Was this paralysis foreshadowing the future frenzy, the insane grief, the understanding that love was dangerous, heartbreaking, and doomed? So many stories told me the same truth over and over again: life was a series of disappointments, dashed hopes, letting go, and tear-stained memories of happiness lost. When I see Catherine, I see her joyous, dancing down Atlantic Avenue, pregnant, happy, and greedy for everything. I see her with Henry at my play, smiling, laughing, encouraging, wise, my sister, my friend, and my heart. She would save my life after her death, but her death sent me to the brink of madness and suicide. Schooled as I was in denying pain, nicknamed “the bison” for my endurance and constantly reminded that it was crucial to conceal weakness, my spiral downwards was halted periodically by guilt. But down I fell; deep, dark, and seamless was the descent, and once I reached the level of despair, it was beyond anything I could anticipate.
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I hated AA. At twenty-five, I was the youngest person in the meetings near Drew. I arrived as they started and dashed out the door after the Serenity Prayer. I didn't ask anyone to be my sponsor, crucial to a happy sobriety, as most alcoholics are liars, loners, and deniers. My self-esteem was still very low, which kept me from asking any woman in the room to sponsor me. Instead, I gave several newly sober men my attention and my phone number, providing them with rides back to their rehabs and listening to their prison stories. Despite all the information to the contrary, I felt responsible for how much I drank, the effect alcohol had on me, and for not stopping when my mother shouted, “Stop!” Although I wasn't drinking, I refused to allow AA to make my life easier, and without the drinking and the drugs, I felt overwhelmed, angry, and lost.
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