His name is (BLANK), and he is a recovering alcoholic for over 20 years now. I know, I know. What exactly does that mean? Simply put, it means if he drinks alcohol he won't stop. The other thing it means is that without some effort towards spiritual development, he's two fries short of a happy meal. In other words, if he doesn't adjust his thinking, and live in a certain way, then he's probably going to experience more difficulty, than most, in the areas of sex, security, and society. Challenging situations around those areas will become overwhelming, and make him crazy. Eventually, he may decide to drink again. He'll certainly be more screwed up than better adjusted, non addicted, folks.
Case in point. He's married to a beautiful Latina. They have four children, 2 boys, and 2 beautiful girls. Lately there was a lot of tension in his marriage. Actually it's existed for the previous fifteen years, to be exact. He thought it was menopause. That's what he told me. He was surprised it lasted this long. Then he thought it's because she's Latino, and he's African American. Latina wife, but he refuses to speak Spanish. Unless his life depends on it, of course. Usted entienda ?
So annually, during the holiday season, he confronts the love of his life about the tension in their relationship. In typical alcoholic fashion he says, "well if you don't like me, then why are you still married to me?" In typical Latino English, as a second language, she says, "well I tried to leave you in August. But you said if I stayed, you would go to the "Hall", and save our marriage. But after a few meetings, then you stopped!" Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, his wife is also a devout Jehovah's Witness. Nice people.
So he responds in typical alcoholic fashion. "You were acting so ugly. I decided, why bother? I don't do ugly all week then go righteous on the weekends." She exploded, after he exposed his insincerity. "You were looking for an excuse!" She says. "You were always looking for an excuse!" There was a long silence. Finally, in typical grandiose alcoholic fashion, he says, "you don't have to leave. I'll leave!" In even bigger, grandiose Latino fashion, she says, "fine!" So with his foot all the way in his mouth, he drove to Shoprite.
You can tell he's in trouble when he lands in Shoprite, and buys food they don't even need. Sometimes he buys McDonald's, and gives it to homeless people on the street. But Shoprite came before McDonald's the way he was driving. He went the short way to the highway. He gets to Shoprite and sees an attractive sale on grass fed beef. But they don't have any. "What kind of nonsense is that?" He thinks to himself. So in alcoholic fashion he obsesses over grass fed beef, at this current sale price. He's also very cheap, so it quickly becomes his number one mission in life. Then he starts thinking. Where is the next nearest Shoprite? In very short order, he was totally obsessed.
There was a brand new Shoprite in the next town over, a superstore. So that's where he went. An alcoholic commitment mean if they don't have it there, go another 15 miles to Watchung, or Plainfield, or Elizabeth! Go further, exponentially. He was absolutely determined to score grass fed beef on sale from Shoprite. So help him God!
He called me excited about the grass fed beef while he was driving. But then all he could think about is what a breakup would do to his kids. He had been through nasty breakups before. What alcoholic hasn't? Breakups were not pretty for anyone, especially children. "But something had to change", he said. "We're miserable right now." So he went back and forth on the phone between anger and sadness. It sounded like eternal suffering once he began discussing it. The entire duration of the trip. All 2 1/2 miles. I got off the phone when he drove into the Shoprite parking lot. Cops were everywhere, he said. But he didn't know why. I thought it was important that he noticed cops. So I cautioned him. Maybe cause I'm a little wired, and know it's always better to take my intensity down a notch around cops. A cop convention is not exactly the climate for a Black man to be outta control, if you know what I'm saying.
So he went inside, and grabbed a basket. Then he walked around the store. It was brand new, less than a month. So he strolled around like a tourist. It was massive. He found bacon, and other pork products. And there it was, Clayton's organic ground beef. But it didn't say "grass fed" on the package label, like the store sign. Suddenly he gets paranoid. Is it really grass fed? Or were they trying to pull an okey doke? He grabbed a few anyway.
Then he thought about the meal he would create around it. Ground beef, and pasta. So he needed sauce, and headed to the pasta aisle. He's feeling a little better, so thinks, "get a healthy sauce! Something with a half gram of sugar, and a pinch of salt!" So he starts reading labels on jars of pasta sauce. But doesn't see anything with low amounts. It changes his mood, and now he's getting antsy cause he wants to eat healthy, to live a long time. So he can get even with this woman who is about to ruin his life! He stood in front of shelves filled with sauce, mad as hell. He was holding two jars of sauce with 750 grams of salt each, and 8 grams of sugar in every tablespoon. When all he heard was an annoyed black man's voice in the background, just below his ears, asking someone "Is he still behind me?"
It's a black guy, his age (50), about to back into him with a motorized wheelchair. The guy blatantly shouted at him. He said, "move! Can't you see I'm backing up?" My friend was as polite as possible under the circumstances. He said "no, I can't see what you doing. I'm looking this way, shopping just like you. I'm not watching you. Say excuse me or something. What did you expect me to do without notice? And as bitterly as he could, the man in the wheelchair said, "I spect you to leave! Get the hell out the store! You finished shopping already!
My friend remembered the long silence. His feelings were hurt so bad, he almost cried. "I was not prepared for that." He said. But despite that he managed to say, "have a nice day, sir." He learned how to do that, if only one thing in the 20 years he recovered from alcoholism. But then the man in the wheelchair said, "It was a nice day, until I met you!" My friend pressed his face against the label on a jar of sauce he was holding, to pretend he was still reading. But actually he was devastated by this level of animosity.
Eventually he grabbed a sauce with only 300 grams of salt, and 9 grams of sugar. It may have had more, but he couldn't care anymore. He was done. Done in more ways than one. He found a short checkout line, and stood there silently. He was hoping for a quick escape, and trying not to cry. He tried clearing his mind of the fight with his wife. The fears about leaving his kids, and the cruel things just said to him by the guy in the wheelchair. The floodgates opened and a million memories that once drove his destructive drinking almost twenty years ago suddenly filled his mind.
A chime followed by a computerized voice prompt from a small speaker near the checkout line suddenly interrupted this deluge. It said "register 3". He got himself together and headed to register 3. His head was down as he took things from his basket and placed them on the counter. A loud sassy female voice suddenly said, "you don't remember me?" And in his mind he plead, "please lord, nothing else, not right now." His heart began to race before he looked up. The voice was his cashier. He was overcome with a sigh of relief. She was a large young lady wearing a brown budget wig that was slightly sideways on her head. He relaxed because she was way too young to be part of his past drinking life.
After breathing again, he said. "Should I know you young lady?" She was clearly going for discretion when she whispered, "those AA meetings over by Lincoln Park. Now do you remember me? You still go there? He said, "no, they moved." She looked a little disappointed then said, "Oh. So how you doin?" It was that one simple question, that moment, that put the kabosh on any self pity. Which put everything else into perspective. He was able to genuinely say "I can't complain." He couldn't complain. Everything at that moment, was relative. Finally, he was able to sincerely ask how she was doing. She said she was still clean, and has this job now. She looked well, aside from that wig. After he paid for the groceries they said goodbye, and wished each other a merry Christmas. When he got home his wife had cooked grass fed short ribs that were in the freezer, and offered to make him a plate.
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