“One Step at a Time” is a series of original essays we will be running monthly. We are excited to have writer and mom Patty Nasey share her fresh perspective as she embarks on the road to sobriety.

STEP TWO

by Patty Nasey

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  That pretty much sums up my relationship with alcohol, especially in the past 5 years. I’d drink moderately, then get drunk, then beat myself up, then quit drinking, then decide I could control it because I’d been able to stop, then start drinking again, then get drunk, then quit, then start all over.  It was insane. I was insane.

But there was something about A.A.’s Second Step – the idea that I had to buy into this “Higher Power” thing in order to get sober — that made me a bit uncomfortable.  Not because I didn’t believe – I was raised Catholic, I converted to Judaism in 1996, I certainly believe in God.  It just sounded a little too much like “Jesus Saves” which totally freaked me out.  Because I had been “saved” once before — and it was scary.

When I was 12, my friend Roberta invited me to Wolf Mountain, a weeklong sleep away camp located near the small Northern California town where we lived. She told me it was co-ed so we could meet boys (not like the all-girls Catholic camp from which I had recently returned).  She told me it was “Indian Camp” so we would sleep in giant tee-pees.  She did not tell me, however (maybe she didn’t know) that the camp was run by fundamentalist Christians.  Every night at the campfire, Running Bear or Spotted Wolf (all the staffers had Indian names) would announce the campers who had accepted Jesus Christ as their “personal savior” that day.  I had no intention of adding my name to the list. I’d had my First Communion, I went to confession regularly, I was going to be Confirmed in the coming year. I assumed I was on the fast track to Heaven.  Then on the last night, all the campers were herded into a barn-like auditorium to watch a film about the Rapture. The film depicted, in terrifying detail, the moment when all of the “true Christians” would be gathered together to meet Christ upon His return, leaving all of us fakers behind to die a lonely, miserable death on Earth. It scared the crap out of me. Afterward, I sprinted back to my tee-pee, dropped to my knees and begged my counselor, Little Duckfeet, to save me, too.

Rationally, I knew that A.A.’s traditions were nothing like Wolf Mountain’s salvation-by-intimidation approach.  Still, around my 40th day of sobriety when my sponsor wanted to meet to review the Second Step, visions of Little Duckfeet danced in my head.  I told her I needed more time.

That same week, I was invited to an event at the very trendy Standard Hotel in New York City’s Meatpacking district. Some of my former Conde Nast colleagues had rented the terrace overlooking the High Line with panoramic views of downtown Manhattan.  As we got off the elevator, a young, good-looking waiter greeted us with a tray full of champagne.  I watched enviously as my friends lifted the gold-filled flutes, clinking, toasting, and drinking.  Then my insanity came knocking.

I can have one drink.

I have been so good, I deserve it!

How can I not have a glass of champagne?

Everybody else is drinking, why shouldn’t I?

I walked toward the bar.

“Champagne?” the bartender said as he popped the cork on another bottle.

I imagined the bubbles in my mouth, tickling my palate at first and then becoming sweet and smooth as my troubles melted away with each sip.  I wanted to say “Yes” so badly, and had I been trying to get sober on my own, I probably would have.  But I thought of all those people I had met in my A.A. meetings — unfailingly honest, day after day, sharing their experience, strength and hope with me. They’d given me their phone numbers, invited me for coffee, clapped and cheered when I announced my sober day counts: 12 days…23 days…36 days…41 days.  As the waiter filled up the glass, I imagined calling my sponsor to tell her that I’d have to forfeit those hard-earned days of sobriety and start over. I pictured myself telling all those people who had been rooting so hard for me that I “went out” over a glass of champagne.  I couldn’t do it.

“Just a Perrier with lime,” I finally said. The waiter handed me the unfamiliar drink and I winced as the bubbles stung the inside of my mouth. It was a lot to swallow – this unsatisfying champagne substitute, this strange state of sobriety, this saying no when I wanted to say yes, this Second Step. But I did it.  While physically I was at a glamorous Conde Nast event, mentally I was in a church basement with these strangers I’d come to know, trust and rely on for help. Together, they formed a power that was greater than myself. Together, they helped rescue me from my own insanity.

