CRISIS IN KMART

 

I never saw the end of my drinking days coming. But then again, maybe most alcoholics don’t. By the time the end comes, we’re so attached to our addiction that if we knew what person, event, or twist of fate was going to eventually result in our deliverance, like a drowning person who fights her rescuer, we’d do everything in our power to make sure it never happened. 

So instead, God comes to us disguised as our life, wooing us through our misery toward surrender. 

 

At least, that was how it was for me. 

 

When I trace my story back to find the beginning of the end of my drinking, I arrive at a wedding. It was September 2006, and Dave’s best friend, Larry, was getting married to an actress and writer from Los Angeles. 

 

I met Susan for the first time at her rehearsal dinner, the night before her wedding. She struck me as bright, funny, and down to earth. I liked her zany, irreverent style. She and Larry exchanged vows the following day, and as they shimmied back down the aisle to James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” I had high hopes for a friendship with her. 

 

Soon after, Susan and Larry came to visit us for a weekend. They arrived on a brisk but sunny fall afternoon. We all sat in the living room and chatted about how amazing it was that Larry at fifty, and Susan, in her forties, had finally found one another (it was a first marriage for both)—and through an online dating site, no less. 

 

After a while, the four of us bundled up in coats and hats and took a walk through the tiny Central Oregon town where Dave and I were living at the time. As we strolled past gift shops and tourist boutiques, Susan regaled us with funny stories about acting auditions gone wrong. I particularly loved the one where she tried out for a diaper commercial by crawling around on the floor like a baby. 

 

We got back to the house around five o’clock. Since our dinner reservations at a nearby restaurant weren’t until seven p.m., I did what any good hostess would do: I opened up a nice bottle of white wine and put out a cheese plate for my guests to snack on. That was when it happened. 

 

Susan said, “Do you have any tea?” 

 

I stared at her blankly, willing her to take it back. 

 

“Actually,” she added, “if you have hot water, I brought my own loose leaf.” 

 

Her request instantly brought to mind another couple Dave and I had visited in their home in Ashland, Oregon. Upon our arri¬val, this husband and wife cheerily explained that after developing bad martini habits, they had both quit drinking. “We have tea for happy hour now!” they exclaimed. 

 

They said this as if it were good news. As if they had no idea (which they didn’t) that I could never subsist for several days on the limited amount of alcohol that was hidden in my suitcase. The extra four-packs of mini wine I’d brought were meant to supplement the generous amount of alcohol I had expected to be served by our hosts. 

 

I don’t know how I made it through. I think we left a day early. And now, here was Susan, saying it again: Tea! 

 

Later at the restaurant, my worst fears about Susan were confirmed when she ordered tea with her dinner, and casually con¬fided, “I don’t drink.” 

 

My heart sank. And she had seemed so hip, so funny, and likable... 

 

Throughout dinner, and for the rest of Susan’s stay, I felt sad about the friendship with her that would never be. But I felt even sorrier for Susan. What would it be like to drink tea with dinner? To wake up every day knowing you were going to feel the same way at seven p.m. as you did at seven a.m.? 

 

It was a life of such vast meaninglessness I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

 

By the time I met Susan, I knew I was an alcoholic. It was something I’d been feverishly working to hide for almost twelve years. Of course, Dave knew I had a serious drinking problem. But even he still had no idea that in addition to the three or four glasses of wine he saw me drink each evening, I was covertly consuming several times that amount from a secret stash in my closet. 

 

Lately, however, the constant effort it took just to keep this stash stocked at all times had come to seem like a part-time job. The covert shopping trips, the rounding up of the hidden empties, and the weekly unpacking and repacking of the garbage can on pick-up days had left me demoralized and exhausted. 

 

Worse, I was starting to get sloppy. I felt like bottles were literally spilling out of my life. One morning, I was getting breakfast in the kitchen with Dave when he noticed a lump in the pocket of my robe. “What’s that?” he asked, gesturing at it. 

 

I pulled out an empty mini wine bottle, acting as if I was as surprised by its presence as he was. “Oh, wow,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s just an old bottle from way back when. Guess I need to wash my robe more often...” 

 

He let that go. But lately, things like this had been happening a lot. I’d stumble upon a bottle I’d stashed somewhere stupid or obvious, aghast but grateful I was lucky enough to find it first. How much longer could I hope to keep this up? 

 

Soon after Susan and Larry’s “tea,” the small publishing company where Dave had worked for many years was sold. The new owners planned to relocate it from Oregon to Colorado Springs. Eager to keep Dave on staff, they invited us to fly there for an ex-ploratory visit. 

The day after we flew into town, Dave was scheduled to be in meetings all afternoon with company executives. Later, we were slated to have dinner at a fancy restaurant with the president, the vice president of editorial, and their wives. Not wanting to hang around the hotel, I asked Dave to drop me off at a shopping mall so I could buy a new outfit for the evening. 

 

I’d been wandering stores, casually shopping for several hours before I realized my mistake. How could I be so stupid? We were planning to follow the publisher and his wife straight to the restaurant after Dave picked me up at the mall, but I had failed to transfer some of the mini wines hidden in my suitcase into the center pocket of my large purse. 

How was I going to drink? 

 

At this stage of my alcoholism, my tolerance was so high I re¬quired at least several glasses of wine in the late afternoon just to feel normal. Which meant that by the time we got to the restaurant, I’d be ready to crawl out of my skin. Worse, this was exactly the kind of social situation I found excruciating in any state. Plus, these were Christians. Even if they drank, a polite glass or two of wine would hardly suffice. 

