Where everyone knows your name…
I used to think bars were this place where people got drunk and bonded over life shit. OMG, people who drank were so fucking cool to me, they were full of such interesting things. I couldn’t wait to leave work and get wasted. I met everyone from my best friend to boyfriends in bars. You would sit at the stool and bitch to the proprietor about your day and talk about randomly superficial topics like “sports”, “that hot girl/guy over there”, or the “oh, my god, we are both in this bar, we have so much in common, let’s be best friends.” In a bar, you could solve the world’s problems. Then you would get trashed, fall down, blackout, and they would ban you for life.
I had this instant re-setter. I didn’t like how the night before went- Great News! I woke up and forgot EVERYTHING. It was like instant insanity. Hard to learn life lessons and make connections when you are blacking out every single night.
Then I hit the floor and ended up in a meeting. It’s really intimidating when you first walk in because you think that like everyone knows each other and that you are the only person in there that doesn’t know anyone. It’s scary. So you take a seat and this crazy lady with a weird hat asks you how your day was and how much time you have. And because you drying out, YOU ARE SO FUCKING PARANOID. WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE WANTS TO KNOW MY NAME?!?! IS SHE TRYING TO CONVERT ME TO THE CULT, WILL MY FAMILY EVER FIND ME AGAIN!?!?! And then after DAYS, WEEKS, AND MONTHS of being asked the same question over and over again, you realize that she’s just being nice, she’s just trying to make one connection in a roomful of lonely people so that she can feel like she exists for that day.
You spend days being suspicious because friends have told you you don’t have a problem and that it’s a cult. People start giving you advice and you start to wonder, “is this free? why do they want to help me? I am mess, I am a fuckup, I am a piece of shit. I am broken, I am not worth saving. Omg! They totally want to rob me” But slowly you keep coming back and you start to say hi to the person next to you. You go up to the day counter and you say, “I didn’t drink yesterday, here’s how I did it.” And if you have a dollar, you throw it in the basket to pay for rent space.
So you find a meeting you like and slowly over time you begin to realize that everyone is kind of in their own world but they are also kind of rooting for you as well. Like this group of strangers you barely know are hanging on to every word that comes out of your mouth. You don’t know what they do for a living, where they live, or even their last name but day in and day out you hear, “Hey Alice, did you boss ever give you that raise? Did you tell your mother why you were so angry with her?” and so on and so forth. And slowly, you start to matter. Your trials and tribulations become triumphs for others as they struggle through talking to their mother or asking for a raise.
And every day you hear, “You didn’t pick up a drink, you came to a meeting. Congrats! Today, you are a winner!” And you start to feel like a winner. Things accumulate, you lose other things. You move, you lose a job, you take a new job, you lose a family member, you make new friends. And every day, you go to the one place where someone asks you, “So did he ever call you after the coffee date? No, that’s too bad. Better luck next time! I will pray for you. Congrats, you didn’t drink! You are a winner.”
Life starts to change, quickly. You can’t go to the same meeting as much but you find new meetings and new people. “Oh, you are looking for a job? Give me your resume, I have a few friends. Congrats, you didn’t drink! you are a winner!”
People start texting you, “Where were you at lunch today?”, “Missed you on Wednesday night!”, “See you Friday night at the diner! I want to hear your thoughts on the Hunger Games.”, “Do you want to hit a meeting and go to this lecture at NYU?” “Are you going on the ski trip?” And slowly you start to find that connection you always thought you would find over a drink.
Your life starts getting better. You get clear, everything makes sense. You smile again. You laugh for the first time in years. People at work start asking if you have changed your hair style and it’s like they can’t quite pinpoint what’s different. You find yourself saying, “Robin, when are you having surgery for your tumor? When are visiting hours?” “Oh, you are going through a breakup. CALLLLL Me, talk about him all you want, get it out of your system.” “Do you want to meet for coffee and talk about what’s going on with you? Is there anything I can do to help”
Life starts to move quickly and sometimes the only place where you can feel the ground beneath your feet is at a meeting. And if you can’t get to a meeting, someone or 5 people text you, “I miss you! I love you! You are such an inspiration, call me when you get a chance.”
You start to realize that the thing you thought you missed didn’t really exist at all. And suddenly, it’s 23 months later and you wake up to a life you never knew existed.
