“Nobody” Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody too?

Then there’s a pair of us! – don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring Bog!

                I have recently devoted my life to literature, it was inevitable that I was going to reference Emily Dickinson at some point.  The aforementioned was never one of my favorite poems of hers- honestly, it still isn’t- but it has come to resonate with who I am at the moment.  The part that resonates is that I don’t know exactly know who I am right now.  The poem is not even about a lack of identity or purpose, its about being a quiet, tip-toeing introvert in a world full of people who are constantly forcing and screaming their opinions and their truths (you’re welcome for the free expert analysis).  Even if I had the desire to bellow my truth at the top of my lungs in a crowded venue, I don’t know what I would say.  It’s a strange predicament because, being sober, I have never been more human or displayed more honesty.  However, the totality of it all eludes me.

There are a lot of mounting ironies in identifying as an alcoholic.  I find it particularly entertaining to be in a room full of people who used to identify as the “life of the party,” and now they insist on remaining anonymous.  That’s a big part of being an admitted alcoholic, right?  The anonymity.  “Shhhhh! Quiet! Whisper! Don’t repeat anything! No last names! Nobody but Jesus can know you are here! Wear a black turtleneck! Serpentine through the parking lot! Slip in the side door- we’ll hide you in the basement!”  Can you imagine if the Underground Railroad had been as effective at hiding people as the church is with alcoholics and pedophiles…?  There would be far fewer ghosts in Gettysburg, is all I’m saying. 

I want to make two things very clear: First, that I would never “out” another alcoholic.  That is your business and your business alone.  Secondly, I understand the concept of anonymity.  Back when Twelve Step programs were forming, being unable to hold your liquor was an embarrassment- a weakness, if you will.  It secluded a man from a major part of a man’s culture.  You couldn’t let people know that you were sober all the time- then they would know that being a terrible driver and grabbing tits at leisure were part of your actual personality.  The anonymosity (new word, I coined it) just has not translated well into the 21st century.  We took the steps.  We admitted to God and another human being that we were an alcoholic.  We succumbed to the fact that when we are in Rome, we cannot do as the Romans do.  We are mentally different.  That confession alone takes enough out of a person without having to spend multiple nights of the week squirreled away in makeshift Methodist cave for degenerates, like its group therapy for adult bedwetters.  They couldn’t even be as anonymous as alcoholics because they have to carry a spare pair of pants with them everywhere that has their named written in Sharpie on the Ziplock bag.  Probably with a last initial as well- I feel like there are a lot of bedwetters named “Jerry.”

Having to be secretive about being a recovering addict is even more troublesome when you realize that it is a full-time job.  That does not mean that we are so inundated and so weak that we are tweaking, fighting, jonesing, and craving every single second of ever single day.  No.  What it means is that our sobriety requires maintenance so that we are not so weak as to be craving every single second of every single day.  We have to keep up with good habits, we have to exercise, we have to plan our days and our weeks, we have to formulate outs and excuses, we have to stay on top of our stress more than others because, as we have exhibited, WE DON’T HANDLE STRESS WELL.  We have to make time for therapy… lots of therapy.  We have to attend meetings, which seems simple, but its an hour out of our day, usually in the dead middle, or after, dinner time, and it requires schedule finagling.  Especially if you don’t want people to know where you are going.  You have to be on your toes so that you don’t panic and say things like, “nope, I can’t join your poker game on Tuesday nights, Steve.  I have a standing engagement… that I can’t miss… I, well, um, I’m a bedwetter, Steve.”

