The Knock

The Knock

I am not just telling my story. At this point it is about redefining what it looks like to live with this condition. I never thought I would end up like anyone in my family. Matter of fact, I used them as role models for who I would not be. A cautionary tale. Eat your vegetables or you'll wind up like your sister, a heroin addict. I had the "Don't Be an Addict Like Me" playbook and still I was susceptible.

My addiction lead me down a path to several near death experiences. It is a second chance each time. It is precious, rare, and eye opening. But a “fresh” start? It’s anything but easy. It’s funny how a fresh start can leave you raw and directionless. For some, the climb towards death is the worst part. For me, I think after you survive is where the climb begins.

I didn’t survive three rock bottoms without learning how to fall with grace. It’s a spastic, scrambling, chaotic clamber. Dirt on my bum, gravel in my palms, and pride swallowed whole. I laugh at the mess, which is me, and keep it moving.

There was no performance necessary to be who I was. All my friends drank in excess. Black-outs and late-night food were common. Cocktails, wine, and/or beer were staples on a night out. And when we stayed in. There was always a reason. I wasn't moving any differently than anyone else—until I was.

I knew I was drinking too much. It had become a full-time job. I worked from home until I decided to leave. I was living off my savings since I had made good money climbing the ladder that I blew up. Then I started the one tell-tale sign of an over-drinker. I drank solo.

I was tired of making excuses, so I began to shut everyone out. I was always alone and now that is all that echoed throughout my condo. I went from knowing how to make it look casual to not wanting anyone to see me like that. The party was over, and it was not looking good for me.

It was not a slow process for me. It was like the curtain came down before the act got on stage. No one could understand it. People who needed me would no longer speak to me. I am only aware of certain offenses because they were part of my aftermath. Hiding who I was becoming was no longer as easy. It was active. It felt like watching yourself sink deeper.

That is when I had my first dissociation experience. I could see myself from above. I knew. Imagine someone else controlling you. I remember pleading with myself to not open the bottle in my hands. Begging myself to not take a sip. Then I was reasoning with myself. "You know you have to stop. You can't keep doing this. You're hurting yourself." But I could not hear myself. So, I did open that bottle. I did take that sip.

I had begun to cut off all my friends and had broken up with my boyfriend. There was no explanation. I would not see him when he pleaded to come up. It was long distance, and he came up every weekend. It was unforgivable but I did not know how to tell someone, “I can’t let you see me like this.” I was totally and completely alone.

Unable to wrestle with my own mind, my actions were well thought out. It only felt like I struggled because I had to do it. But, if there was a battle, I must have lost it. I was in a haze. Not lost in the fog and not restfully sleeping but a presence that overtook me. I was living in a haze. That was only piece of what this seemingly new person felt. I was a displaced, unfamiliar, and frightening entity. I was scared. I did not know what was happening. The anxiousness came but the booze took it away.

On one particular day, during my decent, I heard a knock at the door. I am not sure what compelled me to answer. I was not answering the door or the phone. I knew, if I did I could not possibly make sense. Standing at the door was the mom of a family that took me in late in high school.

I had moved out when I was 16 or 17 and gotten a waitressing job, after I dropped out of school. I dated their son. They sat me down and told me that if I quit the job and did not renew my lease, I could come live with them as long as I went back to school. I got my own room and I loved it. That was when I learned what it was to have a family. I loved them more than my own family. I can’t list all of the things they taught me. But mostly they gave me unconditional love, stability, support, and a family. The only reason I ever accomplished anything was so they would know they had not wasted their time on all they had done for me.

Apparently, she and I had plans to see each other that day. She lived an hour and a half away, but her sons lived near me, so she would visit. I opened the door and my mind scrambled for something to say. I stood there in shock. I could not think at all. I think I said, “Huh?” still trying to tune back into the moment. She walked past me up the five steps to get to the living room of my condo. A place I dreamt of owning my entire life was now in shambles. She scanned the room and immediately said, “Take a shower. Pack a bag. You’re coming with me.”

I was now present enough to be mortified. I was so weak and malnourished that I had quit showering. Getting a brush through my hair and especially standing all that time in a shower seemed like an overwhelming feat.

She grabbed a big green garbage bag and started throwing everything away. There were empty bottles and cans everywhere. Delivery boxes flooded the fridge and overflowed onto the counters. I can still hear the bottles and cans crashing against each other as she continued to drop them, one by one, into the bag. But the worst thing she saw, the most humiliating thing, was the windows. I had taped them all with sheets of paper to keep the light out. It looked like a serial killer lived there. It was ridiculous.

