Relapse

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There are other things to talk about: races, rides, ennui/burnout, but right now all that's taken a backseat. Basically, I relapsed. Hard.

I could go on for hours (and have) about all the gory details, but basically Lindsey (fuck protecting her identity anymore) fucked another girl from work and lied to me about it. Many times. Then the other girl lied about it, when I didn't even ask. Then when Lindsey finally told me, it was over text message ("We're sleeping together. You should know.") and refused to take my call, that's when I went out and bought some beer. She had lied just yesterday and told me I still had a chance with her with that slut's pussy still on her breath! I no longer cared about anything in my life except making the hurt stop. When she told me she wasn't coming home that night, that's when I started drinking the beer.

That is when shit really hit the fan. I called her after she got out from work and begged her to please come home and talk to me about this, that I was already drinking and she was the only person who could stop me (truth and manipulation at once). She came home, but said she was going to do whatever the fuck she wanted, and I couldn't stop her. I lunged for the beer that was sitting on the other side of her.
"If you drink that fucking beer, then I'll never respect you again for as long as I live," she warned. That gave me pause, and gave her enough time to leave the room. But once I was alone again, I decided that I would do anything, even ruin any chance I ever had of a good post-relationship relationship with her to have that beer back.

But as I was reaching this decision, she was stealing my beer to bring to the skank's house. I would have poured every one of those beers down the drain, but she could not take what was mine for herself and drink it with that whore. It was locked in her car, so I sat on the porch drinking the last beer in the house and thinking, Bring it on. This is what's going to finally make me over her. When she finally did come out, I calmly told her to give me my beer back. "It's mine and you don't have my permission to have it," I said. "I bought it legally, as an adult, with my own money and it's not yours to take. Give it back to me."

"What are you going to do, Claire? Are you going to smash my fucking window?"

The idea of smashing her window hadn't even occurred to me. It was mine and she was stealing. "No. You're going to give it back to me because if not that's theft."

"You owe me so much fucking money anyway, get the fuck out of here you fucking loser! You can drink till you kill yourself, I don't care. I'm leaving and I never want to hear about your fucking problems again. Leave me alone!"

"If I owe you money, then I will pay it to you. Make me a list of what I owe you money for, and how much, and I will pay you what I owe you," (I imagine that she planned on charging me labor for everything she'd ever done to my bike, at which point I was going to charge her for every coffee I'd ever bought her plus gas money for the delivery fee). "But you cannot take something that belongs to someone else without their permission."

"I'm calling the fucking cops!" she screamed. She pulled out her phone and I could see that she was dialing 911.

"You can't dial 911 for something like this, Lindsey. It's not an emergency. They're going to yell at you."

"Yes, hi, my housemate" (she pronounced the word with emphasis to prove her point to me) "isn't letting me leave the house."

"Lindsey, that's bullshit," I said. I knew that those 911 calls are recorded and I wanted to state my case. "I'm not restraining you in any way. You're between me and the car, I'm 3 feet from you, and we're on the passenger's side. You've just stolen something from me and I want you to give it back before you leave." I couldn't wait till the cops showed up and made her give it back to me and then told her to be on her merry way. I knew any arbitrator would be on my side. (Later my housemate said, "Hers was the only voice I could hear screaming. It's just so TRASHY to be screaming at someone on your front lawn in the middle of the night and calling the cops like that!")

"She's drunk and she's standing in the front yard in her pajamas," Lindsey went on.

"How drunk do you think I am?! I've had 4 beers in 4 hours, and you took all but the last one away from me 2 hours ago." Then mid-sentence, still on the phone, she just turned on her heels, got in the car and drove off to go fuck her skank. With my beer.

