My sweetheart Jake and I used to have a private New Year’s habit of writing out our resolutions for one another, witnessing each other’s documents with a formal signature before we dressed for the evening—an evening that would inevitably involve the popping of corks. It was a treasured tradition for the two of us, both writers. In the penultimate year of my drinking, Jake looked up from his own list, and interjected: “Remember, baby, no more than two drinks on any one occasion. And no drinking alone.” “Two?” I bargained. “Don’t you think three is more realistic on a social occasion?” He looked irritated. And so I wrote: “Given the gigantic predisposition to alcoholism in our family, I resolve to do following: limit my drinking to two drinks on social occasions, three over three hours, and no drinking alone. Nine drinks maximum a week. If I have broken any of these rules within six months, I promise to get help. January 1, 2007.” With that, we traded lists and added our signatures. A promise. Less than two weeks later, I was living alone in Montreal through a bitter Canadian winter, having accepted a new job as Vice-Principal of McGill University. I was charged with raising millions of dollars for McGill. I worked around the clock. And yes, within days, I broke every rule on that little list. I drank alone. I drank more than three. My lover was worried. My son was critical. My sister was quiet, but I could parse her silences. So I did the only thing I could think to do: I started to keep a drinking diary. My sister suggested stickers for good behaviour. I ducked into a store and bought monkey stickers: I would get this monkey off my back. Of course, as I learned much later, this is how the ending always begins. You know you’re drinking too much, so you keep a tally.
And if you’re smart, you keep the tally hidden. Last night you drank four—or was it five? Tonight, for sure, you’ll do better. You set some rules. Maybe you switch from read to white (less staining on the teeth.) No brown liquids, only clear (vodka, a slippery slope.) Only on weekends. Never on Sundays. And never, ever alone. The problem is: the rules continue to change. Your drinking doesn’t. Alcohol is a formidable enemy: once you call it out, it fights hard. I said this to an addiction doctor in March. “Be careful,” he said. “Alcohol is a trickster. And using alcohol to cope is maladaptive behaviour.” I listened, but I didn’t change. The monkey stickers were few and far between. Come spring, I was having a business dinner with an elegant New York visitor who ordered a martini. I decided to join him. After the first, I asked if he’d like a second. “Never, my dear. You know what Dorothy Parker says: “I love a martini, two at the most. Three I’m under the table, four, I’m under the host.” That night, Parker’s words went in my diary. Beside them, I wrote: “I am bullied by alcohol.” Days later, I woke to the news that my favourite cousin—a father of four—had been killed by a drunk driver. It was a sunny Sunday morning, and I remember thinking: “What more do you have to lose to alcohol before you give up?” I had lost a good chunk of my childhood, now my cousin. I had lost myself. I knew the jig was up. And so I pulled a bulletin board of the wall and tacked a piece of paper with four words on it: THE WALL OF WHY.
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