Latest / Heavyweight / Heavyweight Short: A Sobering Thought
Transcript
- 0:15Speaker 1: Pushkin. About a year ago, Heavyweight was canceled, and for
- 0:23Speaker 1: the first time in my adult life, I was without
- 0:26Speaker 1: a job. Luckily, I had a plan b drinking. Drinking
- 0:32Speaker 1: has always been my safety net. It makes me feel
- 0:34Speaker 1: bulletproof in a state of grace. Who needs a job
- 0:38Speaker 1: when you're in a state of grace? So job or
- 0:41Speaker 1: no job, Health insurance or no. At the end of
- 0:44Speaker 1: the day, there was still booze, just like there'd always been,
- 0:48Speaker 1: which is to say that every night for twenty five
- 0:51Speaker 1: years I have drank. But after getting laid off, something shifted.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Along with losing my job, I lost my sense of identity,
- 1:05Speaker 1: and booze only amplified the feeling night of drinking. I'd
- 1:10Speaker 1: wake up at three am in a panic, not knowing
- 1:13Speaker 1: who or what or why I was. I'd always turned
- 1:16Speaker 1: to alcohol for solace, but now I found myself too
- 1:20Speaker 1: scared to drink. Over the course of Heavyweights eight seasons,
- 1:30Speaker 1: I've acted as an interlocutor between friends, family, and strangers.
- 1:35Speaker 1: Now I needed to interlock you between me and me,
- 1:39Speaker 1: the me that wanted to keep drinking and the me
- 1:42Speaker 1: that didn't. So I started a journal to reflect on
- 1:46Speaker 1: my relationship to drinking. How it all began, how much
- 1:49Speaker 1: I have loved it, and whether it was time to stop.
- 1:53Speaker 1: These are exerts. Day six without a drink, New Year's Eve,
- 2:01Speaker 1: our new neighbors stop by, the wife sells pet supplies,
- 2:04Speaker 1: and the husband does something with money. Even though I
- 2:07Speaker 1: interview people for a living, after ten minutes, I run
- 2:10Speaker 1: out of new things to ask. Since I'm not drinking,
- 2:13Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. Emily has put out
- 2:16Speaker 1: frozen pepperoni pizza, so I eat slice after slice. Rum
- 2:21Speaker 1: Das says that at a certain point he cared less
- 2:24Speaker 1: about getting high and more about getting free. The pepperoni
- 2:28Speaker 1: pizza gets me neither high nor free. Week three without
- 2:39Speaker 1: a drink. I remember when my friend Paul quit drinking.
- 2:42Speaker 1: It was because he found himself thinking about drinking all
- 2:45Speaker 1: day and looking forward to it too much. That's called
- 2:49Speaker 1: being an adult, I had said, dismissively. Children have their
- 2:54Speaker 1: sense of wonder, adults have booze. Week five. I don't
- 3:00Speaker 1: think I drink the way other people do. I prefer
- 3:03Speaker 1: to drink and the spaces in between on subway rides,
- 3:07Speaker 1: while taking long walks in darkened movie theaters. And although
- 3:11Speaker 1: I'll drink with others. My preference is to drink alone.
- 3:15Speaker 1: I'm not sure what constitutes alcoholism, so I've lately been googling.
- 3:20Speaker 1: Is drinking alone alcoholism? Or does drinking every night make
- 3:24Speaker 1: you an alcoholic? Even using the word alcoholic makes me
- 3:29Speaker 1: feel disloyal, like I'm bad mouthing a friend behind their back.