I was understandably furious. I had taken her shit patiently for 2 1/2 months, and now I'd finally snapped. She had taken away my last shred of dignity, and I didn't give a shit about what she thought of me anymore, the lying whore. I went inside and realized she'd left behind her crate of hard liquor. I found a bottle of $50 tequila that I'd bought her in Mexico and started drinking it. But I don't really like hard liquor, and it wasn't making me feel any less mad, so I went up to her room and I took back all the gifts I'd ever given her, love letters I'd ever written her, and sex toys we'd ever used together (and that she'd used on the skank, in my house, on my birthday I discovered). That still didn't make me feel any better, so I went through all her drawers where even her underwear was anally folded and stacked and I unfolded her shit. I threw some underwear on the floor, moved shit around in her closet, unalphabatized her CD's, unmade her bed, and poured the rest of the bottle of tequila on her comforter. Now I was feeling a bit better. I went downstairs and I saw the road bike that I helped her buy, the one that she was trying to sell to the skank for twice what she'd bought it for. Seat post plus saddle? That should be about $300; way less than my cut of the bike, I took the seat post out and pulled off the tape. Then I let the air out of her tires and went to bed.

That was on Tuesday. The next several days I was a wreck, especially since she didn't come home until Friday, but I didn't drink. I was mad at myself for drinking and figured I could forgive the extreme emotional distress as long as I never drank again. Then I found out that she'd fucked the skank in my house when I was away for my birthday, and lied about that even as she came clean about everything else. That's when I lost my will to live. When I found out about the birthday transgression from our other housemate, I waited 12 hours and texted her, "No wonder you were to exhausted to go out for my birthday. It must have been really tiring fucking that whore in my house all night. You'd better stay away for a long time you lying sack of shit. If I never see you again it'll be too soon." That's the day she started coming home and saying she was going to bring the skank to sleep over. The housemate had to step in to quash that one (I was so glad that I made sure there was a witness in the house each time we saw each other, just in case she tried some other bullshit legal bru-ha-ha).

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After that, I would just sit on the couch all day shaking and trying to sleep so that I could stay up late enough to make sure that she didn't bring the skank by. I couldn't ride my bike because I couldn't leave the house, and I had no energy anyway because I wasn't eating or sleeping. I only got about 2 hours' sleep a night. I lost more than 5 pounds in a week. Every minute I knew she was at work, I knew that the skank was at work with her. Then every minute that she didn't come home after work, I was picturing what she was doing with the skank: going on dates at our places, fucking her at her house, and telling her what a psycho I was. It was pretty clear from Lindsey's behavior and things that Lindsey had said that the skank was talking shit on me, turning Lindsey against me and I yearned for a chance to redeem myself. I am not the weak, loser you think I am! You cannot push a person that far and expect them not to snap! Come home and tell me that you love me and that you're sorry!

I knew that if they came by our house just once and squeezed me out, I would never be safe in my own home again. The skank lived about half an hour away on the other side of Boston, and we live about a mile from where they both work, making our house too convenient to pass up. So I had to stay home at all times to make sure the precedent wasn't set that they could come over and I would leave. I HAD to defend my territory! I made it through my vigil on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday without drinking, but Saturday when she didn't come home it was too much.

I cut a pretty blah date with a girl I was never going to fall in love with short, and I stopped by the liquor store on my way home. What was I even resisting the drinking for anyway, I didn't give a rat's ass about my life. At least if I drank then I could be alone comfortably and maybe even fall asleep. In fact, the only way to keep myself from hovering around her was to drink. I could hide from anything to keep drinking. She never came home that night, and I broke out my journal and just started writing and drinking; my favorite things to do in the world. The alcohol dulled the pain enough for me to face the really tough ideas (me having to finally get over her, the fact that she wasn't the Lindsey I fell in love with after all, the fact that my life was over), and quieted my mind enough for me to put my thoughts on paper without dropping dead from anger and grief.

