99%
I’m about to write down an obscene amount of words for what amounts to be a 20 second conversation. Why? Well, for one thing, I think I am certifiably insane. Seriously. I’m going to write this whole debacle down, highlight my insanity, view it from a distance, then try to take steps to lesson said mental deficiencies to try to act more like a “normal” person. Whatever “normal” means.
The event itself took place about 2.5 years ago. I’ve taken some huge leaps since then to minimize my predicament, but this one occasion left an indelible mark on me and serves as a shining example of how absolutely useless my brain can be sometimes. And I mean USELESS…like a phone book at a smart phone convention. That’s the level of useless I’m talking here.
So, allow me to present some color to this story. It has been established in this blog that I am in recovery. “Baggage, party of 1 your table is ready”. Because of this I am already working from a deficit, and I am now coming up on three years without drink or drug. Early on??? Fuh-get-about-it. I was what we call in the South a Hot Mess. Things were difficult because I lacked basic skill sets to deal with life. My modus operandi to that point had been; things are bad, drink. Things are good, drink. Things are meh, DRINK! Operating in that way doesn’t lend to a lot of sanity…ask my wife, she’s got stories.
So, here I am like Bambi trying to stand on ice, desperately trying to figure out how to maneuver in this new world of sobriety. It’s hard to get my footing because I literally don’t know what I am doing; and this is my situation.
I get a call from my boss. I’ve been a salesman my entire professional career and at this point I am a rep for a smaller technology firm that sells software across the US. I’ve been working at this company for about 3 months…. fun fact…getting high on crack and drinking Miller Lite at 9AM during conference calls is a HORRIBLE way to perform a job. It made it very difficult to concentrate. I got sober about a month into the position, thank God.
So, our corporate headquarters is in Chicago. My boss calls me and says “Ross, we’d love for you to fly out and meet the team. Book a flight and plan on being here for a week. We will have a ton of stuff planned, it will be great to have you up here. Monday night I will have reservations for all of us for dinner, I figure we can go to Happy Hour first, have some drinks then grab a nice meal. Check the flights and plan on being here in two weeks. Can’t wait to see you!”
The lead balloon that is my life hits the floor. Happy Hour??? Are you fucking kidding me?? There’s no way. And thus, begins my saga.
Two weeks, man. That’s a lonnnnnnng time to have to think about all the things that can go wrong. And let’s not minimize it…I’m talking about ALL the potential things that can go wrong. I’m like Dr. Strange calculating the 4.1 million possibilities in the Avenger movie when they are trying to figure out a way to beat Thanos. Accept Strange does it in three minutes and I am about to spend the next two weeks slow playing these options while I consider quitting my job.
I’m TERRIFIED. What am I going to do? How am I going to get through this? What if my boss finds out I am an alcoholic? Am I going to lose my job? What is my wife going to say? Are they going to fire me! My wife is going to leave me! My boys will never know their father!!!!
This is my brain…I am literally 30 seconds into my next two weeks.
I must talk to someone. I have to be able to figure this out. My brain feels like it is on fire from the overdrive that is my consciousness trying to reconcile how I am going to get through this. I start making calls. Luckily, I met someone early on in sobriety who had been through what I had been through. Our past lives before making the decision to get sober were eerily similar. He had a been a HUGE help to this point so to pick up the phone and call him when things got tough had started to become muscle memory.
“Hey man, I’m fucked!” Is kind of what I remember saying to him. I may have taken some artistic license with that sentence, but it’s a good descriptor of how I felt at the time. I give him the play-by-play. I explain to him how scared I am. I go through a select few of the worst of my 4.1 million ways this could go wrong and eagerly await his response.
I’m met with laughter. Lots of it. Here I am, in what could easily be the worst predicament of my life and this man is LAUGHING at me. I wanted to throw the phone like teenage-Superman threw that football in the old Christopher Reeve version of the Man of Steel. I was pissed! You think this is funny? Am I amusing you? You think this is a joke? I wanted to punch him…which would’ve been a poor decision because this guy could throttle me in a heartbeat…many muscles…used to be an angry guy…lets just say at the very least it was good to be having this conversation over the phone.
I’m like “Dude! Seriously! What is so funny? He proceeds to tell me that I am making way too big a deal out of it. That I need to take some deep breaths, chill out, and try to get to a place of calm. He tells me the reason he is laughing is because he to has experienced something similar and that I will get out of this no matter how much I think in the moment that I can’t.