- 3:33Speaker 1: Maybe if you think of alcohol as a friend, you've
- 3:36Speaker 1: got a problem. Maybe if you're asking Google, if you've
- 3:39Speaker 1: got a problem, you've got a problem. Week eight. It
- 3:45Speaker 1: might have all begun at the age of four, with
- 3:48Speaker 1: the joy of spinning around and around until the living
- 3:51Speaker 1: room ceiling became the floor, the chandelier a stalagmite. Life
- 3:57Speaker 1: felt easier upside down. Or maybe it began at five,
- 4:01Speaker 1: breathing in and out as fast as I could to
- 4:04Speaker 1: make myself lightheaded. Before there was beer and whiskey, there
- 4:08Speaker 1: were quick in talk xicating breaths. My drinking began in
- 4:12Speaker 1: earnest during my teen years. I drank to be less shy,
- 4:16Speaker 1: to make myself more comfortable, and as I grew older,
- 4:19Speaker 1: I drank because it was what I did. My identity
- 4:23Speaker 1: became so fused to whisky that at my fortieth birthday party,
- 4:27Speaker 1: every one of my friends and family gifted me with
- 4:30Speaker 1: a bottle of bourbon or Scotch. At the end of
- 4:33Speaker 1: the night, I counted fourteen bottles. My friend Steve says
- 4:37Speaker 1: that plain and simple human beings need to get fucked up.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Week eleven, I'm on a flight to New York, and
- 4:46Speaker 1: for the first time in twenty five years, I haven't
- 4:49Speaker 1: packed small bottles of whiskey for each of my front pockets.
- 4:52Speaker 1: I'm not a good flyer, and I keep the bottles
- 4:55Speaker 1: with me in case the flight gets rough and I
- 4:57Speaker 1: can't get booze from the flight attendant quick enough. But
- 5:01Speaker 1: in all honesty, sometimes turbulence was a relief because it
- 5:05Speaker 1: was permission to crack open a pocket whisky before noon.
- 5:10Speaker 1: When you're in town. That's where we meet is at
- 5:12Speaker 1: a bar that'll be our first up in New York.
- 5:16Speaker 1: I visit my friend Sean. Sean is one of my
- 5:19Speaker 1: favorite people to drink with. For him, it's simple. If
- 5:22Speaker 1: you drink, you're a drinker, and a drinker drinks. Can
- 5:26Speaker 1: you describe what it is about the feeling of drinking
- 5:29Speaker 1: that you like? Getting a hug from the inside. Sean
- 5:34Speaker 1: and I can talk and drink laid into the night.
- 5:37Speaker 1: The drink and the talk run parallel to each other
- 5:40Speaker 1: and make a good combination, but sometimes the drink will
- 5:44Speaker 1: overtake the talk.
- 5:45Speaker 2: I don't black out as much as I used to it.
- 5:47Speaker 2: Everybody's gonna think I'm like a raging alcoholic, but like
- 5:50Speaker 2: and we'd be at the bar and I'd have like
- 5:52Speaker 2: one and another and another, and at a certain point
- 5:53Speaker 2: during the evening it got to the point where I
- 5:58Speaker 2: was I would be having a conversation with somebody and
- 6:04Speaker 2: looking at their face and going to myself, Oh, this
- 6:09Speaker 2: is the conversation that I'm not going to remember.
- 6:12Speaker 1: And I was always right. As a drinker, you exchange
- 6:17Speaker 1: memory for intensity. I ask Sean if my sobriety might
- 6:26Speaker 1: threaten our friendship.
- 6:28Speaker 2: Oh oh, I don't know. I don't think so, but
- 6:35Speaker 2: I feel like you and I like it too much.
- 6:37Speaker 2: I think you and I are cut from a certain
- 6:39Speaker 2: cloth where we're just.
- 6:45Speaker 1: Drinkers. So what do you call a drinker who doesn't drink?
- 6:57Speaker 1: Week twenty one? Without drinking, everything isn't as weighted towards
- 7:02Speaker 1: the night when the first drink is drunk. As a result,
- 7:05Speaker 1: there's more evenness. The points of intensity are scattered throughout
- 7:09Speaker 1: the day, a run in the morning, aggie walking through
- 7:13Speaker 1: the door after school, the taste of dessert after dinner.
- 7:18Speaker 1: Week twenty four. It's after several months without a drink
- 7:22Speaker 1: when I begin to bargain with myself. Maybe I can
- 7:25Speaker 1: enjoy a glass of wine with dinner once in a while.