But the next day on my vigil, I was alone and shaking from the anxiety again. I hadn't slept in days, I hadn't eaten in days, and I still had so much in my mind that I just couldn't face. So I went back to the liquor store and drank and wrote some more. On Monday I had to work, and since I hadn't slept more than a few hours in days I tried to take a nap after work, but my mind just wouldn't stop. So I drank all of her and the other housemate's beer to fall asleep, and when I went to replace it after my nap, I bought more for myself to get through the night. That night I spoke to Teen Idol, her best friend who moved away the same week she dumped me. He put it all in perspective, but he said, "You can't push a mule uphill. The only thing you can do is to leave and hope that someday she'll be willing to take your call."

When I thought that my world couldn't get any worse, here it was. She called me one evening at about my bed time and said, "I'm going to the package store. Do you want that 12-pack?"

I was already drinking, and couldn't figure out if this was an apology or a test, but the right answer seemed to be "no." "I don't want a 12-pack, I want that 12-pack. Never mind, don't even tell me the fate of that 12-pack. Just leave me alone."

"What the hell was that?" I asked her the next day. "Are you trying to fuck with me?"

"Well you'd made such a big deal of it, and I was thinking, if you want to drink yourself to death, then it's none of my business and I'm not going to stop you."

"So you thought you'd buy me beer?!" She was just as bad as the last psycho that made me start drinking again on purpose so she could manipulate me.

By Thursday I was up to almost a 12-pack a day already between my afternoon and evening sessions. Friday (my day off), I started drinking at 10 am, finally fell asleep for a bit, woke up, started drinking again, she came home unexpectedly and froze my bender for a couple of hours, drank more when she left, and went back to sleep. When I woke up that afternoon, I drank another few beers to get through the couple of hours before the spin class I had to teach. In the spin class I felt like I was going to vomit all over the floor and resented every soul who had shown up for even being alive and putting me through this. And then after the spin class I met up with an old drinkin' buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in about 5 years.

My drinkin' buddy and I have a long, sordid history, and as annoying and abrasive as he can be, he knows me well and he knows how to set a fire. The drinkin' buddy and I polished off about 9 beers apiece (and several cigarettes) as we set a fire in the woods and one-by-one burned every gift, every sex toy, and read and burned every letter. It was my way of saying goodbye and closing the book on this chapter of my life. There was no anger, just peace and sadness. "You were really in love with her, weren't you?" he said after I threw a particularly raunchy love letter on the fire.

"Yeah," I said.

"That letter was really hot. Do you remember that time when we got wasted and I convinced you to teach me how to have sex with a woman by pretending I was a woman?"

I groaned. That's another reason why I can't drink. I will fuck literally anybody, including my drinkin' buddy a couple of times. "That was some of the best sex I've ever had," he went on. "But you were always over it after just a minute or two and telling me to just finish up already. I'd always thought you just had issues with sex because of what happened to you... I guess you really are a dyke."

He had a way with words, but he was right. I'd been thinking of getting with a few guys just because they were easy and I needed affection, but I always regret it the next day, even if I'm sober (which has only happened once). Part of the reason that I'd loved Lindsey so much was that sex had never felt that meaningful with anyone else before. I don't think I'd ever truly made love with anyone, although I'd been with a few guys and gals I really, genuinely cared about.

(My feelings about sex with men are important for the next part of the story.)

We finished the beers, put out the fire, and headed out. "Can I drop you at your parents' house?" I asked. A side effect of my buddy's drinkin' problem is that he's lost his driver's license. I shouldn't have been driving either, but alcohol impairs judgment.

"No, my parents kicked me out for my drinking a few months ago. That's why I'm living in Everett."

"Well can I drop you at a bus stop or something?"

"It's too late, no busses running this time of night around here."

"Well I can't drive to Everett! I'm too drunk!" I protested.

"Can't I just stay at your place?" he asked.

(Now I'll remind you that alcohol impairs judgment.) "Fine, but I don't want you staying on the couch where Lindsey could find you in the morning. You'll have to sleep with me. But no touching!"