In the book, Twelve Jewish Steps of Recovery, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky writes, “It doesn’t matter if God has a long white beard, what matters is there’s someone beyond you and beside you.  You just have to connect with it.”  I realized that day that it’s irrelevant whether I am Catholic or Jewish; Born Again or Atheist. What’s most important is that I’m not alone.

Patty Nasey is a 20 year veteran of the magazine industry. She has worked at Time Out New York, Jane, Lucky, Teen Vogue, Mademoiselle and SPY, and written for a variety of publications, including Time Out New York Kids, New York Magazine and
 PAPER. Patty currently works as a retail marketing consultant for Women’s Wear Daily, a division of the Fairchild Fashion Group. You can see her read from her unpublished, unfinished, unauthorized memoir at the NY Writer’s Workshop series at KGB on June 12. She lives in New York City with her husband, two daughters and a dog. Read Patty’s first post of this series here.

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by Deirdre Sinnott

The champagne fizzed over the rim, so I snatched up the goblet to sip off the excess. I dabbed at a wet spot on the green polyester tablecloth with a paper napkin. A v-shaped metal nutcracker sat next to my newly-purchased digging and extracting tools. They stood ready to take apart the lobster still boiling in the pot. A demitasse cup filled with melted butter waited for bits of meat. Alone in my quiet kitchen, I carried out my first Be Kind to Deirdre Day.

At the time, I bounced from weeks of toil in darkened theaters to advance my “show business” career to a part-time cashier job that paid the rent, a flurry of high stress and low compensation. On free evenings, I prowled bars looking for a partner. I found plenty of short-term company, but no one to satisfy my ravenous appetite for a sinner/savior.

I existed on a series of rewards that I designated as appropriate remuneration for my troubles. If I had to get up early and fight a hangover, I allowed myself something gooey-sweet to eat as well as hot and cold caffeinated beverages. Stay late at work? Visit a bar on the way home. Endure frustrating days of waiting for a call from last weekend’s pickup? Spend time by the phone consuming chips, creamy dip, and multiple beers. Need to cut lose after an intense period of putting a play together? Get drunk, as fast as possible.

Be Kind to Deirdre Day became an über-award designed to buffer the damage and begin anew. I considered it my gift to me. And, in my alcoholic state of mind, it was the best I could do.

The highlight of the Day was dinner. I usually chose the same menu: a live lobster, ruddy and thrashing when going head first into the pot, vivid red when emerging, and champagne, always champagne. I don’t suppose that the French consider the bottle a single-serving size, but I did.

Alone at the kitchen table, I cracked the claws, split the tail, sucked the juices out of the spider-like legs, and feasted. Between bites, I drank the champagne–sipping it, tasting it, gulping it. The sharpness of the bubbles raked my throat and the sticky aftertaste soothed the burn.

My belly swelled and ached. I stood up, pushing aside the plate of broken shells, and dragged the goblet and the bottle over to the sofa where we could be alone. There the two of us, alcohol and me, could hunker down and consume each other.

When I woke the next morning, bloated and headachy, I never grasped that Be Kind to Deirdre Day was its opposite. Not only was the whole concept flawed (what, only one day for kindness?), but I blamed my uncomfortable condition on the last drink or the last bite of the night, not the first. If every time I bought a bottle of champagne I finished it and if every time I finished a bottle I got a hangover, then why ever buy champagne? If my life felt so punishing that I set aside a special day to not hurt myself and ended up doing just that, didn’t it mean, at minimum, my system of rewards had to change?

Other people might have stopped drinking when they felt the twinkle of a buzz. Some might be appalled at the notion of sitting alone with an alcoholic beverage. Champagne is made to be shared, they’d scoff. But that’s not how I did it.

