One Hundred Nights: Coffee after Midnight, Part II

by flightless

JoanArkham23: is part 2 of your article coming out this issue?

apocalepsy: i'm not sure what to write. i'm so not in "the scene" lately!

JoanArkham23: maybe about how you had to (temporarily) remove yourself from the scene in order to stick to your goals?

apocalepsy: but then everyone will know how uncool i am! :-D

"C'mon, everybody's doing it." Who didn't start on their chosen poison out of a desire to look cool? And one of my big concerns about sobering up was the fear that I'd become really, really boring. (Or else I'd reveal that my true baseline personality was a totally unhinged madwoman. Eventually I decided that it was inefficient to dread being boring and crazy at the same time, so I have resolved to dread them one at a time. Today: being boring.)

I have made it through my first hundred days (and, more to the point, nights) without a sip of alcohol. There are still mornings when I wake up feeling vaguely hungover, usually from smoke inhalation, but the nausea and huge pounding headaches, the crushing remorse and the memory gaps, are safely behind me.

Safely? Last Friday I found myself sitting at a bar... long story, but we had to meet up with someone, and so there we were, waiting at the bar. My sweetie ordered a drink. That is not supposed to bother me, because I am so tough and self-disciplined and all, but this time it was a horrid ordeal to sit there for 20 minutes with my insipid glass of ginger ale.

Trying not to be bitchy when having a craving is like trying to lift a heavy object, while someone keeps asking me questions... "Can't you see I'm busy?!" Well, no. The object I'm lifting is invisible, or is a glass of something dull and harmless.

But I got through Friday. The cravings are coming less frequently now, and they don't last as long. I've even managed a few late-night parties with former drinkin' buddies. I stock up on ginger beer and/or coffee, and try not to look at other people's glasses. Knowing I'll be reporting back to my sobriety support group also helps -- it turns even the worst evening into potential anecdote material.

Item 5 in my personal sobriety plan is the Escape Clause: Permission to evade social events,

to dodge friends (within reason), and to cancel obligations as needed. I've been using the Escape Clause a lot lately, but I expect to rely on it less and less in the next hundred days. (But I don't ever expect to retire it. Everyone should reserve the right to hide if they need to. I also reserve the right to fly to Panama City, change my name, and take a job on a sailing vessel. Now I've told you too much. I'm going to have to kill you. It's a good thing only 3 people are actually reading this article.)

Sorry, where was I?

I do use the Escape Clause, but I'm determined to get comfy about going out again. At the advanced age of 33, I may not be an elder stateswoman, but I have been known to dispense advice, and there are those who have followed my advice and lived. For my fellow problem drinkers (statistics alone dictate that there are a few of you in the local scene), I want to demonstrate that you can have just as much fun sober. For one thing, water is the best beverage for dancing. Then there is the ever-so-youthful fashion statement of getting X's magic-markered on the backs of your hands. And did I mention the part about waking up refreshed, clear-eyed, with a perfect recall of the events of the night before?

It's going to happen, I'm sure of it. I just need a little more time.

In the meantime, I love meeting people at Teaism. (Not the downtown one with the infused martinis; the Dupont one where the strongest menu item is ginger limeade.) I like the dim lighting and dark wood at Foster Brothers in Cleveland Park (though I wish they'd fix the dripping ceiling) and the smell of fresh cookies at Firehook. Speaking of cookies, I have observed that both seltzer water and black coffee are calorie-free. So I feel it is my duty to eat cookies. (One ounce of 80-proof liquor has 65 calories. A margarita has about 170 calories; a dry martini, 190. Therefore, as long as I stay sober I also get an occasional Snicker's bar.)

Tryst (18th & Columbia, NW) and Xando (various locations) are both lovely, upscale coffeehouses that also serve alcohol. So don't go there if you're feeling tempted. But do go there if you are with unsober pals and want to accommodate everyone's tastes. I have never made it to Tryst early enough in the day to snag a sofa, but they sure look comfy. (Places to avoid include Larry's Lounge and Biddy Mulligan's, where I have been charged $2.50 and $3.00 for a glass of plain seltzer water, even when all my friends were drinking expensive cocktails. And no, those prices did not include refills!)

And yes, I even go to Starbuck's. They may be taking over the world, but they make iced soy chai and they will leave you alone while you linger over it.

I am not going to become one of those earnest sober folk who feel such a "blessed" sense of "clarity" that they want everyone to join them. (I can't even type those words without rolling my eyes.) If you can still manage it, sure, I think you should drink. Have one for me! But if you believe you may have a problem, I can say that abstinence has been a lot easier for me than moderation. For me, moderation was a continual struggle and a series of crash landings. At times it seemed that the primary effect of the chemical was a bleak feeling of regret. Now I have some boring evenings, but I don't have that wretched sensation of failure.

A friend of mine was worried about her drinking, so I wrote her a long letter. It was chockfull of useful advice, in my humble opinion. A few days later, she found out she was pregnant, so she wrote back to say "thanks, but I found a great motivator for sobriety." So yeah, you could always have a baby, or find some equally drastic male equivalent (become a Buddhist monk?) But most of us will eventually find ourselves in a place where people drink. These are some tactics that have helped me:

1. Always have a buddy. This does not have to be a sober buddy; it just has to be someone who supports your decision not to drink. I enjoy sending my sweetie to the bar to procure my nonalcoholic beverages. It makes me feel vaguely dominatrix-like. I'd go myself, but...the temptation, you know...run along now, and don't forget the lemon wedge!

2. Bracket the event with sobriety reinforcement. This can be a coffee date, a phone call, email or online chat, or something as simple as rereading your favorite quotes about sobriety. My current mantra: "Don't compare your insides with other people's outsides." Even the most awesomely aloof Goth goddess is insecure about something. Well, maybe. I like to think so, anyway.

3. You can always go to Panama if it gets absolutely dire.

Postscript: While I was writing this article, I found out that Caroline Knapp, author of Drinking: A Love Story, died on June 4th. She was only 42, and after quitting alcohol in 1994 and writing this book that inspired lots of people, she has died rather abruptly from lung cancer. I don't know anything about quitting smoking except that you should all please do that too. (My favorite secular sobriety website, unhooked.com, has some links for stop-smoking resources.) Your clothes will smell better, you will wake up less dehydrated, and hopefully you will be here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The City Morgue, looking fabulous in your vintage-retro-2030s clothing.

Flightless, aka Dorothy Hickson, lives in Columbia Heights, where she obsesses over purple chenille and writes extraterrestrial noir melodrama. She is the creator of the zine dodo and can be found online at www.mwmw.com/dodo. Her current non-AA-chip talisman is a smooth piece of blue-green glass, the exact color the walls used to be at Dante's.