- 7:28Speaker 1: After all, it's been five months. Have I not demonstrated
- 7:32Speaker 1: self mastery? The problem is, as the saying goes, that
- 7:36Speaker 1: that first drink makes you feel like a new person,
- 7:39Speaker 1: and that a new person needs a drink, and so
- 7:42Speaker 1: on and so on. But somehow moderation always feels within
- 7:47Speaker 1: my grasp? Is this for me? What passes for hope?
- 7:51Speaker 3: The first times I got drunk, it was like, where
- 7:53Speaker 3: has this been my whole life? Like this is what
- 7:55Speaker 3: everything should feel like all the time.
- 7:57Speaker 1: My friend Tony went into rehab for heroin addiction in
- 8:00Speaker 1: his mid twenties, it meant having to give up all drugs,
- 8:03Speaker 1: including alcohol. But recently, after twenty five years of sobriety,
- 8:08Speaker 1: Tony started drinking again. Just a drink here and there
- 8:12Speaker 1: is such a thing possible.
- 8:14Speaker 3: I had just gotten out of a meditation retreat, actually,
- 8:18Speaker 3: and I was sitting around on a Friday evening with
- 8:22Speaker 3: a bunch of people at the retreat center, including the
- 8:24Speaker 3: meditation teachers, and somebody offered me a shot, a very
- 8:30Speaker 3: expensive scotch, but I said no. At first, I don't drink.
- 8:37Speaker 3: And then as I was sitting there watching other people's
- 8:39Speaker 3: shot glasses get filled and thinking about how I identified.
- 8:43Speaker 3: After twenty five years, I still identified as a recovering addict,
- 8:48Speaker 3: recovering alcoholic ex addict X or just plain old addict alcoholic.
- 8:53Speaker 3: I still identified with that, and I thought, well, I'm
- 8:57Speaker 3: am I still that? Like what It was a question
- 8:59Speaker 3: that came up kind of naturally. It was like, why
- 9:03Speaker 3: am I saying no? Is it because I really am
- 9:05Speaker 3: afraid that something bad's gonna happen? Or am I just
- 9:09Speaker 3: identified with it? And it's part of kind of like
- 9:11Speaker 3: an ego structure where it's kind of like a notch
- 9:14Speaker 3: in my belt and a pride thing. You know, I've
- 9:16Speaker 3: been cleaned for this long. So I kind of had
- 9:20Speaker 3: a shot and it was no big deal, and I
- 9:25Speaker 3: thought I could do this once in a while, and
- 9:28Speaker 3: I kind of gave myself permission to keep doing that.
- 9:31Speaker 1: And how long now have you been doing that?
- 9:34Speaker 3: Oh? God, it's been about three and a half years.
- 9:37Speaker 1: Do you find, you know, drinking in front of friends
- 9:41Speaker 1: and family that their shows of concern harsher buzz in
- 9:45Speaker 1: a way?
- 9:47Speaker 3: No, not really, nobody's actually. I mean a couple of
- 9:51Speaker 3: people have asked, a few people have said, oh, oh,
- 9:54Speaker 3: you're drinking now, and most people are like, oh good, huh.
- 9:58Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 9:59Speaker 3: I think most people have felt like I took it
- 10:00Speaker 3: a bit too far. I think you're the only one
- 10:03Speaker 3: who's actually expressed concern.
- 10:11Speaker 1: Am I overthinking Tony's situation? Am I overthinking my own?
- 10:16Speaker 1: To that question, my father would probably say absolutely. Is
- 10:21Speaker 1: there Do you think there's any benefit to not drinking?
- 10:24Speaker 5: Nope?
- 10:26Speaker 1: After the break the man who raised me Week twenty eight,
- 10:44Speaker 1: I suggest to my therapist that maybe I've quit drinking
- 10:47Speaker 1: out of a kind of masochism and an ability to
- 10:50Speaker 1: just allow myself pleasure. I have friends who have quit
- 10:53Speaker 1: and feel better. They have more energy, their skin looks better.