And after two decades of experimentation (tonight just beer, tonight only a few glasses of wine, tonight no mixing, tonight stop before getting sick, et cetera ad nauseum), I figured out that I was not normal.

My last official Be Kind to Deirdre Day was more than 13 years ago. However, the “be kind” concept survives. I nurture it.

When actively boozing, I never knew how much I was hurting myself. I had to stop to feel the absence of pain.

I’m free from the logic of drinking, where, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, alcohol was both the problem and the solution to everything. I’ve moved beyond just lobster and champagne. I get to choose my pleasures–like the sour crunch of home-grown cucumbers in a yogurt-dill sauce or being the focus of my cats’ neurotic neediness or the repeated delight of loving the same person. Those joys rushed in to fill the vacuum left when I put down the bottle(s).

My goal is to be full-time kind to Deirdre.

Deirdre Sinnott, a regular contributor to Drinking Diaries, is working on a memoir called Drunk Dreams. You can find more information about Deirdre on her website.

Recent research published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that, like red wine, a little bit of champagne or sparkling wine a day could be good for your heart. This research comes just in the nick of time as sales of champagne have been continually declining, particularly in the United States.

Polyphenols found in red wine help the heart by slowing down the removal of nitric oxide from the blood, which lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart problems and strokes. Similarly, elevated levels of nitric oxide found in champagne cause blood vessels to dilate, and has the same effect as red wine.

And while we’re on the subject…

Madame Jacques Bollinger, otherwise known as “Aunt Lily,” took over Champagne Bollinger when her husband, Jacques, died in 1941. It was war time and, with no gasoline to fill the trucks and tractors, Lily took to her bicycle to tour and manage the vineyards, personally supervising every aspect of the business.

 Her most lasting legacy, aside from the bubbly we drink today, is her famous quote about champagne, published  in London’s Daily Mail, October 17, 1961:

“I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad.
 Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone.
When I have company I consider it obligatory. 
I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and I drink it when I am.
 Otherwise I never touch it, unless I’m thirsty.”

A la vôtre…

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To let your teens sip, or not to let them sip champagne on New Year’s Eve? That is the question. 

Perhaps you’ll be sitting at home with your family, having a glass of champagne and watching the ball drop. Or maybe you’ll be having a party, or out at a party, or on vacation, where there’s drinking aplenty.

Maybe you’re not a parent, but you probably have an opinion, nonetheless. So do you approve or disapprove of teens sipping champagne along with their parents on New Year’s?

There are two camps: the loosen-up it’s New Year’s camp, and the it’s illegal and unhealthy to drink underage–even a sip–camp. Which camp are you in?

Here at drinking diaries, we have previously come down on the side of let your teen have a sip; what harm can it do? If alcohol is made to be forbidden or taboo, then it becomes desirable to a teen. Letting them have sips of champagne teaches moderation, and let’s face it, most kids have tried alcohol before 18. But there’s another side that’s equally compelling, as we read in a recent article on the Canadian newswire.

John Lieberman, director of operations for Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers in Malibu and Brentwood, California, is opposed to introducing kids to alcohol at home. According to Lieberman, “The studies show that the earlier someone has their first experience with drugs or alcohol or R-rated movies or sex, the earlier somebody does that, the more apt they are to have an addiction or a problem or consequences as a result of that behavior.”

Even in France, where the attitude toward drinking is perceived as laissez-faire, they’ve raised the drinking age from 16 to 18, due to increases in binge drinking and alcohol-induced hospitalizations.

Consider the words of Jeffrey Wolfsberg, head of a company that offers seminars to students and parents on drug and alcohol use and prevention: “When we look at who struggles with alcohol-related problems in college, it’s not the kids who go off with no drinking experience. It’s the kids who have established drinking patterns in high school.”

Interesting, but that wasn’t the case with me. I had no drinking experience whatsoever when I went off to college, and I went nuts. I had no idea how to drink; no idea of my limits. I was like a kid in a candy store.

