I’m grateful for blustery spring weather. I’m grateful for the way things happen when they’re supposed to. I’m grateful for acceptance and self-honesty. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Song of the Week:
This was maybe more soul-searching than I meant to do this morning. I like to let the sotw hit me, semi-spontaneously, even if I’ve been thinking about a particular song all week long. This morning, as I awaited the inspiration that usually arrives near the end of the second cup of coffee, 1 I thought to myself that I had listened to the Cars lately.
The Cars first album, released auspiciously on June 6, 1978, was the soundtrack of my high school and college days. If I had a nickel for every time I listened to the whole album, I’d have 90-gazillion nickels.2 I’d listen to this album over and over, loved the way the songs blended into each other. The more desperate, tenuous-feeling songs at the end (“All Mixed Up” comes to mind), give a different depth to the bouncy, never far from being in my head, maybe my all-time favorite song:
But wait, why is this not the song of the week? Well, because it’s not. My Best Friend’s Girl has been a SOTW a while ago, plus it feels just a little too easy. “Just what I Needed” is the second song on the album, and even though it’s not sung by Ric Ocasek, I love the lyrics. “I don’t mind you, wasting all my time,” that is just so 1978-cool. If I had a girlfriend in 1978, I definitely would have said that to her.
Anyway, it’s funny how songs and albums lodge themselves in my head. When I hear The Cars, a part of me is on a sidewalk in Iowa City—I think the two main record stores were on Linn Street and I would spend hours browsing the albums, particularly the “Cut-Out Bin,” where discontinued, no-longer-popular albums were ignominiously placed and heavily discounted. The $1.99 price tag fit with my $2.35 an hour revenue stream with only a little difficulty.
In June of 1978, I had completed the arduous journey of sophomore-hood at Iowa City West High. I had played on the sophomore basketball team, but had gotten pulled into the whole high school debate thing, which was going to take up pretty much all of my time on the go-forward. Also, it was abundantly clear that debate was going to generate more opportunities for me than basketball was going to. Alas.
In June of 1978, I had already started drinking. My very first introduction to intentional drinking was in Fred H’s car, careening down a Johnson County secondary road, “The Who” blasting on the shitty VW Rabbit radio. I don’t remember the brand, I really didn’t enjoy the musty taste and had to force myself to do seconds. I think we were also maybe sharing cans, so there was a real back-wash issue as well. I was not a hugely eager participant and it was not a revelatory moment.
Now, I often describe myself as a “white-light drinker,” and what I mean by that is that when I discovered drinking, the great white light was revealed to me and I saw the thing that had been missing from my life. The secret key that unlocked the door that everyone else just walked through—but that had always been locked for me. But that didn’t happen that night in the backseat of Fred’s car.3
That happened on an evening later that summer at Deak Rummelhart’s house. A small group of us had banded together to celebrate a beautiful summer evening and the absence of Deak’s parents. Also, the presence of a trampoline. The cocktail of the evening was a delightful mix of Everclear and Kool-Aid (pink lemonade flavor). Deak’s sister may have invented that drink and it was called “Pink Jesus Punch.” Many of those were consumed that evening and I have vivid memories.
It made an impression because I finally understood and felt connected to the people around me. I was funny, laughed easily, didn’t worry so much; I was fun to be around when I had been drinking.4 I mostly remember the relief I felt at not worrying so much, not thinking so much. At some point, I think it was Craig H who attempted some kind of complicated maneuver and ended up completely missing the trampoline.
He fell a pretty good distance and landed directly on his front, face down. I remember watching him fall, and owing to the amount of Pink Jesus Punch, he really didn’t move on the way down, there was no flinching at the moment of impact. Which was a gift, because he hit pretty hard. I remember I was standing a little bit away when it happened, and we were all forming the words “oh, shit” in our heads as Craig H. fell.
When he hit, there was a pretty loud thud. And he didn’t move then, either. I remember thinking, “shit, he could be dead, we would be in a lot of trouble if that happened.” I also remember shrugging my internal shoulders and thinking, “Whatever,” because that was one of the real gifts of alcohol to me, the “Whatevers.”
It was the perfect response to all of the nonsense that happened in my life, the consequences I suffered, the way I kept coming back for more. You’re upset with me? “Whatever.” I should have done this two weeks ago? “Whatever.” How can you live with that terrible empty feeling? “Whatever.”
As an overthinker extraordinaire, the gift of “Whatever” was priceless. It provided, very, very temporarily, the peace of mind, the calmness that was roughly never part of my resting visage in the pre-drinking days. That was the bit of heaven I glimpsed as Craig H did his deadfall next to the Deak’s trampoline, “Could he be dead or badly hurt?” “Whatever.”
Craig H was okay and went on to be my Physics lab partner, so there was even not too much cognitive damage done that evening. But there was no going back for me. Having finally unlocked the door to what seemed like tranquility at it’s absolute grooviest, I was not about to leave. Pretty soon, I figured out it was easier and safer to do my drinking in bars—I found one where I must have looked nineteen because I became a regular there during my junior and senior year of high school. That bar was also on Linn Street in Iowa City.
Over the next few years, drinking let me don all sorts of disguises. They felt like disguises to me, everyone else just seemed to live them as opposed to having to don them, like I did by drinking. If one of the primary characteristics of an alcoholic is seeing alcohol as a tool for managing existence, I was already an alcoholic. I turned 16 in November of 1978, so the start of my drinking career can be pretty reliably pegged at 15 years old.
Why am I telling you this story? Mostly, because I started listening to The Cars and this is where they drive me.5 I think it’s important to see where it began, it tells me quite a bit about the factors and feelings that were part of the equation, and that helps guide my recovery, but it’s also seeing that it wasn’t really my fault. The defects that filled my notebook at 50 were not yet in my head at 15, they weren’t even under development yet. I had a brain that was susceptible to a disease like alcoholism, I had a chance to pursue drinking and I did—the marriage was unholy and dominated the next 40 years of my life.
I didn’t know any of that, that summer evening at Deak’s house. I had no sense of the pain and heartache that were ahead, no idea of the struggle I would have to eventually undertake, it was just Pink Jesus Punch on a summer night next to the trampoline. If Craig H hadn’t had so much to drink, he might have been more seriously injured in the fall. I realized that if I drank just enough, I didn’t care anymore. Falling wouldn’t hurt me either. Whatever.
Once an alcoholic drinker, always an alcoholic drinker.
You young people and your curated playlists. I let Ric Ocasek curate a playlist for me, we used to call those “albums.”
In my recollection, it seems like I was almost never riding “Shotgun.”
This did change, over time.
Ha. Ha. Ha.