A Love Story

A couple of days after leaving my first AA meeting, the one where I said that I wasn’t sure if I was an alcoholic, I went to the library and typed “alcoholic” in the electronic card catalog. (Is that what the computers catalogs in libraries are called?) Now, any fool could figure out that a person who has been fretting over whether or not she is an alcoholic for 20 years is most definitely an alcoholic. But to admit that meant that I would have to stop and as any alcoholic knows, stopping is not an option.

So I key “alcoholic” into the search line on the library’s computer and up pops a title that I am drawn to like gravity to the earth. “Drinking. A Love Story,” by Caroline Knapp. I’m hooked. Walking home from the library, I am thumbing through the pages. She is writing about me. I heard that Roberta Flack song in my head. “Killing me softly with his song. Telling my whole life with his words.” Although she wasn’t killing me; she was telling my whole life. She described a young professional caught up in her work who gravitated toward colleagues who liked “Happy Hour” as much as she did. She described her heady successes during the day and her love affair with Harvey Wallbanger at night. And what really got me was when she described those little quizzes that we all take to figure out whether or not we are alcoholic. Usually, they go something like this:

Have you ever lost a job because of alcohol? No

Have you ever slept on the sidewalk because of alcohol? No

Have you ever blacked out for days at a time because of alcohol? No

Have you ever spent time in jail because of alcohol? No

Do you no longer bother pouring your alcohol into glasses with ice? No

Do you ever drink cough syrup to get a buzz? Well, maybe.

Those quizzes didn’t describe me or Caroline Knapp. They don’t describe half of the alcoholics out there. Caroline wrote that she would’ve admitted to her alcoholism much sooner if they had asked questions like the following:

When you go to a dinner party and there are six places at the table and only one bottle of wine in the middle of the table, do you worry about how you are going to get drunk? Yes

When you go to someone’s cottage in the country and discover there isn’t a liquor store for 50 miles, do you worry about how you are going to get drunk? Yes

During the day, do you always make sure that you have plans lined up for after work that will ensure your ability to get drunk? Yes

I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea. Getting drunk was very important to me. I finally realized that that was the definition of alcoholism. People who are not alcoholic don’t care about alcohol. They don’t think about it, plan for it, or buy it in large quantities. I went back to that women’s AA meeting at my little New Age church and said, “Hey, I read a book that finally helped me to see that I am an alcoholic.”

They said they knew it all along. It turns out that nonalcoholics don’t wander into AA meetings wondering if they belong.