- 10:57Speaker 1: I experience none of that. My therapist says, I drink
- 11:01Speaker 1: to avoid my feelings, which might be true, but I
- 11:04Speaker 1: also think it's helped me to embrace my feelings, to
- 11:07Speaker 1: love more freely. For one thing, drinking has helped me
- 11:11Speaker 1: bond with my father. When I go home to visit,
- 11:14Speaker 1: he leads me down to the basement, where in the
- 11:17Speaker 1: storage space under the stairs, alongside his high school diploma
- 11:21Speaker 1: and tax forms from the past thirty years, he keeps
- 11:24Speaker 1: a plastic jug of vodka. You go first, he whispers.
- 11:29Speaker 1: He whispers because he and my mother play a game
- 11:32Speaker 1: in which he pretends to hide his drinking and she
- 11:35Speaker 1: pretends not to know that he is hiding it. Since
- 11:38Speaker 1: stopping drinking, every time I see my dad, I remind
- 11:42Speaker 1: him that I've stopped drinking, but all the same, every
- 11:45Speaker 1: time he offers me a drink.
- 11:48Speaker 5: I'm beer. You don't drink beer at all?
- 11:50Speaker 1: No, no, no, I've found mind shift. I'm not drinking.
- 11:53Speaker 1: Then beer is drinking. Okay, it's still an alcoholic beverage,
- 12:00Speaker 1: right right right. My father is now ninety years old.
- 12:09Speaker 1: Would you say that overall drinking has had a positive
- 12:12Speaker 1: effect on your life or negative?
- 12:15Speaker 5: I'd say, for me positive because you know, sometimes you
- 12:18Speaker 5: get life gets a little boring. You got something a
- 12:20Speaker 5: little to look forward to. I have my what you
- 12:23Speaker 5: call my cocktail hour. Yeah, at night, when i know
- 12:27Speaker 5: I'm not going anywhere, I have a couple of shots.
- 12:29Speaker 1: Yes, and your shots, I mean I've seen your shots
- 12:33Speaker 1: are they're they're very generous, like a half a glass.
- 12:38Speaker 5: It's pretty far up above the bottom.
- 12:41Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one way of putting it, I guess.
- 12:44Speaker 5: And I never get drunk, never, never, never get drunk.
- 12:47Speaker 1: Well, what do you what do you call getting drunk?
- 12:51Speaker 5: Drunk is when the room shots spinning, and your you
- 12:54Speaker 5: feel like I want to throw up and you start whirling.
- 12:58Speaker 1: Around, right, But I mean that's getting that's getting sick already,
- 13:02Speaker 1: that's getting ill.
- 13:02Speaker 5: Yeah, but no, I never get drunk where I'm stupid
- 13:05Speaker 5: and I'm insulting or I'm this or that. No.
- 13:10Speaker 1: The first time I ever got drunk was with my father.
- 13:13Speaker 1: I was fourteen and we'd been invited to a rabbi's
- 13:15Speaker 1: house for Sukkot. I sat beside an Israeli man in
- 13:19Speaker 1: a paper yamulka who filled and refilled my plastic cup
- 13:23Speaker 1: with vodka. We talked about deep things like God and creation.
- 13:27Speaker 1: It felt like this kind of talk was fueled on vodka.
- 13:30Speaker 1: That vodka allowed a person to see that the world
- 13:33Speaker 1: was really all spirit. The rabbi explained how we were
- 13:37Speaker 1: on the edge of the Messianic age and that at
- 13:40Speaker 1: any time now the Messiah or Mashiah would appear. Slowly
- 13:45Speaker 1: and with some effort. My father rose from his chair
- 13:48Speaker 1: and quieted down the room. I remember it took a while,
- 13:52Speaker 1: but my father was insistent. It was then that he
- 13:55Speaker 1: pointed to the rabbi and made his great declaration. Oh
- 14:00Speaker 1: that's right, you announced. He announced the rabbi as the Messiah.
- 14:04Speaker 5: That. Yeah, I was. I was drunk. I mean that
- 14:12Speaker 5: was that was too much?
- 14:13Speaker 1: Do you remember the response that it got kind of stupid,
- 14:18Speaker 1: just silent. Everyone was stunned.
- 14:21Speaker 5: Yeah, it was kind of stupid.