So perhaps there’s no easy answer. When asked the question, “should parents let their teens have sips of champagne on New Years?” even Wolfsberg says maybe…maybe not:  ”Both approaches are fine..it’s not so much what’s being done–it’s the meaning [behind it] that matters most.”

So what will your approach be this New Year’s Eve? What is your opinion?

Just in time for New Year’s Eve festivities, a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last week revealed that champagne is good for the heart. Reported in The Daily Telegraph, the research has “found that champagne has the same health benefits as previously found in red wine.”

The study team’s leader, Dr. Jeremy Spencer of the University of Reading in the U.K., told the newspaper, “We have found that a couple of glasses a day has a beneficial effect on the walls of blood vessels, which suggests champagne has the potential to reduce strokes and heart disease. It is very exciting news.”

The research set out to answer the question regarding polyphenol levels in champagne. The antioxidant was known to be present in red wine and absent from white wine, but as champagne contains both red and white grapes there was uncertainty over polyphenol levels.

This is particularly good news for the champagne industry, as this research comes at a time when champagne sales are declining continually, particularly in the US.

And the benefits are not limited to alcoholic drinks. The study also found high levels of the antioxidant in cocoa beans, meaning a mug of hot chocolate is just as as good. Except, Dr. Spencer points out, “It doesn’t seem as much fun somehow.”

Other sparkling wine alternatives, such as cava and Prosecco have also been found to contain the antioxidants.

From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of  the “The Happiness Project,” a blog and about-to-be-published book which will be released on Dec. 29th.

Drinking Diaries: What do you think is the relationship between drinking and happiness?

Gretchen: A few years ago, I realized that for me, drinking didn’t bring happiness. I never had much tolerance for alcohol, and after two pregnancies, I was woozy after one glass of wine or beer. I’m not a cheerful, convivial person when drinking – I become belligerent, snarky, and mean. Over and over, after social events, I’d feel full of remorse about my conversations with people. Finally it dawned on me – stop drinking! Then you won’t feel guilty about the way you acted! It’s surprising that it took me so long to realize this – I never really much enjoyed drinking to begin with – but once I basically stopped drinking, I’ve been much happier. It just doesn’t sit well with me.

Also, I’m very calorie-conscious. I realized that I’d rather eat candy than drink booze.

Has drinking ever made you happy?

Not particularly.

Can you comment on the difference between temporary happiness/pleasures and long-term happiness?

This is one of the big challenges of happiness, of course. The things that make you happy in the short term and the things that make you happy in the long term are often quite different. Also, we’re not always very skilful at anticipating what will make us happy in the long term, even when we try to take it into account. But this is certainly true: practically everyone will be happier in the long term if they get more sleep and more exercise. So that’s a good place to start.

Why do you think people choose the short-term pleasures over the long term?

Because it’s more fun!

Can you envision a scenario where drinking could cause, or enhance, happiness?

I can see that for many people, obviously, drinking is a big source of enjoyment. I enjoy that vicariously. I wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, and one thing I loved about him was his zest for drinking. People disagree about how much he actually drank – some people say he drank a lot, others maintain that he made a big show of it, but didn’t actually drink much. But however much he drank, he really got a big kick out of it.

Have you ever had a bad drinking experience? What was that like?

I never had one terrible drinking experience – and in fact, I’ve never even had a hangover! Not even when I was in college, when I was drinking enough that a hangover was likely.

But for me, drinking just brings out my belligerent, indiscrete, attacking side. And it also makes me incredibly sleepy. So even if I’m celebrating with good friends, so my obnoxious side doesn’t come out, I have to cut the evening short to go to bed. So I’m happier in every way if I just skip drinking, or have just half a glass.

If you could be any drink, what would it be? Why?

Champagne – because it’s the drink most closely associated with happiness and celebration.

Gretchen’s essay, “Why I Stopped Drinking Alcohol (More or Less)” was posted on Drinking Diaries on July 1, 2009. The Happiness Project can be pre-ordered, and you can also read some sample chapters. Gretchen’s Twitter handle is @gretchenrubin.