Honestly, it feels like a slap in the face to spend all of our time in active addiction living a double life, only to join a recovery program… and continue to live a double life.  The secrecy isn’t much of a struggle for me personally. I think it’s become pretty obvious that I am quite open and upfront about my struggle with addiction on a very public platform.  But can you guess where a female under the age of 30 might feel a bit out of place?  Yup.  You guessed it.  At a meeting.  I am part of a very, very small demographic in that venue.  Don’t get me wrong, nobody means me any harm, but the curiosity is palpable and the side-eyes don’t go unnoticed.  “Oh, you’re so young!”  “We don’t get many pretty little girls in here!”  “Oh… Well… Kara… do you have anything that you would like to share…?”  How am I supposed to enjoy being called “pretty” and “little” when I’m busy fretting about being noticeably different?  I realized very early on that, in order to fit in with my fellow alcoholics I would need to grow a penis, age 30 years, develop a taste for chicory and Folgers, yet remain thoroughly Caucasian.  I’ve even considered spritzing myself with Old Spice and writing an alimony check before a meeting to get in the right head space.  Again, nobody intends to make me feel out of place, they are all very welcoming and kind. Regardless- I feel out of place.

The dichotomy of being young and sober extends far beyond the confines of a Twelve Step meeting.  It’s a minute-to-minute confusion.  The praise and the shame are thrown at me in equal measure.  For every, “I’m so proud of you,” there is an, “I don’t care if you’re sober now.”  For each, “you look amazing, you seem so happy, your whole energy is just… different and incredible,” I get an, “Oh. *scoff* You probably don’t remember that night, do you?”  It’s a pointless flogging because there is no way another person can put more complex indignities on me than I constantly put on myself.  That’s another dynamic of sobriety- I got sober just in time to remember all the terrible, violent, disgusting, unforgivable things I did drunk.  And y’all… it’s a living nightmare.  The person I seemed to be for the past few years has absolutely nothing in common with who I am today- or, rather, who I have always been at my core.  I don’t drink for the same reason you don’t get a Gremlin wet- it sparks a demonic mutation in my personality.  Although, because the past few years involved heaps of lies and hypocrisy, not many people know what to believe about me.  And that’s fair.  I frequently share a knowing head nod with the boy who cried “wolf” when I pass him sitting sheepishly and sheeplessly on his hillside.

So, the question remains- who am I?  A big part of me is regretful and apologetic for the torture I inflicted on people in the past few years.  I think some people have the expectation, or want, that I should settle, shamed and lugubrious, into a life of consistent apologies and mea culpa… but my drive is to do whatever I can, however I can, to make it right with the world.  That seems a lot more productive than just bowing my head to every (deserved) verbal beatdown for the next 30 years.  You teach people how to treat you, and I’m sorry, but I refuse to take a newspaper to the snout for the actions that I, in my right mind, would never commit.  There are fewer moral degrees of separation between Hitler and Mother Teresa than there are between a sober alcoholic and a drunk one.  I think that’s why it stings so much when someone says, “it doesn’t matter that you are sober now.”… what do you mean?! I’m 29-years-old… now that I have effectively ceased turning my liver cirrhotic, I’ve probably got a good 50 years left on my life.  It seems like my only two options are to be remembered for my worst few years or be forgotten all together.  That’s no good.  Not while I’m standing here clutching all of this want and willingness to do the right things. 

As far as 19th century, agoraphobic, bisexual, female poets go, Emily Dickinson is definitely in my top 3.  In one of her poems that I do actually like, she wrote to “tell the truth, but tell it slant.”  With this, I cannot agree.  I may not know who I am, who I will become, or what other people think of me, but I know that if I slant the truth, I will never find out.  I have to speak boldly and plainly.  I have to stamp my foot and demand to be seen for who I am- at this moment.  If I don’t scream the truth, then I will be immortalized as a “drunk,” or just fizzle into obscurity.  I don’t care for either of those options- not while I’m looking down the barrel of an undefined 50 years.  My struggle with addiction doesn’t make me less of a person.  At the end of the day, aren’t we all just people occupying the same revolving ball of sea water and garbage?  As far as I can tell, the only thing that separates us from the animals is our insistence to make snap judgements about each other.  Like the elegant poet said:

If you think

I’m nobody

Then who

The fuck

Are you?

You must be

A nobody too.