Idiot - Laura Clery Page 0,63
brought the wine over. I took it in my hand. He sipped his. I chugged mine.
Suddenly I was drunk and ordering more and more wine. I called the waiter over and slurred: “One more glass of peenwah, please? Just one more peenor. Thanks.” I had relapsed.
By this point, the French guy was looking at me like I was crazy. But drunk-me took this look as bedroom eyes. “We should probably go back to your house, shouldn’t we?” I asked.
“But this is the first date. Why are you so forward?”
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him toward me. “Because I am.” Solid reasoning, drunk-me.
In addition to having a relapse, that date was a one-night stand.
The next day, I felt so . . . gross. It’s like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize that everything you thought you dreamed actually happened. I was so ashamed. The entire two months of sobriety were gone, right before my eyes. I needed to do better.
It was in this moment that I started to understand that my addiction was a fatally progressive disease. It’s not something that gets better with time. It’s not something that I can beat. This would be something that I would have to tackle every single morning when I opened my eyes, and every night when I went to sleep.
Well, there goes my dating life! There was no way I was going out for a while. I just . . . I couldn’t risk it. But whatever. I didn’t need a guy anyway! Dating was fun, but ultimately I was enjoying being single. I went back into my antisocial cave, trying to gain back my confidence and consecutive days sober.
I slowly worked my way back up one day at a time. It was like training for the Olympics. I was exhausted, but I was doing it. The longer I went, the stronger I got. I dove into my work, and I barely even noticed the fact that I was . . . literally talking to no one. My friends had stopped trying to get me to come out with them. I was on their “do not call” list.
The only person who still bothered to try was my sister Colleen. She really made it her mission to incorporate me back into her life. All my other friends were afraid to push me out into the world, but Colleen knew that if I was going to ever lead a normal life as a sober person, I couldn’t stay isolated all the time.
“Just go on a fucking date! Go!” she’d push me.
Fine. There was this entertainment lawyer named Ben who asked me out a few weeks ago. I could call him up and set up a date. So I did—I started seeing him. It was nice. He was busy with work and so was I. It was the perfect dating scenario for two people who put work before anything else. Canceling at the last minute was no problem. Awesome! Canceling at the last minute is my favorite thing to do. The only bad thing was that he didn’t really understand my sobriety. He would say things like, “You can’t just have ONE glass of wine with dinner? You can’t just have ONE drink?”
Nope, I can’t.
I didn’t mind that he didn’t completely understand me. I kind of thought no one ever would. Sobriety was something I did on my own. Ben and I saw each other pretty consistently—as consistently as two people in LA working in the industry can, but we weren’t exclusive by any means.
I worked my way up to fifty-nine days sober again, seeing the lawyer on and off. And then Colleen called me. “Laura. Stop being such a bummer.”
“I’m not a bummer! But I can’t talk long, I’m going to bed soon.”
“It’s seven thirty.”
“Your point?” There was a long pause. I could feel her judgment. “I need my ten hours!”
“Come out to my party tonight. Please. This isn’t a request, it’s a friendly demand. You’re coming.”
Colleen had found this group of friends in Los Angeles who were all British. She is a total anglophile. After two weeks of hanging out with them, she started speaking in a British accent, “Laura, would you like a spot of tea?” To which I would reply, “Colleen, you’re from Chicago.”
“Okay fine, I’ll go. Let me see if Ben can come.”
Ben was in. We planned to meet about an hour later to go to the party together. But five minutes before I was supposed to leave,