, however, use it, returning the following Saturday, the gram intact, squelching any thoughts about going to an AA meeting or calling someone.
Bedminster was where John DeLorean, known for designing the car featured in the film Back to the Future, lived on a 430-acre estate with his famous model wife. Buck was DeLorean's plumber while his friends, tradesmen all, had various positions as gardeners, contractors, mechanics and whatever else was required to keep a super wealthy person's home working. DeLorean's nanny was a cocaine dealer as a side gig, and most of these well-off blue-collar workers used cocaine regularly in lieu of trips to Las Vegas or saving for the future. Alcohol was still my drug of choice, the substance that transformed me into a werewolf. Cocaine had its charms, but I never craved it, nor did I buy it; somehow, I kept dating men with a virtually unlimited supply. If there was no cocaine, I didn't care. Not so with booze.
However, an addict is an addict, and whether we start out with the thing that keeps us from feeling, we will end up with that thing come hell or high water. Like constantly crossing on red, diving into shallow water, not paying your taxes, or not wearing a bicycle helmet, sooner or later, you will get hurt.
I flirted with the linen manufacturer at work while refusing to date him, catching the train to Bedminster most Fridays, where I had begun to accept the offered lines of cocaine without drinking any alcohol. This made for manic, jaw-clenching talkathons, insomnia, wandering Buck's house at three o’clock in the morning in search of something to use for frenzied writing sessions, or staying up all night watching movies on his VCR. I was no longer sober, so I stopped going to AA meetings, but I told myself I was still sober and accepted the lie. This was the same reasoning that made me mark my bottles of wine, drink past the mark, erase the mark, and then pretend the mark never existed. There are endless variations on this theme of self-delusion: hiding a bottle, finding it, drinking, hiding it again, going to different liquor stores to purchase alcohol, talking loudly about parties you are having so no one will judge the amount of vodka you are buying and sneaking your empty bottles into someone else's garbage. Basically, you are bat shit crazy but in denial because you are bat shit crazy.
The brain splits itself into two. One half tells the other half to shut the fuck up and get wasted so the pain will stop. The other half begs for respite, peace, and an end to the cycle of shame. Meanwhile, I finally accepted the linen manufacturer's invitation to dinner. Why? Maybe because I wanted someone to buy me an expensive meal, but probably because he was interesting and well-read and had a sense of humor while Buck was gorgeous, but he didn't have much to say aside from his declarations of love, which I didn't believe since his recent ex-girlfriend kept calling the house in the middle of the night and hanging up when I answered. He had dated her for years, breaking up with her to sleep with me. I found a Brides magazine shoved under his bed with pages folded down. She was clearly planning a wedding.
The 1980s were kind of a disgusting period in America where people like the linen manufacturer enjoyed spending hundreds of dollars in restaurants in New York City, restaurants that had been reviewed in The New York Times, with pretentious service and mediocre food. Considering the bill might have fed a family of four for a month, I tried not to look at the prices even while I ordered ridiculously expensive entrees. Entrees that I barely touched. Certainly, the check was equal to my monthly rent and this was with little alcohol since only the linen manufacturer ordered wine, incredibly expensive wine, which he didn't drink more than a glass of since he had diabetes. These dinners allowed me to play the part of a Bohemian, impoverished actress whose clothes were a mixture of designer, Biba or, Betsey Johnson or Norma Kamali, or thrift shop rags. I could get away with dressing like a trashy Eliza Doolittle because of my youth and my skinniness. My attitude was both bratty and sulky with some entitled political ranting thrown in for good measure.
My sense of superiority was a result of a garbled philosophy that all things connected to business were essentially evil and also that I had held out despite being tempted by a decent salary and was living the life of an artist. I felt myself as a desired object, and since the self-hatred had only briefly disappeared, I needed affirmation from men who wanted to fuck me. And I learned about reflecting back. A man who just wanted to fuck me merely longed to see himself reflected in my eyes, his face, his ideas, his beliefs, and his proclivities. Buck sought someone sophisticated and alien, while the linen manufacturer wanted someone young, poor, pretty, and smart. My low self-esteem was a bonus which gave him permission to hurt me while we were having sex. Also, he was a literary star-fucker who loved hearing stories about the famous writers I had encountered in my life. When he flirted with me, I didn't respond. Hector leaned over the counter, frustrated by my indifference.
