If I Die Before I Wake (18 page)

When she asks me how I'm doing, I fight the urge to tell her I'm fine and let it go at that. “Not so great,” I say. “Do you have time to hear a mini fifth step?” There's a moment of silence before she responds in the positive. I begin. Sharing recent events, my health problem, Kristina's words, the nightmares, I explain that I've had an epiphany about having withheld information during my first fifth step. How often I've heard her say that recovery is like peeling an onion, each layer getting closer to the core. “The truth is,” I say, “I didn't just realize I didn't tell it all. I've known it all along. I haven't had the courage to do it.”

“Why?”

“With every other disgusting thing I've done in my life, it's the most shameful.” Between having heard my story numerous times in AA and private conversations we'd had, there wasn't much she didn't know about me. But not this one thing. Discarding the idea of prefacing my confession with explanations and excuses, I say, “I killed my kids.”

After a pregnant pause, she says, “What does that mean?”

I launch into my story. “I told Jack I didn't drink when I was pregnant, that I tried my best to take care of myself in the face of insurmountable odds. That wasn't true. The truth is that I didn't drink whiskey, beer, or wine, but searched for anything else that contained alcohol. If it wasn't too terrible-tasting, I drank it.” I went on, telling her of the instances when I stole pills from my mother's medicine cabinet, raided my in-laws' stash of pills. Anytime my husband and I visited friends, I spent time in the bathroom going through their medications, slipping pills into my purse to take later. “My life was shit, but I didn't have any right to abuse my children … even if they weren't born yet.”

She's quiet. I can't falter now. “When I was pregnant with my youngest son, the doctor put me on bed rest. He said if I wanted to carry the baby full term, I'd have to stay in bed, eat right, and avoid stress. I agreed. Saying it and doing it were two different things. When left alone, I got up, smoked cigarettes and pot when I could get it, and continued to take stuff that could harm the baby. I don't know if I thought it didn't matter, or if I was so involved with my own pain that I didn't care, but it
doesn't matter now. I did it, and when he was born premature with all kinds of health problems, and I watched him fight for every breath he took in his short lifetime, I blamed God and everyone else. I grabbed hold of his death as an excuse to continue my behavior.”

“You couldn't do what you didn't know how to do,” she responds.

“I've heard that before. In fact, I used it to excuse what I did. But even an animal has better instincts than I had. No, I need to say it. I killed my kids.”

“You didn't want to hurt them … did you?”

I have to think about that. “I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking, if I was thinking. Apparently, I wasn't thinking about them. All I wanted was to get through the day without hurting, to not have to face my life and the mess I was in.”

“I know you made some poor choices.”

Poor choices? That's the understatement of the year. “There's more.”

Silently, she waits.

“Through it all, I never gave a thought to what Jon was going through. He was a little boy. He needed a mother, not some drunk, witless bitch who couldn't see past her own nose to his pain. You know, by the time he was 5 years old, he was taking care of me. We reversed roles. I robbed him of his childhood. He grew up too fast, and then he became me. I remember something my brother told me after Jon died. He said Jon's biggest problem was that he was too much like me. It's ironic, isn't it? When I was a kid, I used to watch my mother and tell myself
I would never be like her. I ended up just like her in many ways. I wonder if Jon thought the same thing about me?” Fighting the emotional surge building to tears, I tell myself this is not the time for self-pity or recriminations, but the brutal truth.

“Well, since you can't go back and change the past, what are you going to do with it now?”

I haven't thought past saying it out loud to someone. It's difficult to make amends to those who have died. I tried before by praying, by writing letters and burning them. I can't even remember where my babies are buried except that it was in a cemetery off Grand Avenue in Phoenix. At the very least I could stand over Jon's grave and tell myself he could hear my words, understand how much I regretted what I'd done to him. “I don't know yet.”

“I know it's not the same thing, but when I couldn't find a way to make amends to my mother for the worry I caused her, I dug out a picture of her, propped it on my desk, and wrote her a letter saying everything I would say to her if she were alive today. Then, I placed the picture and letter in a little box, and put it away.”