Well I’m not there yet. Calm is a “mirage in the dessert” to me at this point in my life. It doesn’t exist. It would be awesome if it were there, but I know deep down it’s not so I have to come up with another plan. My friend is steadfast though and he goes on to say the following…
”99.9% of the shit you are making up in your head DOES NOT EXIST. It will never happen. You are more than welcome to waste a bunch of time playing out the scenarios but ultimately there is one outcome and one outcome only. I can ASSURE YOU that whatever the outcome is, it’s going to be exactly what needs to happen at that exact moment in time.
And I’m like, what kind of bullshit is this??? Who are you? Yoda??? “Calm you will be” “Outcomes they will happen” you say. WHATEVER MAN!!!!! I’m about to lose my job and my family and this guy is trying to give me some kind of ninja-level-yogi-speak and I don’t even know how to sit cross legged to meditate. This ain’t gonna work, man! I am really screwed here. So, I just agree with everything that comes out of his mouth for the next few minutes until we can get off the phone and I can continue planning my firing and my divorce.
Two full weeks of this goes by. I am not passively trying to work through it either. I talk to any and every person that will listen to me because I am scared to death. There is no way I can go to a Happy Hour, OBVIOULSY! To not have a drink? To have to explain myself to the entire group of people that we are out with?? This will never work! A quick point that I left out. My boss and I know each other. We worked together at our previous employer. He left for this sale manager position he currently holds and I got fired, was out of work for three months and he threw me a life raft and hired me. I failed to mention that I was a raging alcoholic and drug addict in the interview. Crack doesn’t play well as a “hobby” when you are desperately trying to get hired.
So, the day of my departure has arrived. I am flying out on Sunday night, so I can meet up with the team for their regular Monday morning sales meeting. I get into Chicago late Sunday night, get a good night sleep and prepare for my mental battle the following day. I pop out of bed with BRILLIANT idea!!!
Let’s get ahead of this train wreck! Like a guy running down the tracks from a washed-out bridge, I’m going to wave down this train, let the conductor know that he almost lost the entirety of his cargo and his people and SAVE THE DAY!!! I’m going to walk into my bosses office and with great confidence declare my status as an alcoholic, let him know that I am “ok now”, and that not to worry for when we convene at the bar for Happy Hour later that evening and it’s my turn to order a drink, the fact that I order water should bring no concern to anyone at our table. I AM IN RECOVERY AND I AM DOING JUST FINE!!!”
This is PERFECT! I play it out over and over in my head. This is the ONLY way this should be handled. Holy Crap am I proud of myself for figuring this out on my own!!!! WOOOHOOOOOO I am safe!!! As I am walking to my boss’ door I get this pit in my stomach. “Hol’up!” my brain tells my body. Something isn’t right. Have I over-thought this? Is this really the right move? Am I about to do something really stupid? I take a moment and say a prayer, it’s a weird move for me because for me, praying is about as natural as Instagram Influencer’s charity work.
This is my prayer, “God, is this a stupid move, help me out here.” My hand, at about the half-inch mark from the door, closes and I walk away. Not now, I tell myself. Don’t do it.
As much as possible I try to focus for the rest of the day. I forget everyone’s names that I am introduced to. I flub a layup question about the functionality of one of our offerings. I struggle to make easy conversation. All of this because my head is full of all the bullshit I am trying to figure out on how to handle the Happy Hour situation that is quickly approaching with each passing second.
The day ends. Everyone heads out. Most of the folks live close enough to the where we are going, so a quick stop at their homes allows them to change into something more comfortable before they make their way to the bar. Not my boss though, nope. He and I are going to be there. Alone. Together.
Now, what I am about to suggest, from a literary perspective, is highly irregular and would probably be frowned upon my English professor…but do me a favor…. read this next part like the intentional run-on sentence that it is, fast and dumb. It’s the only way to really get a feel for the shit-show that is my brain as I prepare for this moment:
I know that he is about to know that I am an alcoholic, because I am going to have to tell him so, and he is going to fire me, and this is all going to happen because when I order a glass of water and he knows that I drink it’s going to be painfully obvious to him that I am NOT drinking, so he is going to have to ask me why I am not drinking and I am going to have to admit that I couldn’t stop, and that he probably should have never hired me and I am sorry for wasting his time, and if he wants me to fly out tonight I will, I if need be I can return the money he has paid me to date and OH MY GOD ROSS STOP IT!!!!!
We sit at the table; the waitress comes and asks what we want to drink. My boss says, “I’ll have whatever Lager you suggest on tap.” I look up, and as absolutely frightened as I have ever been I say, “I’ll have a glass of water please” My boss looks at me for half a second and says “Oh, you’re not drinking tonight?” AND. THAT. WAS. IT.
99% y’all. Ninety. Nine. Percent.