We went home and continued to talk deep into the night, waking up Lindsey. As we're getting ready to go to bed, I found a t-shirt for my friend, but no shorts that would fit him. He went down for one final leak and met up face-to-face with a very angry, very awake Lindsey. To make matters worse, he was holding her book about Spain that lives in the bathroom, which he had (understandably) thought was mine. "Where are you going with that?" she asked. Need I remind you that she hates it when people touch her stuff?

Then I got a text message. "I told you you didn't have to sneak around! I'm bringing over whoever the fuck I want! A good friend huh?! He's in his underwear!"

I told my buddy that he HAD to go down and sleep on the couch right now, and he had to get out of the house early in the morning. But by the time he woke up, she was already up and I was doing my best to explain the situation and begging her not to do anything to make things worse than they already were. I just wanted to talk to her in peace while she was in the house and actually listening to what I had to say, but I had the problem of an abrasive hung over man with no manners and no driver's license sitting on my couch.

He took a slug of her Kettle One vodka right from the bottle. Then he wanted a ride to the bus stop, but first he wanted a ride to his parents' house. He spend 45 minutes in his parents' house taking electronics and food, then he wanted a ride to Everett. All I wanted was to be go home and talk to Lindsey, then be alone. Getting caught up in his drama was exactly why I hated drinking so much. I would hang out with shady people because I didn't give a flying fuck, just as long as I wasn't the drunkest one in the room, then I'd get stuck being taken advantage of in these sketchy situations that I never would have put myself in if it weren't for the booze. By the time I got home, Lindsey was gone never to be seen again.

I had planned for the catharses in the woods to be my farewell to drinking, then I would stop staying in the haunted house as a birthday gift to Lindsey. However, she hasn't noticed my birthday gift because she hasn't slept at home since that night. She won't open the birthday card that tells her that the house is hers (although not her love nest) until I get back from RAAM. When she's home, she sleeps with her door locked and a baseball bat next to her bed. She won't speak to me or even be in the same room as me for me to tell her that I'm not drinking anymore, and that I'm back on my bike.

I know that at this point I shouldn't care what she thinks, but the reason that I fell in love with her was because she saw everything that I valued in myself – my independence, my drive, and my ability to quit drinking – and she loved me for them. As bad as this has all sounded, she was in love with me and acted as such as recently as Valentines' Day. How could I feel good about myself if the one person who valued those things in me now said she didn't care if I lived or died?

I am now on my third day of being out of the house, and my third day of not drinking. To see how quickly I could fall into a booze hole (less than a week), it makes me realize that it will not be long before I lose what little life I have left. I know that my first priority has to be not drinking, and making all my decisions based on that priority. But when all the things that used to keep me off the sauce – riding my bike, running, hanging out with friends, drinking tea and coffee, cooking, working – remind me of her, then how am I supposed to do that? I tried going to AA meetings, but a bunch of booze bags sitting in a room talking about drinking only made me want to drink, and their stories made me realize that relapse was possible.

So I have decided to move to San Francisco at the beginning of July. I'm not crazy about San Francisco as a city, but it is the traditional home of people running away from something. Shane has agreed to put me up until I'm back on my feet, I have the remains of a support network there from living so close in college, and a well-connected trainer at work has agreed to make a few calls for me. Because of a combination of my promotion and vacation (for RAAM), I'm not on the schedule at work, so I have no job here in Boston. Because I haven't spoken to my Dad since Christmas and because I can't be in my haunted house that was supposed to be the beginning of the rest of our lives with my girlfriend, I have no home. Since my girlfriend is sleeping with some skank every night just to get away from me, I have no relationship. Since most of our friends are in common and I cannot hang out with many of them at events that she might go to, I have a shaky social support. I never really planned on staying in Boston anyway, so I purposely didn't put down many roots. What else is keeping me here? It looks like what I need to do to take care of Claire is to start completely over... just like last time.

The idea that I'm getting out of here and that this is only temporary is the only thing that is keeping me away from the liquor stores. I'll take it.