- 14:24Speaker 1: The next morning, I awoke in our basement, on the
- 14:26Speaker 1: floor and still dressed from the night before. My head hurt,
- 14:30Speaker 1: but it felt adult a fair price to pay for
- 14:33Speaker 1: the evening. Just as I drank with my father, My
- 14:43Speaker 1: father drank with his father. Did he drink much?
- 14:47Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I'm sure he did. When I got older,
- 14:50Speaker 5: I started joining. Um huh, kind of dreaded, you know.
- 14:54Speaker 5: But he would get really stupid, and then he would
- 14:56Speaker 5: throw up, and he gets sloppy. It was, you know, nisty.
- 14:59Speaker 1: No, did he ever get violent when he was drinking.
- 15:04Speaker 5: Not while he was drunk. No, No, he was only
- 15:06Speaker 5: got violent when he was sober. Yeah, yeah, he was
- 15:10Speaker 5: good nature when he was drunk.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Week forty four. In the early days just after Oggie
- 15:18Speaker 1: was born, I'd sit in our tiny Brooklyn kitchen sipping
- 15:21Speaker 1: bourbon until all hours of the night. All day was
- 15:25Speaker 1: spent with worries was our baby peeing enough, eating enough?
- 15:29Speaker 1: But at night I drank. It evened me out and
- 15:33Speaker 1: allowed for a feeling of bliss, perhaps the only bliss
- 15:36Speaker 1: I've ever known. While other forms of joy were complicated
- 15:40Speaker 1: by guilt or intrusive thoughts, drinking alone in that kitchen
- 15:44Speaker 1: was always simple. There was a liquor store across the street,
- 15:48Speaker 1: and seeing it through the window, luminous in the night,
- 15:51Speaker 1: stalked with all those bottles representing the nights of drinking
- 15:55Speaker 1: that lay ahead, made me feel like everything was going
- 15:58Speaker 1: to be all right. Night after night in that small
- 16:01Speaker 1: Brooklyn kitchen, I drank and watched YouTube videos of old
- 16:05Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis appearances on talk shows, and kissed the top
- 16:08Speaker 1: of our baby head. Each night was like biting into
- 16:12Speaker 1: the first square of a mile long Hershey's chocolate bar.
- 16:16Speaker 1: But as blissful as that time was, when I think
- 16:19Speaker 1: back on it, I'm unable to recall very much. It's
- 16:22Speaker 1: all a vague talgone bath. That is the exchange I made.
- 16:30Speaker 1: What did you have for breakfast? Week fifty two?
- 16:34Speaker 4: Yogurt with gia seeds and pumpkin seeds and apple sauce.
- 16:40Speaker 1: You know what I find fun about gia seeds is
- 16:42Speaker 1: like finding them in your teeth an hour after you
- 16:45Speaker 1: ate and enjoying them.
- 16:48Speaker 4: If you really like every want to kiss me ever again,
- 16:51Speaker 4: I would suggest stopping this conversation right now.
- 16:55Speaker 1: My wife, Emily and I are about to walk to
- 16:57Speaker 1: Aggie school to pick him up. Aggie's now in the
- 17:00Speaker 1: second grade. Before we set out, I asked Emily if
- 17:03Speaker 1: we could talk for a minute. It's now been over
- 17:07Speaker 1: a year that I have stopped drinking. Did you ever
- 17:10Speaker 1: think i'd I get here?
- 17:13Speaker 4: I'm sure there was specific incidents where I expected you
- 17:19Speaker 4: to relapse. If we're going to call it that, I'm
- 17:23Speaker 4: not gonna lie. I've missed it every once in a while.
- 17:28Speaker 1: You knows missed my drinking.
- 17:30Speaker 4: Yeah, you weren't a stumbling drunk, You weren't a mean drunk.
- 17:34Speaker 4: You weren't really a drunk. And I think that that
- 17:37Speaker 4: was confusing to me in some ways because you drank
- 17:42Speaker 4: every night, I mean kind of a lot. I can
- 17:46Speaker 4: only remember a handful or fewer fewer than a handful
- 17:50Speaker 4: of times where I ever looked at you and thought
- 17:53Speaker 4: to myself, oh, he's drunk. There was one night, do
- 17:58Speaker 4: you know what I'm going to say?
