I had often heard in meetings—that it is much easier to stay on the wagon than to climb back on—turned out to be a truism that colored my life from that day until the day Jason finally had enough and moved out.
That day was the start of a binge that lasted over a year. Then Jason and my mum staged an embarrassing and awful intervention, which included Poppy and Jackie and other people who had known me for years. I went to rehab, got sober, came home, and started drinking again. I couldn’t ever get sober in the way I had been before; it never seemed to want to stick.
I used to think of it like a light switch. The first time I got sober, I knew, I absolutely knew, that this was it: My drinking days were over. It was as if a switch had been flicked in my head. I loved how I felt when sober.
When I was drinking I always felt filled with shame, blaming everyone else for my problems, resenting everyone. I was this great ball of anger and resentment and shame, which disappeared when I got sober. I felt like I was, for the first time, filled with peace and acceptance and tremendous clarity. If a friend did something that pissed me off, instead of hating them, and cutting them off, and being consumed with rage whenever their name was mentioned, I found myself able to sit down and calmly say things like “I felt disregarded when you invited Poppy to that and not me.” People loved this new me. I loved this new me. Jason loved this new me.
After I lost my sobriety, every time I tried to get sober, I knew it was temporary because I could never get that switch to flick on again. I didn’t know how to do it. Our life was an emotional roller coaster, in and out of rehab, drinking, not drinking, pretending to not be drinking but actually drinking. It was secrets and lies, and I knew Jason was pulling away.
There was one night, yet another night I had determined not to drink. Jason was coming home at eight, and I’d planned to make dinner, to have a romantic dinner in the kitchen, with candles, after Annie had gone to bed.
I was making chicken stuffed with mushrooms and spinach, and halfway through the recipe I realized it was cooked in white wine.
I didn’t have any. I could have cooked it in stock, but the recipe called for white wine, so white wine it would be—if it wasn’t cooked in wine, it would be a disaster. And by the way, if you’re wondering why two recovering alcoholics would eat anything cooked in wine, the alcohol burns off if you bring it to a high simmer for one minute. At least that’s what I told myself that night.
I bundled Annie up in her stroller and walked to the supermarket up the road where I bought the cheapest bottle of white wine they had. I knew, as soon as I picked up the bottle, that I’d be drinking it. I toyed with the idea of not, especially as I’d had three weeks of not drinking under my belt, but I knew.
We got home and I poured a small amount into the chicken dish and the rest into a measuring jug. I told myself I would keep adding to the dish, but I picked up that jug like a large, cumbersome wineglass, and drank. And I kept drinking until it was gone.
When Jason came home, he took one look at me and knew. And by then he had almost had enough. Nothing, nothing terrified me more than Jason leaving me, which you would think would be enough for me to actually get my shit together and finally stop, but I couldn’t.
That night set me off. Yet again. The vicious cycle of weeks of not drinking, then falling off the wagon with a terrible bump.
I wanted to get sober more than anything in the world. I knew my marriage depended on it, but the pull was too strong. I just couldn’t do it.
And Annie. My poor, darling Annie. When I was drinking, I was raging. There were times when I would scream at her, berate her for doing nothing other than what a young child should do. I would scream at her for not closing the fridge door properly, or her bedroom being a mess, and I would watch her little face