Drink, Drank, Drunk

Drank

In the past 25 days, Scott has not had any liquor. To my knowledge. I feel the need to add that there. I don't think he has had any at all, but addicts are excellent hiders. Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters with their relative plots have been spot on every week to the point where I ask Scott about it.

But the monitoring of liquor has made me become conscious of Scott's drinking. While I would go three weeks and then have half a glass of wine, Scott continued to drink more. And more. After a while I noticed he would take beer to work with him in the morning. When he came home for lunch, he'd drink a few. There was always a silver can in his hand. Another cigarette, another beer.

On the Sunday in which we went to my father's Thanksgiving dinner, Scott drank an entire bottle of wine before noon. Blue laws in my state prohibit the sale of any alcohol on Sundays, and my wine was the only alcohol in the house. Scott actually bought it for me. It was a new kind of wine from my favorite vineyard, and he bought it so I could try it. I still don't know what it tastes like.

After a couple of weeks of this, I asked Scott to stop drinking altogether. "I think it's the best Christmas present you could give your mom," I encouraged.

Scott rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. "I need to stop drinking," he confessed. "If I was being honest with you, I would tell you that when I come home for lunch, my hands shake from not having any alcohol."

"Well then you need to stop."

"I'm going to," he resolved. "People think you quit cold turkey, but you can't--it's dangerous. It's going to take a couple of weeks, but I have to taper off. It isn't easy."

And the next day Scott came home with a 6-pack instead of a 12-pack. The next morning when I picked up the garbage, I threw away four cans, and I had to pour out beer from two of them. I was so proud of him, and I made sure to tell him that. The rest of the week continued the same: he'd have two to three beers a night. I think only once during that week did he have one during work hours. We were going to do it!

The second week, we weren't so lucky. Scott only has one day a week off--Mondays. And because it's an atypical day off, he spends it alone. He spends it alone sitting on the couch watching TV and slowly getting drunk. That Monday he got up at 5 am to go to the store and get alcohol. He started at 5 am and drank 18 beers that day.

Tuesday he tried harder, coming home with only the six-pack again. Only when he finished the beer, he opened another bottle of wine he bought me as a peace offering and drank the entire bottle within 45 minutes. Not only did he drink my peace offering, but he left me to clean up the puke when he inevitably got sick a few minutes later.

I didn't know he drank the wine until I went to put on my coat and gloves to drive to the store in the middle of the night to buy him Pepto and ginger ale. And when I spied the empty bottle I was angry. Instead of throwing it out, I took out the trash and left the bottle and the cork out alone on the counter.

"And that's why I don't drink wine," he chuckled when he called me at work the next morning. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"I'm worried about your drinking."

"That was not fun," he joked. "I've learned my lesson."

And somehow he made me feel better about the incident. Although now I can't think for the life of me why.