“Did it work?”

“It did for me.”

“Thank you,” I say and hang up the receiver. It's worth a try.

THE STRANGEST THOUGHTS GO THROUGH MY MIND
at the oddest times. At this moment, I can hear old Bob's deep voice saying to me, “When you decide you're just another drunk, that the world doesn't revolve around your ass, you're going to start doing a lot better.” I was only a few months sober, and it really pissed me off. Now, it gives me comfort. I hear my name announced.

I step to the podium. It must have been built for a tall person. Moving to the side of it, I scan a sea of faces waiting for me
to speak. Clumped together on the right are the young people still in treatment, to the left, a variety of others—workers from the treatment centers, people I've seen in meetings but don't know, a few people I sponsor, and those I call friends. For a small, tourist town, Wickenburg, Arizona has more than its share of treatment facilities. There is certainly a place for everyone, suffering from every imaginable addiction.

There is one person in the audience who needs to hear my story, I tell myself. That's what Jack told me. When I'm asked to speak, I understand that I am being given an opportunity to touch a life in a positive way. “Hi, I'm Barb, and I'm an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Barb,” the audience responds in unison.

“I was going to say I am a grateful recovering alcoholic, but I remember in my early sobriety I heard someone say that, and it made me want to gag.” Laughter fills the room. They know what I'm talking about. “Although I've been sober and straight for a long time, the most important thing is that I haven't had to have a drink or take any other mind-numbing substance today. There was a time when, without hesitation, I would put anything in my mouth that made me feel better. From the first time I stole one of my mother's pills and had my first drink of booze, I knew it was for me. It was the solution to all my problems. I had an absolute affair with alcohol. I loved dirty old bars, dirty old men, beer-drinking music, and oblivion. It worked for me, probably saved my life at times, until it stopped working.”

Heads are nodding. “For those of you who don't like to hear a drunkalog, you might as well leave because if you don't know where I've been, you can't understand what it took for
me to get where I am today.” I pause. No one leaves. “You had your chance,” I say, and continue. “I grew up with alcoholics and drug addicts, and everything that went along with that lifestyle. You know what they say … alcoholics don't have relationships, they take hostages. I couldn't have felt more like a hostage if they'd blindfolded me, gagged me, and held a gun to my head. The only thing missing was a cigarette dangling from my lips, and I got around to that pretty quickly. That was another great moment in my life: when I first drew that wonderful hot smoke deep in my lungs, nearly choked to death, and thought, I've got to have more of that.” Great roars of laughter fill the room.

“If you ever wonder about where it says in the book that we are mentally and bodily different from others, consider those early moments of booze, pills, pot, sex, and other drugs. It didn't matter how much I puked, coughed, tripped—you know, not in a good way—or had other bad experiences, I wanted more. An old friend in the program used to say that if you ate chili and it did that to you, you'd never eat chili again. She wasn't wrong. I was in it for the effect. It didn't take me long to figure out if a little is good, a lot is better.

“As many of you know, I never had one of anything. Early in my sobriety, my sponsor asked me if I had a hobby—besides drinking. The only thing I could think of was marriage. I gave him one of my confused looks. He asked if I collected anything. Finally, I said, ‘Wedding rings and divorce papers.’ I don't think that's what he was talking about.”

I look at my watch. My time is limited. I can't afford to get off on tangents. “Starved for attention, willing to do whatever
it took to feel loved, I had actual intercourse for the first time when I was 15 years old. Just once. I got pregnant. That's the way it had been all my life. My brother, who was a year older, got away with everything, and I always got caught. He was the ‘good’ child, and I was the bad seed. Bad was one of the words used to describe me. There were many more, and none of them good. Let me tell you that when you're told you are a piece of shit loud enough and long enough, you will come to believe you are a piece of shit.