 

I told myself not to panic. I would simply have to find some al¬cohol between now and when Dave picked me up at the appointed time in front of Sears. I had less than forty-five minutes. 

I began to walk the mall with great purpose. Surely, I could find one of those specialty gift shops that feature local, high-end products, including wine. I was also prepared to buy a bottle opener if I had to. After wasting about ten minutes looking for such a place, I finally found a mall directory. I quickly scanned it. None of the stores listed resembled what I had in mind. What kind of mall is this? I thought. 

 

And then I saw it. A listing for Kmart. Kmart sells wine! Back in Oregon, more than once, I had ducked into a Kmart to purchase my little four-packs of mini wine. 

 

I walked toward the pretty red K. I smiled as I entered, remem¬bering when I used to bring my boys here. My first husband and I had been so desperately poor that visiting a discount store had constituted a big outing. Sometimes I’d buy the boys those horrible nachos with fake cheese to keep them happy while I explored the blue-light specials. 

 

Now, for some reason, I couldn’t find the wine section. Where were they hiding it? Still unworried, I flagged down an employee, a bald man with a kind face. “Can you point me to your wine aisle?” I asked, all friendliness and optimism. 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“Wine,” I said, clearly enunciating. “As in wine you drink.” 

 

“Gee, ma’am,” he said. (And my heart plummeted right there.) “We don’t sell wine. In fact, no regular stores in Colorado sell wine. Or liquor. You gotta go to the liquor store for that.” 

 

“What?” I said, feeling a little dizzy. “Are you serious?” 

 

He nodded. 

 

What kind of a crazy town was this? Bad enough that it was crawling with the kinds of Christians I once was and now often avoided—but no wine in the grocery store? Were they serious? 

 

Stay calm, I told myself. “Okay,” I said with a big breath. “So where is the nearest liquor store?” 

 

“Hmmm,” he said, absently twirling the pencil tucked above his ear. “I don’t think there’s one too near here. But maybe a mile up the road—” 

 

“That’s okay,” I said, stopping him. “I don’t have a car.” 

 

He must have noticed the look of distress on my face. “Oh, but wait!” he said, brightening. “You can get that weak kinda beer—the stuff with less alcohol in it, you know—at the grocery store.” He smiled like he’d given me a gift. 

 

Did I look that desperate? 

 

I probably did. 

 

“Then again,” he added, obviously still thinking, “it’s probably a ways to the grocery store, too. But I guess you could walk.” He glanced at my feet, in case I was wearing running shoes. I wasn’t. 

 

I checked my watch. I didn’t have time to walk anywhere. And the Springs is not like New York—taxis don’t just pass by. By the time one came... 

 

By now, I was trembling. I thanked the man and rushed to the nearest mall exit to see what I could see outside. In the near distance—a big parking lot and a couple of long blocks away—there appeared to be a gas station with one of those little markets in it. If the grocery stores sold weak beer, maybe the little markets did, too. I set off walking in that direction, readjusting my heavy shop¬ping bags on my shoulder. 

 

I would have to be wearing a sweater. And it would have to be an unusually hot day for late September. By the time I reached the gas station, I was sweating like a pig. But inside the little grocery, it was blessedly cool. I rushed to the back wall where I could see a cold case. And glory! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I was in luck. 

 

They had no wine. But at least they had beers. I remembered what the guy at Kmart had said. Sure enough, these were weak beers. Only 3.2 percent alcohol. I would need a lot of them in order to make a dent big enough to help me get through the evening. Thank God they carried the jumbo 24-ounce size! I cradled five of the cold cans into my arms (beers that big don’t come in six-packs) and hurried to the counter. 

 

The cashier, a young guy, looked at me funny. He even asked me for ID and gazed at my Oregon license like I was suspicious. I made up my mind that there was no way we were moving to this stupid town. 

 

The store door dinged as I left the little market and began huffing toward the mall. After half a block, I stopped to cram the big plastic bag of beers into one of my other shopping bags, in case Dave drove by. How would I explain what I was doing out here on the sidewalk with a bag of beer? 

 

Then, I checked my watch. I was almost out of time. I was supposed to meet Dave in ten minutes. I tried to run, but the shop¬ping bags were now agonizingly heavy, the plastic cutting into my palms and shoulders. I could feel perspiration dripping down my back. I cursed the high altitude. I cursed Colorado Springs and their stupid, weak beer. 

 

Then, as Sears came into view, it hit me like a thunderbolt: how was I going to get all these beers into my purse so I could bring them into the restaurant and into the ladies’ room so I could drink them? My large three-chambered purse with its center-zip pocket was perfect for hiding four or five mini wines. But it would never in a million years hold all these jumbo beers. 

My panic reached a crescendo. I realized that in the few minutes I had left, I would have to find and buy a new, elephant-sized purse. And then be careful to keep it close to me—and away from Dave—all night. 

 

I’ll spare you the details of my mad dash to Sears and my frantic speed-shopping. Suffice it to say that when Dave picked me up at the appointed spot, I felt like Wonder Woman. Not only had I managed to buy a humongous purse, I’d accomplished the purse switch in the ladies’ room, changed into my new outfit, and guzzled one of the beers in a toilet stall. 

 

I greeted my husband about five minutes late, exhausted, shiny with sweat, chewing hard on two sticks of spearmint gum, and thinking, How on earth did my life come to this? 

Sober Mercies: How Love Caught Up with a Christian Drunk
by by Heather Kopp

• Genres: Christian, Nonfiction
• paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Jericho Books
• ISBN-10: 1455527750
• ISBN-13: 9781455527755