This is a short story that comes from my imagination. If there are any resemblances to anyone, it is purely coincidence. There are, however, many people who have some sort of alcohol use disorder and would benefit from a little help. If you are looking for ways to manage your drinking without cutting it out completely, there are plenty of podcasts, life-coaches, and other services and programs available. If alcohol is not something you can control with coaches, apps, accountability partners, or podcasts, please seek help from a professional service. You are worth it.

The Tipping point. 

Image compliments of https://unsplash.com/photos/yellow-kettle-on-gray-wooden-table-qb1VqkiNBuY?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash

Haley woke with a start, sweating, heart racing, and the familiar feeling of anxiety that always accompanied a night of drinking too much. Unfortunately, the nights of drinking too much were more frequent than the nights of moderation. She can’t even remember the last time she had a dry day.  Her head was foggy and her entire body was sweating as she sat up. Something woke her up, a noise of some kind. As she looked around the room in the faint light from early morning skies, she was confused. Where was she?  She didn’t recognize the room at all, and she couldn’t remember a thing past Eddie’s Point, which was the last bar she went to with her friends.

Sadie, Josie, and Marta were roommates in the city, about a 4 -hour drive from her small-town apartment. Haley had an on-again off-again type relationship with the trio. They all went to college together, but Haley wasn’t in to all the expensive glamour of the big town. Those three lived for three-inch heels, fake lashes, and selfies of every meal and drink they indulged in. Haley was more of a jeans and cowboy boots kind of gal who wore just enough mascara to make her eyes stand out and light enough lip gloss to keep her lips from looking cracked and old. That was all the make-up and glitz she partook in. The trio had been trying to get her to come up and visit for months, Haley thinks they believe they can bring her over to their fashion-conscious ways if she hangs out with them long enough.  At 29 and working on architect plans, Haley didn’t care about impressing people.  Her idea of winning approval was in the designs she drew up for interior decorating after reviewing the architect plans of her friend, Josh. It wasn’t lost on her that her propensity for plainness in her own appearance clashed with the career she chose of making people’s homes look boujee, like the upwardly mobile people her clients tended to be.  The only thing holding her career back from blasting up further than it already had was her drinking.  She had a love affair with the buzz in the bottle and she didn’t know when to stop.  So here she was trying to remember the fuzzy memories of the tiff she got into with the trio.  There was that noise again.

Haley stood up on shaky legs and walked to the door. She opened the bedroom door quietly and peered out.  She was in an upstairs bedroom that looked out over a nicely decorated, large, old home. The bedroom must be a loft-style room because she saw over the railing that peered into the kitchen.  There was an older man, maybe 60’s, fixing breakfast.  She gasped, and thought to herself “gross, this man took me home and who knows what he’s done to me”.  She looked down at the nightgown she was wearing. It was a smock-style nightgown, reminiscent of something her grandma would have worn with its lace and buttons down the front.  She wondered how she had managed to get undressed and into this awful attire and it made her shudder to consider the possibility that the old man watched her or helped her.  She looked inside the nightgown and saw her own undies and bra.  She didn’t feel like she had been violated, meaning she wasn’t sore anywhere.  She felt the urge to pee and looked over to her right where a night light gave off an orange glow.  There was a bathroom in her room.  As she went inside to relieve herself, she saw a make-up table and chair. On top of the table was a nicely folded set of jeans and a T-shirt; hers. Now she knew she hadn’t dressed herself. In all the times she went home drunk and managed to get undressed, she had never folded her clothes like that. Heck, she barely managed to fold them that neat and tidy when she was sober. She shuddered again to think of what that man did to her, even if it was only undressing her and watching.  Just then, there was a knock at the door. Her heart leapt to her throat.

She stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do, should she grab her clothes and jump out the window, should she grab some air freshener and spray the pervert in the face and make a run for it, or should she call someone. Crap, where was her phone?? “Miss, are you awake?”  Came the sweetest voice from the other side of the door. It was a lady!  Haley slowly opened the door and saw the face of someone that was old enough to be her mother. She looked to be in her late 50’s, attractive, and seemed to be in pretty good shape. She smiled at Haley and looked at her gown.  “I know that probably isn’t your style, it certainly isn’t mine, but it’s easy to get into and you were a bit squirmy last night.” Said the woman.  Haley just stared at her trying to make sense of what was going on. She had a brief fear that she was trapped by some strange couple that sells to the sex slave. Oh, how she wished she knew when to quit. How many times will she say she learned her lesson only to find herself waking up with a memory as dark as night?  “I’m sorry dear, I should introduce myself. My name is Nanette. I don’t know your name yet either.”  Said Nanette.  “Haley, that’s my name. What is going on?”  “Well, Earl and I were driving by that bar, and you were sitting outside on a ledge, by the door. I felt an urge to go back and see if you were okay. I can’t explain why, it just wouldn’t let up, so I asked Earl to turn around and find a parking place” explained Nanette. “I walked up to you and tried to talk to you. Your words were pretty slurred, but I got the gist of what you were saying. Apparently, you had been with some friends, had a disagreement and they left you. I asked you where you were from, and realized it was too far to drive you to your home, besides you said your car was at the tree’s house or something like that.”  Haley giggled a little. “The trio’s house” Haley explained. “My friends live together, there are three of them and I always call them the trio because they do everything together.” “Well, they don’t sound like friends to me if they left you.” Said Nanette.  “I hope you will forgive me, but I kept your phone downstairs, plugged in, so I could check it in case your friends were looking for you. I didn’t want to go through your purse, but I didn’t want someone to worry if they were trying to find you, so I kept the phone in mine and Earl’s room in case it chimed in the middle of the night” explained Nanette.  “Did it?” asked Haley.  Nanette just looked at her.  “Did it chime with someone looking for me” asked Haley. “I’m afraid not, dear” Nanette said to her, looking a little sad for Haley.  “Well, they probably think I went home with some guy or something. You know, I’m not exactly an angel of a friend myself. Eddie’s is a cowboy bar, and my trio friends aren’t into that kind of music or clientele. I’m sure I egged them on talking about their prissy ways and how they could stand to have a few cowboys teach them a thing or two.” Haley blurted out, wondering why she felt like she could open up to this stranger in front of her.  For all she knew, the lady could have chloroform in a rag behind her back, waiting for the right time to take Haley out and sell her to the underground.  Haley dismissed that idea fairly quickly; there was something about Nanette that gleamed and bad people don’t gleam.  “Why don’t you wash up really quick and come down for breakfast before we figure out where your trio friends live and get you on your way” ordered Nanette.  Haley smiled at her and said “yes, ma’am.”

Haley smiled at the memory, so long ago.  It was sad, but it was a good memory, her tipping point.  Now, two years later, she was mostly sober and volunteering with Nanette and Earl at a woman’s shelter.  She couldn’t believe how far she had come in two years.  Her career has sky-rocketed, and she has to schedule time into her calendar to volunteer at the shelter where they do addiction counseling.  Josh also volunteers and helps Earl with the men while Haley and Nanette tend to the women. There are always more men than women, but the women often come with a child or two, so it evens out with the workload.  Haley is so often reminded of how one of these women, who hit rock bottom could be her. In her mind, all people are one bad decision away from being homeless, incarcerated, or dead. There isn’t room to throw stones at others, only a helping hand.  As she looked down at her left hand, she did a double take.  The sparkle from her ring finger still catches her off guard sometimes. It’s hard to believe that she was actually wearing a wedding ring. How long had she fought that idea off and written herself off to being a lonely, drunk, cat-lady? She very well could be if it hadn’t been for the gut-instinct of Nanette over two years ago. Now she was in her fourth month of marriage to her best friend Josh. Her mind wandered back, again, to that morning.

“Look at you,” said Nanette. “You are a pretty young lady when you aren’t crying and slurring your words. Isn’t she a nice-looking young woman?” asked Nanette to an uncomfortable looking Earl.  Earl grunted and shifted back and forth on his feet.  “Names Earl” he said as he nodded his head and looked at Haley.  “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll dish out some breakfast. Drink coffee?” he asked.  Haley nodded in affirmation and gave a shy thank you.  She felt so awkward in this house of people she didn’t know, having slept in their bed, and now getting ready to drink their coffee and eat their food.  Who was she to be sitting in their home and what right did she have when she had been a sloppy drunk just hours before.  She was burning with shame and embarrassment.  Her face must have shown how she felt.

“We aren’t trying to shame you my dear. This is a safe place for honest talk, in fact I recognized something in you when I saw you sitting outside. I saw myself from many years ago. You see, I had an issue with the bottle. Now, I’m not saying you do, but I saw a young lady in trouble and my instincts are usually right. Aren’t they Earl”? asked Nanette.  Earl nodded with a deep affirmation; “you got that right.”  Haley just looked at them dumbfounded. She was still embarrassed that she had been outside of the bar, without her friends and she wasn’t coherent enough to tell Nanette and Earl where her friends lived, nor could she remember how long she’d been outside. She had hit a new low.  Nanette handed Haley her phone and asked her if she needed to call anyone.  Haley thought about it and said that she would just need to get her car and at that time, she would get her overnight bag and tell her friends goodbye.  She thought, briefly, of calling Josh, but what good would that do? She certainly didn’t want to tell him what had happened; besides it would just lead him on.

