I hadn’t slept more than an hour the night of July 14th, so the following night I went to bed with the expectation that I’d fall right off. I took my nightly dose of Trazedone and read Mark Twain for awhile. Then I took my nightly dose of Ambien and clicked off the lamp. I laid down and tried to get comfortable, but I couldn’t. I considered taking an oxycodone — it would have killed the pain — but it makes me too wired. So I took half of my following night’s ration of Ambien. Worry, worry. My mind went on search mode and I began wondering if my son was going to get the tax form from his employer that I needed to finish my 2009 taxes. Then it went to the deductions — I may have pushed it on the amount I entered for the books I took to Goodwill. It would be such a bitch to be audited for a few crummy hundred bucks. Then a some seconds of static and suddenly I wondered if I should respond to an acquaintance’s request for me to join Linked-In. Fuck no. Fuck that. But it kept popping up on my screen. I took off my watch and held it to my ear and listened to it tick. Seconds are really really long. Why am I worried about Linked-In shit? He ought to know I’m no longer in the job market! I sat up on the edge of the bed and debated taking more Ambien. But I didn’t want to abuse the drug. Instead I ate a Sweet & Salty Clif Mojo bar. Then a brilliant thought jumped in front of everything, if I was going to abuse anything, it ought to be something I’d enjoy abusing. I’d seen my roommate drinking Irish whiskey a few months before. He was the kind of drinker who could make a bottle last a decade. It was a little past 2:30. Irish, without that peaty smell of Scotch. Yeah, that would be the thing. I stood, pivoted on my leg, plopped into my wheelchair, and I was at the other end of the long house in seconds, in front of my roommate’s personal cabinet. There was only one bottle in it. Wine. What a disappointment. Still, my mission was underway. The idea of going another moment without alcohol… Uh uh, I’d been close before and bailed. Not this time. I filled a twelve ounce tumbler with the wine and drank it down in a minute. I believe it was red wine.

That is how I ended 31 years, 7 months, and 20 days of sobriety. I went to bed and slept.

The following day, a more realistic worry struck me. My roommate’s girlfriend was in town and it occurred to me he’d uncorked that bottle for the occasion. I hadn’t thought of that. I could only hope he was as unconscious about his wine stash as I was about the amount of dish soap I have in the squirt bottle. As it turned out, he was.

On the 17th, I got a call from a friend I hadn’t seen in a long long time. “Fred. I just want to let you know that two days ago, on the fifteenth, I celebrated 20 years sobriety. And I really owe it to you. You talked me into getting with the AA program. I am so… indebted.” That phone call was a real acting challenge for me. And my sober friend is a pretty damn good actor. How’d I do, Chris?

I spent a couple more days deciding if I should buy some whiskey, or brandy, possibly dark rum. Maybe see if I couldn’t just quit obsessing about it. In the same sudden spirit that moved me to drink, I sent my primary care doctor at the VA an email telling her about my slip. She got back to me pretty quickly. Come in to the A&E department and get some counseling. A nice woman named Cassandra told me I had to get off my own case and that I should go back to AA.

So I’m back to where I was in 1978. I went to three meetings this week. I raised my hand and announced myself as a newcomer. Humiliated. But a wee bit proud of myself, too. But this damn worrying. This obsession with the self, as people in AA put it. Stop it, Fred.

By the way, that phrase in the first paragraph of this post, I laid down. Should I have said, I lay down? Or I lied down?