“That's the person I carried into my adulthood, if that's what you would call it. It's been said that if you are an alcoholic, your emotional growth stops when you begin drinking. I believe that's true. When I sobered up, I figure I hit puberty and menopause at the same time. I didn't know whether to grow hair, or shave it off.” Again, they laugh. That's what I love about being with other alcoholics and addicts; that sick sense of humor that is lost on normies. These people get me. While in the throes of addictions, addicts tend to laugh when they are sad and cry when they're happy. But, this … this is real laughter, coming from a place of understanding.

“My first marriage lasted about four hours. I was eight months pregnant; he married me to keep from going to jail because he was twice my age, and then he left. I had a beautiful, healthy baby boy a month later. Talk about children having children! I didn't have a driver's license, but I thought I could be a mother. Maybe they ought to make us pass a test and get a license before we are allowed to have children. I tried to be a good mother, but didn't have a clue.” I feel strong emotions
beginning to bubble to the surface. I stop, take a drink of water out of the glass on the podium, and fight the urge to cry.

It's time to say it. I don't know if I can. But it's part of my story. “My next marriage was speed-induced. I woke up in Las Vegas in a strange room with no idea how I got there. You know how it is when you come out of a blackout and you know there's someone next to you in bed, but you're afraid to look. When I looked, all I could see was long blond hair. I thought I was in bed with a woman. However, when he turned over, there was no doubt it was a man—not just a man, but my new husband. We'd been drinking and taking speed for days, got in his girlfriend's car, and drove to Nevada. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. The sad part is that this marriage lasted longer than any of the others, until now.

“Don't worry, I'm not going to go into detail about all my husbands. We'd be here a very long time. The reason this unholy alliance lasted was because he kept me pregnant, barefoot, and friendless, and beat me up regularly. He wanted babies. We drank and drugged together, until I got pregnant, at which time, I was supposed to take care of myself while he continued his lifestyle.”

Here goes … my shameful secret. “Our baby girl came early, and every moment of her life was a struggle. She died.” A small sob escapes. “I blamed my addicted mother, who was having an affair with my doctor, telling myself that she coerced him into insisting I have a natural birth with my first child, Jon, to teach me a lesson—and that he tore me up so bad that I couldn't carry another baby to term. But the truth was that
I sneaked around, drinking anything I could find with an alcohol content, took other people's pills when I could get my hands on them, and feigned illnesses so I could buy over-the-counter drugs. I never gave a thought to what I was doing to the baby. I blamed my husband because he didn't treat me well, but the truth was that I used to push him to the edge, knowing he would hit me. Isn't that pathetic? I guess I thought if he cared enough to smack me around, it meant he loved me.”

The laughter has changed to dead silence. “This would set the tone for many years of my life. My son was born less than a year later, but met the same fate as my daughter. Shortly thereafter, my mom shot herself. Hell, even the doctor committed suicide six months later.” I look out at the young people from a treatment center which caters to those under 25. “When I was young, like many of you, instead of ending up in a treatment facility, I ended up in a nuthouse. Believe me when I tell you there are worse places you could be. However, because I nearly ended up in prison for murder, it was the better option. Yes, I planned to kill my abusive husband. He was out drinking. I lay in bed with the biggest butcher knife I could find and waited. I was going to cut him into pieces and cook him in the deep fryer. Oh, I wasn't going to eat him like they did in
Fried Green Tomatoes
.” I chuckle. “I might have fed him to some of those snobs at the country club where I worked, who looked down their noses at me. But he didn't come home that night. Instead of committing murder, I took off, dragging my 4-year-old son with me.”

Conscious of my time, I speed up the story. I say, “I was 25 years old. I woke up tied hand and foot to a bed, in a white room. My first thought was that this was the cleanest motel I'd ever seen. When I realized I was tied up, I imagined that soon there would be some man walking through the door in leathers, carrying a whip. That should explain where I was in my life. The truth was that I was in a mental hospital. For months, they drugged me, shocked me, and analyzed me, until one day, I got to go home. But I didn't have a home. My son was at my ex-husband's house. That was my third husband, who'd driven to Kentucky to get Jon and I when the man we were traveling with decided he missed his wife and kids and left us stranded.”