 She and Josh had been friends for more than five years and it was pretty evident that he wanted more than a friendship but hadn’t pursued it. She had to admit there was a spark there, but she didn’t want anything to ruin their friendship and trying to add a dating component might do that, besides, he never actually asked her out on a date. Haley suspected it had something to do with her drinking; she always kept him at arm’s length when it came to talking about her past. She didn’t want to bore him with all her past hurts from an abusive mother. Haley carried all the memories of physical and mental abuse with her, trying to suppress them. She knows that is the reason she pushes herself so hard at work during the day and then drowns everything down at night. She really should get help.

“You’re a million miles away,” said Nanette.  Haley snapped out of her thoughts of Josh and looked at her hosts.  Earl had set scrambled eggs, toast, and mixed fruit in front of her. Her stomach lurched a little at the thought of all that food, but she didn’t have the heart to turn it away. She ate her breakfast while keeping up with the conversation. She learned that Nanette and Earl had been married for just over 30 years. Nanette was 67 and Earl was 71, they met after each walked away from previous marriages.

Haley couldn’t believe how old Nanette was, she looked to be in her late fifties, at best. It must be all the clean, healthy living she does now. Nanette confided in Haley that she had gone to rehab for an alcohol use disorder, which back then was termed alcoholic; these days, they don’t use that term. Earl would see her walking to the clinic from her apartment 8 blocks away; he worked just up the road from the rehab center in a printing shop.  She owned the deli across the street from the print shop and the two of them had only seen each other in passing.  One rainy day, Earl asked her if she wanted a ride, and they haven’t been separated since. Nanette saw the kindness in his eyes and opened up to him about her issues. Earl didn’t bat an eyelash over Nanette’s confession about the reason she walked up this way before work. He listened intently to her past marriage, her miscarriages, her depression from all the loss, and her subsequent drinking. She told him she was afraid to lose the deli, so she decided enough was enough.  They dated for just over a year before getting married. After marriage, they both started helping other people who lost their way in life. Earl understood Nanette’s need to help others; she liked to be needed and only felt fulfilled if she was able to make a difference in others’ lives. The “others” could be people or animals. Earl learned a long time ago to go with the flow if Nanette brought an animal home or stopped the car to help one in danger.  Nanette had also helped countless teens over the years through mentorship, counseling, or volunteering in some fashion. Earl hadn’t originally been wired that way, but if he wanted a life with Nanette, which he did, he knew he’d have to learn how to be servant minded.

After Haley went to the trio’s house that morning, she apologized for her behavior and told them that she wanted to turn over a new leaf. They sort of accepted her apology, acknowledged her resolution with a bit of skepticism and parted ways, promising to get together soon. They hadn’t done so yet. They texted once in a while but haven’t been together. Haley suspects it is because she stuck to her resolution of being 90% dry. She didn’t join a rehab clinic; she just found a circle of friends to help her with accountability. Josh was at the top of her list for accountability partners. He had helped her find ways to be more mindful and break her habit of pouring one drink after another. He taught her how to make mocktails and started to go on more hikes and other excursions together. If she drank a glass of wine on a night she hadn’t intended to, he just reminded her of how far she had come and encouraged her to stick to her plan.  She was at a point now where she didn’t doubt herself, she didn’t think about alcohol all the time, and she could partake or not regardless of the social situation. If she did choose to have a drink, she was easily able to keep it to one or two and stretch it out into the evening. She didn’t even miss drinking alcohol when she was at an event and chose to drink soda water. These days, however, she wasn’t drinking anything because it wouldn’t be good for the baby.  She was so excited to tell Josh the news; she had just found out this morning when her OB/GYN called her on her way to the Center to meet Nanette, Earl, and Josh. She had needed to stop by the office to pick up some plans that she and Josh were going to work on later, so she told the three of them to go on ahead and she would meet them in a bit.  Her hands were shaking after she disconnected with her doctor; for a brief moment, she had a flood of doubts enter her mind about motherhood. She wondered if she would stay sober, would she keep a cool temper, would she be patient with her child, would she be a good wife, and on and on. She quickly dismissed all of her doubts. The counseling sessions and her talks with Josh came back into her mind. She knew that she wasn’t her mother; she was stronger and more willing to talk about her feelings and shortcomings. Her mother had never been willing to talk through her issues, so they came out in all the abusiveness. After her mother passed away five years ago, Haley was glad she had made amends with her. They never had a great relationship afterwards, but they talked once in a while and Haley forgave her mom.  Haley knew that life would have struggles from time to time, but she was confident in herself, her relationship with Josh, and her friendships. She instinctively put her hand to her stomach and smiled. She was thankful for her tipping point 2 years ago and for the people who chose to invest in her. She pulled into the center and called Josh. “Can you come out to the car, I need to talk to you, and I just can’t wait to see your face.”