I struggled through my shower. I remember thinking it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was far from functioning. I did not have any clothes to pack because I had lost so much weight that nothing fit. She was usually a kind, funny, patient and generally wonderful person in every way, but now only exasperation seeped through her skin. I could feel it.

She carried out maybe 7 of the big green garbage bags, completely full of trash, to the dumpster. I could not help. Again, too weak. All of this was done in silence but there was a vibe of hostility, and I knew not to poke the bear. I wanted to tip toe, to whisper, to disappear. Maybe if I made myself small enough, she would not see me.

On the car ride back to her and her husband’s home, the atmosphere was quiet and macabre with a tinge of bewilderment. She was trying to reconcile what she had just seen, what happened, when did I get like that, and how? It cut straight through to my bones. I sat there nervous and knotted, with my cat on my lap, until we were there.

I went in and sat down on the sofa while they talked about me in the kitchen. It had been hours since I had had a drink, so my hands started to shake antagonistically. That was a big reason I could not quit. I could intend to not drink for a day, a week, a month and I would start out fine. Then, it begins to creep in, and I begin to shake uncontrollably and sweat profusely. It is why I always gave up. It is like the Tell-Tale Heart.

Ironically enough they were trying to get me to eat that night and what did they give me? Soup. I might as well have been eating it with a fork. Nothing was really getting into my mouth. Some sort of cosmic shaky touché.

They both sat right there talking with me. They were just trying to learn, to understand what happened. How it had gotten so bad. Question after question and I really did not have answers. My mind was still mush so it was hard to think and speak without blabbering. I could not make sense of it so how was I going to explain it?

That night I slept on the sofa since I needed to be by a TV. I would have gone mad having to lay in silence with my reckless brain in overdrive. I have always been bad at remembering and quoting exactly what was said during conversations. But, without fail, I can tell you how it made me feel. During my time at their home my feelings were on a loop of humiliation beyond anything I had felt before.

On that first night, I woke up to a couple fighting outside. They were getting loud, screaming at each other, and it sounded like something broke, maybe glass. I remember the red lights flashing when the police arrived. They did not have the sirens on. They were speaking in that authoritative way they do. What they said was muffled. The shouting I could make out. I wondered if I would get back to sleep.

The next day, the three of us were talking. I had felt very anxious. When it comes to drinking, anxiousness is a never-ending constant, drinking or not. I had not yet figured out how to speak in human. Seriously, it was hard. Looking for words felt like digging through mud. I kept trying to explain what I had heard the night before—the couple, the fight, the police—but they looked at me blankly.

“There wasn’t any fight,” she said gently. “No police. No lights.”

I was so sure of what I had seen. I knew what I had heard. It suddenly made sense in my head. It was reminiscent of one of many nights in my childhood. My stepfather was abusive and that is usually how their fights started off.

We all knew I was officially detoxing. I was hallucinating. It was disturbing.

That moment broke something in me. Not in a dramatic way. I had crossed into a place where my mind was no longer trustworthy. What is most unnerving is the way my mind can do what it wants, like I’m not even there or like it does not need my permission. There is no conversation, you have no voice, you control nothing anymore.

The days that followed were slow and mentally exhausting. I was not sleeping a lot. I cried when no one was looking. It was my first rock bottom.

I stayed. I did not run. I did not drink.

She brought me back after a week or two. Timelines still elude me. We went to talk to a counselor and got me set up to have the support I would need. My best friend got involved then and between the two of them I would surely be okay.

There it was. Right in front of me. My first second chance.

I still know nothing of why they cut me out. I tried to reach out once several years later. I could hear the frustration and hurt in her voice. I only wanted them to know I had been sober for a few years. To know that I would be okay. All I remember of that conversation was them insisting, “You know what you did.” I did not. I wanted to scream it. “What did I do? Just say it!”

That day I made a decision. I let them go. If it hurt her to speak to me, then I would do the kindest thing I could do. It was devastating. I had to lose them on the way to finding me. I lost the most beautiful relationship I will ever know. My heart hurts for them still.

This story is not a warning. It simply happened. What it is about is illuminating what it is like to sink, have no control, lose your mind, and everyone you love. It is about watching yourself being put back together piece by piece. And it is about beginning your second chance. It is about the small steps that you should be proud of. The shame that needs to go. That is the only way I know how to talk about my first second chance.

I no longer hide from my story. Because the truth is, I did not get better in a straight, nice, and neat line. I did not get better because I was strong though it did bring out my relentlessness. I began to heal because someone knocked on my door, did not flinch, and cared enough to get me back.