Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [104]
Melinda walked out holding our clipboards. “Hi, you two. Come in.” I wouldn’t have known she was Rebecca's sister because they shared little in terms of their physical appearance. Only a few inches taller than I, Melinda had curly, dark brown hair past her shoulders. Her generous curves contrasted Rebecca's tall, sleek frame. But once she started talking, I had no doubt they were siblings. They shared an assertive sassiness and a warm, honest compassion.
Carl and I sat in separate chairs facing her desk while she talked about how she envisioned couples’ therapy, what she expected from us, and what we should expect from her. Carl asked about her experience with couples in therapy because of alcoholism.
“I’ve been working with couple and individuals for almost eight years now. Are they all alcoholics in recovery? No. Sometimes the addictions are food, drugs, sex, gambling. Some of my clients are the children of the others or the adult children of the others. We all have something that brings us here.”
She told us that, after today, the three of us wouldn’t meet until she’d met with Carl and me individually. Carl squirmed. I saw her eyes made note, but she kept talking. “When the three of us come together again, I’ll share what each of you want as the three most important areas to talk about here. After today, your chairs will face one another, not me. I’m not the one you’re here to build a relationship with. I have my own I need to work on.” She rolled her eyes, laughed, and pointed to a picture of a handsome, shiny-haired, black cocker spaniel. “People tell me Sigmund and I have an amazing resemblance. More than Becca and I, wouldn’t you say, Leah?”
We scheduled our next appointments, and she gave each of us a set of Scripture passages she wanted us to read before our next couple time together. “You need to congratulate yourselves for being here. The first year in recovery is tough. Most marriages don’t survive the first year, and the majority of those who relapse are going to do it the first year. Think there's a connection? Oh, yeah. If you had kept drinking, Leah, you could’ve shortened your life by as many as fifteen years. Now that's sobering, don’t you think, Carl?”
I didn’t have to tell her how Carl felt. His body language and monotone, clipped responses conveyed it all. She focused most of her eye contact his way, and when he responded to something she said, she rewarded him with a smile or nod.
Melinda sold me. Now if Carl could just buy in.
I expected my days as a sober person would be excruciatingly long ones involving teeth-gnashing, wailing, hand-wringing, and gazing with naked longing into liquor store windows. Time and circumstances controlled my drinking life. Like many with alcohol-crazed brains, I had my routine, my standards, my inflexible self-imposed tyranny.
WEEKDAY VS. WEEKEND RULES
1. No drinking earlier than five in the evening on weekdays.
2. No drinking earlier than ten in the mornings on weekends.
3. If the weekday was a holiday, then it fell under the weekend rule.
VACATION RULES
1. Weekdays and weekends shared the ten in the mornings rule.
2. If the vacation involved morning brunch, drinking before ten o’clock was acceptable (by definition, a morning brunch was breakfast where the following were available: a milk punch, Screwdriver, or Bloody Mary. If attending a Jazz Brunch, champagne was acceptable.)
OTHER RULES
1. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER drink at school.
2. No drinking before church services of any kind. (Since we generally didn’t attend, the ten o’clock rule applied.)
3. No drinking while driving. Unless in Louisiana, where this rule was suspended since “to go” cups were available when exiting a bar, and Drive-Thru Daiquiris provided acceptable locations for getting a drink “for the road” on the way to a party. (Rule amended to take into consideration new driving laws requiring covered drinks