- 17:59Speaker 1: Was this the oceans night?
- 18:01Speaker 4: Yes?
- 18:02Speaker 1: Wait, I was roofed that night.
- 18:05Speaker 4: You were not roofed. You were drunk drunk.
- 18:09Speaker 1: I think we were targeted by thieves.
- 18:12Speaker 4: I was sober. I mean I had probably had a
- 18:14Speaker 4: drink or two. There weren't any roofies in my drink. No,
- 18:17Speaker 4: you too. It was your birthday, right, Yeah, and it
- 18:21Speaker 4: got incredibly excessive and I had to essentially carry you
- 18:26Speaker 4: about six blocks home. I kind of want to take
- 18:31Speaker 4: my glasses off so I can't really see your face
- 18:34Speaker 4: at this moment. Is that okay? Yeah?
- 18:36Speaker 1: Why? I don't know.
- 18:39Speaker 4: It's a little hard to talk about. I mean, I
- 18:46Speaker 4: want to say this, just like, very clearly. I'm very
- 18:49Speaker 4: happy you stopped drinking. I do think that you are
- 18:56Speaker 4: a significantly better parent than you were when you were drinking.
- 19:04Speaker 4: I think you're just here with us in a different way.
- 19:08Speaker 4: I think you're more present I think you're more consistent.
- 19:11Speaker 4: I think you're more stable. It's just like you have
- 19:14Speaker 4: access to a different part of yourself. It seems to
- 19:18Speaker 4: me now. I even just want to say, you have
- 19:21Speaker 4: access to yourself now in a way that you just didn't.
- 19:27Speaker 4: And I think I feel that, but I think he
- 19:31Speaker 4: feels it more. And I feel like he's proud of you.
- 19:40Speaker 4: And I don't mean proud in the sense that he's like, oh,
- 19:42Speaker 4: my dad doesn't drink. I think he's just more proud
- 19:46Speaker 4: of and attracted to the person that you are sober
- 19:51Speaker 4: than the person that you were before.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Week fifty three. Today is the first real snowfall of
- 20:05Speaker 1: the year, and I'm walking along a path in the
- 20:08Speaker 1: woods nearer house. At a certain point, I can feel
- 20:11Speaker 1: my pace begin to slow, and eventually I come to
- 20:15Speaker 1: a standstill. It's serene, and a part of me just
- 20:18Speaker 1: wants to melt into the scene. I don't mean I
- 20:21Speaker 1: want to admire it or write a poem about it.
- 20:24Speaker 1: A part of me just wants to wander off the path,
- 20:27Speaker 1: curl up beside a tree, and let the snow cover me.
- 20:31Speaker 1: I don't know that i'd call this feeling depressive or anything.
- 20:35Speaker 1: It's just a feeling of wanting to hit the pause
- 20:37Speaker 1: button on life. It's a feeling of wanting, if only
- 20:40Speaker 1: for a while, the pleasure of complete surrender, of giving up,
- 20:45Speaker 1: but instead I keep going. This episode of Heavyweight was
- 21:10Speaker 1: produced by me Jonathan Goldstein, along with senior producer Khalila Holt,
- 21:14Speaker 1: Supervising producer Stevie Lane, and Phoebe Flanagain. Our production council
- 21:19Speaker 1: is Jake Flanagin. Marcelo de Olivera mixed the episode with
- 21:23Speaker 1: original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions,
- 21:28Speaker 1: and Bobby Lord. A special shout out to Howard Chakowitz,
- 21:31Speaker 1: who Tony wanted it known also expressed concern. Follow us
- 21:35Speaker 1: on Twitter at Heavyweight, Instagram at Heavyweight podcast, or email
- 21:39Speaker 1: us at Heavyweight at Pushkin dot Fm. We're still looking
- 21:43Speaker 1: for your stories, so please keep them coming. We'll be
- 21:46Speaker 1: back next week with an encore presentation of the Gregor episode,
- 21:50Speaker 1: which will include an update from the titular Gregor, so
- 21:53Speaker 1: tune in