Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [114]
“I know, Peter,” I said. “I’ve been dealing with some of this for the past two months. I guess I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this now.”
“Truth? You wouldn’t have believed me before or even listened. Truth? I think Carl's the one who should have been admitted, not you. Final truth? You need time to yourself— time to focus on being sober, on being Leah again. I want you to think about that. You can stay here for as long as you need. You and the baby. Carl's controlled your life a lot longer than you have. You had to go to Brookforest to get sober. I think you need to consider being on your own to stay sober.”
Dad shook his head, his voice low. “You know your mother and I were never big churchgoers. Felt like we could live as good, honest people without the hoopla. We probably should’ve done a better job with the two of you. I don’t claim to know much about the Bible, but I’m pretty sure that walking out of your marriage isn’t something God would want. I’m kind of glad your mother's not here. Break her heart to know you were telling your sister to leave her husband.” He looked at me. “Break her heart if you did it too.”
“Leah, I didn’t mean you should divorce Carl. I am saying you can’t have it both ways. You can’t preach being responsible for yourself and your decisions to other people and not follow your own advice.”
Peter's bluntness didn’t shock me. What shocked me was that his words found safe passage through my defense mechanisms to connect to feelings I couldn’t yet speak myself.
I knew you could stay in a marriage and really not be there at all. I didn’t know you could leave a marriage to try to stay in it.
45
Melinda suggested I use Carl's session time plus my own while he was away. After the weekend with my brother and father, I regretted I couldn’t have given our sessions to both of them.
“Analogy woman that I am, I’m so enamored with myself for this brilliant squirrel/cat connection to our lives, I shared it with Peter. Then after my brother, Dad, and I talked, I realized we weren’t either one of those. We’re the nuts.”
“It's important to discover who you are, don’t you think?” Melinda's attempt at a granite-face only made both of us laugh more.
“Let's talk about Peter's concern,” she said. “He's right about your needing to focus on sobriety. From what you’ve told me, you’ve made a meeting everyday since you were discharged. What about when you went home?”
“Peter had already checked out meeting times and places. Who knew you could Google AA meetings? I just made it work. A weird feeling at first, going to an out-of-town meeting. Regulars think you’re new, and then you have to convince them you’re not. Makes for a fun beginning.”
“Planning ahead. What a concept. If it works for out-of-town, it works for everything else. It appears you and Carl have a number of social events to attend because of business. Have you thought about how you’ll handle those?”
“Yes. I’m staying home with the baby. Honestly, I was never a barfly kind of drinker, so that's not the problem. Happy drinking, wahoo party drinking, that's a tough one for me. Rebecca suggested holding a glass of water, club soda, or ginger ale because people usually don’t ask if you want a drink if you’re holding one. For right now, a virgin version of an alcoholic drink is still too close. I’ve told myself to stay away from those because it feeds into stupid brain and the whole ‘romanticizing’ about the glory days.”
“Good strategies. Those could make the difference between Drunk Leah and New Leah. Sobriety's your focus, and you don’t need to carry any other emotional baggage during your first year. That's why we tell new people in the program not to make any drastic, life-changing decisions for the whole first year of sobriety. Like Peter, I’m not saying stay or go. I’m not sure you’re at a place in