When you’re sober your friends become suspicious of you. Everybody whispers behind their glasses. They stare at you as if you were an anomaly. Or worse. They make a big show of how you’re not drinking and how cool they are with it. As if you needed validation or something. You might start to frequent the bar scene less and less, not because you have trouble with keeping your sobriety but because you are tired of smiling till your cheeks hurt at the awkwardness of the situation. People do drink at bars, but it’s also a social place. People, like, talk there and everything. Apparently you can’t do one without the other, or it’s frowned upon. Imagine ordering a cheeseburger with no cheese. Right.

Honestly, I didn’t set out to make anyone uncomfortable or think that I was wagging my finger at them. It was a choice I made after careful evaluation of a few incidents.

I was out with my friend Charlie when I met C-. We were more then a few drinks in, but without my girlfriends there to counteract my drunk goggles vision, I decided I wanted to meet him. I steadied myself against the bar and winked at him. He was hesitant at first, but soon enough I had reeled him in.

‘Why are you looking at me like that, when your dude is standing there?’

I shoved Charlie away from me. ‘he’s not my boyfriend.’

Charlie, ever the socialite extended one hand and gave him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Hey!’ Apparently he had morphed into the ‘Fonz’ when I wasn’t looking.
.
C- shakes his hand staring at me the whole time.

Charlie takes a long look at me, assessing if I’m able to make decisions. He nods his head once, shakes his hand again. It’s like my dad watching me leave for my first date.

C-’s a good guy. He let’s me ride piggyback back to his place.
He tried to give me a tour, but I was only interested in the bed. I knew if I didn’t lay down and be still I was going to vomit the tequila shots I’d had earlier. In retrospect, I can see how he thought I was being frisky. The last thing I remember is falling onto the bed.

When I wake up, I panic for a second wondering where I am. I can hear a shower running, and someone singing. I sit up, too fast.Ay yi yi . I want to get out of here. Where are my clothes? More importantly where is my car? I hear the shower stop and next thing I know the covers are being snatched off of the bed and C- is on top of me. My thoughts were, I’m still drunk, and the movement is making me SICK. Is that Axe body spray? Oh hell no! Abso-fucking-lutely not! It’s all I can do to keep from projectile vomiting across his back. After a few moments he realizes he’s the only person ‘involved’.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

I yawned my hot tequila morning breath in his face. Where do I begin? ‘Can you take me to my car?’

He looks confused, but he gets up to throw clothes on. I wonder around the room, piecing my outfit together. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like the friggin ‘Hamburglar’. Mascara and eyeshadow smeared around my eyes. My hair is greasy and alternates with curly and straight pieces. I dig in my purse and slide on my big sunglasses. The big sunglasses pull this look together.

He is quiet on the walk to my car. We hug an awkward goodbye. He waits, until I’ve started my car and then he drives off.

Driving home I had a thought: I’m too old to be living a real-life  After School Special. I don’t even know what category to file what happened earlier.



I had a job interview scheduled the morning after my 29th birthday party. I’d been laid off for 3 months. My birthday and an interview meant one thing; twice the celebrating. I remember dancing on this huge, circular, wooden coffee table surrounded by people. I was the only one on the table, rightfully so as it was my birthday. I insisted the bartender put Kanye West, Stronger on repeat. Next thing I know, someone totally tried to tarnish my shine and grabbed me off of the table.  Kanye was no more. Everything after that is a blur. I woke up the next morning and it felt like my head had been run over by a mack truck. Repeatedly.

I’d celebrated myself into one of the worst hangovers of my life. I slept through my interview…. I spent the day face down on my couch watching bad daytime television. How bad? Dallas re-runs bad and avoiding my roomie’s mother who had volunteered herself as my job coach. I was supposed to apply to a minimum of 10 jobs per day, and report back after interviews. We didn’t have anything to discuss that day. She thought otherwise. She was persistent, alternating between my cell (which mercifully died, as I hadn’t charged it the night before) and the house phone, which I finally picked up and left off the hook. She talked for a few minutes before hanging up.


If it’s a social faux pas to frequent happy hour when you’re unemployed, call me guilty. I wasn’t known like any of the Cheers regulars, at the local bar I’d dubbed ‘the regal beagle’ aka the bar where I had a dance solo on top of the table, but they knew me well enough to call out my drink order whenever I dropped in. ‘Kettle and soda, extra lime?’

Initially, I’d balanced going out and job hunting. I’d meet the mail carrier almost everyday, hoping for some sort of correspondence regarding a job I’d applied too. And most days, there would be a letter or two. Dear S-, Thank you for your interest, blah blah blah blah.

I fell into a deep depression. It was gradual, and by the time I really noticed, I was in bed everyday trapped under a cast iron blanket. Or at least that was how I felt. I was exhausted but had trouble sleeping. Or I’d fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep. I thought about my mortgage, my depleted savings, my mounting visa bills, student loans, cobra, the fact that I was single, my unemployment running out, the war,Darfur, global warming…. My mind was a revolving door for any problem.

My therapist asked me, when drinking changed for me. I can’t pinpoint an exact moment. I just know I  went from wanting to feel something else to  needing to feel something else.