IV: Quadrophenia

"You're barmy, that's what. Staying out all hours. Gettin' up to God knows what. Dressing like a bloody freak. Stand still when I'm talking to you! I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're on drugs."

"I'll tell you. It's somebody, like you, who doesn't know where his mind is. Bloody split personality. Half your mother's family were the same. That's where you get it. Your Uncle Sid was always trying to kill himself. And when he did it was a bloody accident. He never knew what he was doing."

1979 was the year that Quadrophenia was released, when I was 15. I idolized this film. For obvious reasons...the music, the fashion, the rebellion. And for reasons that I didn't think anybody else really understood like I did. Split personality. One minute fun, the next moody, and the moodiness would drive friends or girlfriends away, which would make me clingy, making them run further away, making me moodier and angrier and more and more lonely. Even when I had a girlfriend, I felt isolated, like it wasn't real, like I didn't really deserve this. And if they dumped me, I would obsess over them for years. More often, I would dump them first, reject them before they could reject me. It's a useful defense mechanism. Attack before you can be attacked. Ask the Germans. 1940. A banner year.

1979, coincidentally, was also the year I started drinking. Heavily, from the very first night. I did not "experiment" with alcohol and drugs, I said "gimme!" And if you believe what some people tell you, the year an alcoholic starts drinking is the year that he stops developing emotionally.

Last week I watched Quadrophenia with my daughter, thinking I was just passing on one more bit of musical history for her so that she can be the hippest musical kid in school (it's working, so far). But as I watched, I realized I was not watching an image of my teen angst years. I was watching my current grown self on the screen, being amped up one minute and depressed the next, taking anger out at rejections, real or imagined, wanting to be part of something larger than myself and finding myself isolated at every turn, angry and confused and not knowing how to figure anything out.

Two weeks ago I almost relapsed. Not even because I wanted to get drunk, really. I was angry about something. Something stupid and petty, I don't even remember what it was. But there was a half-empty bottle of wine on the counter and I picked it up, took the cork out, and smelled it. And then I put it to my lips. Thinking, "this'll show 'em." Like I could prove a point that way. I could show "them" (whoever "they" were) that I'm serious, about whatever the fuck it is I'm supposed to be "serious" about. I used to do that in my drinking days. Drink "at" people. Drink to show 'em. And I was daring myself to do it, curious to see if it was as dangerous as it's made out to be, curious in the way I was curious about letting go of the handlebars on my motorcycle last year.

I tipped the bottle back, and the wine hit my lips...but I didn't open them. And I pulled the bottle back down, and wiped my mouth. Put the cork back in the bottle, and put the bottle in the pantry out of sight. Then I called somebody, 'cause that's what you do in AA. You call somebody. I called a person who was once a temporary sponsee of mine who is currently stronger and wiser than I have been in months. The student has become the master.

And I'm hauling my ass back into meetings for real now. I have friends in the program now, friends who I know from outside activities, so it's easier to stay connected. It's kind of ironic; I get called "rescue hero" by a couple of people I've helped in the past year, I get called "fireman" by somebody who knows about my secret dream of wanting to be a volunteer fireman. And the other day in a meeting, a chick there who I didn't even know said she thought I looked like the sponsor type, like the kind of guy people must ask to sponsor them all the time. When inside I still feel like a messed-up kid half the time.

Four years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, I drank the last drink of my life (a pint of pink lemonade and vodka that was about 2/3 vodka) and cried my eyes out to my wife about things in my past I'd never told her about, at least not in detail. That really was my last drink. I've never relapsed, and I don't plan on doing it any time soon. And today I will get a new little AA chip (why don't they call them doubloons here?) with a big Roman numeral "IV" on it.

If it's true that your emotional development freezes when you start drinking, and starts growing again when you get sober, then today I turned 19. I feel 19. I feel like a confused teenager on the verge of young adulthood who is only just now starting to figure out what is important and what is just distraction. What parts of my past are worth hanging on to and what parts should be traded in for something else. And it's high time for me to drive the Vespa GS off the cliff and walk away from all that mods and rockers nonsense, and grow the fuck up.

I'm Ray, and I'm still a motherfucking alcoholic.