“He's nice,” Hector said, rubbing his hands together. “Nice and rich.”
”Really? How exactly does his niceness manifest, Hector? Does he ask you about your family? Tip well? Bring you coffee?”
Hector shook his head and waved his finger at me. “You need a rich man! Be nice. Smile.”
Oddly, this was something people had been suggesting to me lately, complete strangers passed me emerging from the darkness of the PATH train entrance saying, “Smile.” All of them were men. My landlord tried to fix me up with his cousin because he was a criminal lawyer and “he can take care of you.” Possibly, living in his coach house suggested a lack of success on my part, but still, I didn't want to be perceived as yet another low-earning would-be New York actress seeking a rich husband. I was the first part, but I didn't want the other. I didn't want a husband, rich or otherwise. Even my mother had pimped me out on a blind date with the son of a friend of hers from Radcliffe. “He's very successful,” my feminist mother told me. “He makes lots of money.” What I needed was therapy, not another meal ticket or job. But I couldn't afford it, and my parents weren’t offering to pay this time, pointing out AA should be enough.
The first time I finally showed up at the linen manufacturer's offices, I was greeted by his assistant, Mildred. Mildred was Hispanic, immaculately dressed, overweight, and ran the office efficiently, putting up with abuse that would now be illegal, enduring comments about her ethnicity and weight from both the linen man and his father, who insisted on coming into work every day and yelling at the staff.
”You must be Molly?” Mildred greeted me as I stepped off the elevator into the showroom. There, embroidered tablecloths, placemats, and pillow shams were displayed in lighted cases. I nodded. She brought me to a closed door, knocked and walked away.
”Come in.”
His office was the total cliché: Sharper Image toys lined the window sills, the furniture, all glass and chrome, the rug, some sort of Finnish stuff, and multiple lines of cocaine across his glass-topped desk. I had chosen my costume with care: a short skirt, a wrap-around leotard top, Frye boots, and tights. I looked like a cowgirl aerobics instructor. My legs had always been a strong point. I sat down, crossed those legs, and laughed.
”What's so funny?”
”This. You're like Mr. Executive with your red tie and your toys and your cocaine.”
”Want some?”
I shook my head.
He snorted several lines and stood up. “Let's go.”
”I came here for career advice.”
”We can talk over dinner.”
I shook my head. “I'm not having dinner with you.”
He looked mildly disappointed. “You will.”
”I have a boyfriend.” I stood up.
”The plumber doesn't stand a chance. You'll destroy him.”
I left. Mildred was standing by the elevator, waiting to go home.
”Leaving so soon?” she asked.
”He's sort of a jerk, isn't he?” I asked.
”You have no idea.” Mildred sighed.
Finally, we had dinner at La Chanterelle, listed as one of the most expensive restaurants in New York City. Somehow, he managed to dismiss his driver when we reached my Hoboken house. Since the futon was on the floor, I pulled out a sleeping bag left over from camping. He was stunned by my refusal to have sex with him and possibly more stunned to be forced to sleep in a sleeping bag. We lay in the dark; his outraged silence lulled me to sleep, and when I woke up, he was gone. I anticipated he might have been discouraged by my lack of availability, but I was wrong. In fact, I think he was inspired to exert more pressure in the hopes of an eventual capitulation.
Another Christmas passed without my drinking. We had Christmas Eve at Brigid's house in Montclair. She had married a manic Italian photographer whose accent was so thick and delivery so rapid it was sometimes difficult to understand him. My parents were glad to see I wasn't drinking but unimpressed by my career trajectory that seemed to have stalled at actress/receptionist/sometime photo model, mainly for Brigid’s husband. I was drifting, spending my weekends in Bedminster with Buck, snorting cocaine, watching television, my brain unchallenged. It was as Sylvia Plath described in Aerial: “Stasis in darkness, /Then the substanceless blue./Pour of tor and distances.”
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach