High Score

“We need normalcy,” we say as we sit in the park, shoulder to shoulder, after work and every weekend. Life is scary right now, and we are searching for stability amidst this new normal: a pandemic rages, my friends’ marriages are dissolving, and I often feel that I am dying inside.

The park is tiny, a fifteen-foot by twenty-foot patch of grass abutting an apartment building, a bar, and the Merrimack River, but somehow this litt spot make the chaos fade away.

My husband and I bring mini coolers and schlep the cornhole boards down three flights of narrow stairs to spend time with anyone who will join us. We ignore the CDC's direction to be 6 feet apart.

We have a rotating crew of friends here: coworkers and their partners, friends from the bar, boys from the disc golf course, the woman from the MBA program. None of these people knew one another before this, but now they are our only link to our old lives.

We do not even make formal plans anymore. Everyone knows we will be here, cultivating community and cracking beers. We are lonely, so we come to talk about nothing and enjoy the sunshine.

An iPhone camera snaps the moments. The dogs pant and hide in the shade.

Fear can't touch us. When someone brings it up—the government, an affair, workplace instability—the worry dies mid-air.

Everything is beautiful so long as we are in this park. It is our respite, and we defend it at all costs.

On a Saturday that mirrors all the others, I wake early and pad to the kitchen to chug a mug of water while the coffee brews. My mouth is sour and metallic. I must have thrown up last night, but I do not remember.

I check the notes app on my phone to see if I left myself any clues. My husband’s been quizzing me about the night before a lot when he wakes up, so I’ve had to take notes.

I’ve been forgetting a lot of things.

It used to be endearing in a wild, fun way, but now it’s getting annoying.

There are no notes, which I hope means there is nothing worth being quizzed on. I fight the rising anxiety my blackouts always bring, gather my ‘good kid’ morning supplies, and head to the roof of our apartment building.

Good people wake up early and see the sunrise. I want to be good, so I spend my mornings up here—journaling, watching the sunrise, drinking coffee.

This morning, the sunrise is pink and blue, but there aren’t enough clouds to make it brilliant. I snap a picture for Instagram, then pick up my pen to journal. But it doesn’t work.

My hand is shaking so much that I can’t grip the pen right.

I flick my wrists violently, as if to dispel the shakes and try again.

No luck.

I begin the less Instagram-worthy part of my morning routine and Google hands shaking in the morning, NOT ALCOHOL.

I’ve been on a quest to figure out this phantom neurological condition for weeks. My PCP has been of no help. Every few days, I read WebMD articles about all the things that could be wrong with me.

The first page is always about drinking, no matter how much I specify not to include those options. As always, it suggests a quiz on alcoholism. I’ve taken it half a dozen times—it will say I drink a lot, but I am fine—Medium Risk.

But I can’t journal, and google has offered a new unclicked hyperlink quiz, so I take it again to reassure myself.

How often do you have a drink?

‘Daily.’

But I am 27 and all my friends are drinking daily too.

How much do you drink in a day?

4-12 drinks.

The quiz ranges are much tighter than this, so I select the ‘3-4 drinks’ bucket.

That’s true of most weekdays, anyway.

A nagging voice in my head makes me hesitate. This week, my husband and I recently moved from drinking a bottle of wine each to drinking three between us.

But it’s just an off week; the quiz is looking for overall patterns.

I leave ‘3-4 drinks’ clicked and scroll on before I can keep thinking about it.

How often do you drink 6+ servings in a day?

I roll my eyes. Every weekend, but that’s just how time works. When you start drinking at 11 am, you have twelve hours of drinking. It would be weird not to have 6+ drinks.

The quiz doesn’t let me explain.

I select ‘weekly’.

During the past year, how often are you unable to stop once you’d started?

I don’t understand the question.

What does that mean, 'unable to stop'? Over the winter, when my husband almost broke his ankle skiing, I had to bring him to the hospital, so I’d stopped drinking.

But there haven’t been any other reasons to stop.

But I could stop.

I mark ‘never’ and pat myself on the back.

During the past year, how often have you failed to follow through on commitments because of drinking?

Another easy win! I congratulate myself.

I go to work every day and win awards for my performance. Though I am often hungover, I am never drunk at work. I even run and teach yoga during my lunch break. I am the epitome of health.

Plus, I have no other commitments that do not involve drinking.

Sure, before the pandemic, sometimes my classmates and I would go to the bar before class and then skip International Accounting, but that’s a choice. That was because we were prioritizing connection over stupid coursework.

And anyway, I am getting all A’s in my classes.

I click ‘Never’.

I wish I could select it three times to show the quiz how functional I am.

During the past year, how often do you need a drink to get started in the morning?

‘Never.’

Sometimes the quizzes ask if you drink in the morning, and I have to go through the mental exercise of explaining that we often choose to drink at 8 am, but mimosas on the weekend are a luxury, a fun and whimsical way to start the day. And although 11 am is when we crack open beers at the park, that’s basically afternoon. After all, it’s the weekend.

But this quiz specifies the need for a drink. I never need a drink in the morning.

Three nevers in a row is a very good sign.

How often do you wake feeling guilt or remorse in the morning?

I think of the notes on my phone. The fights my husband and I are always getting into. The void of despair in my chest.

I click ‘Daily’ and stare at the selection.

My chest aches that this is the truth. I’ve been working so hard on my mental health to no avail.

During the past year, how often are you unable to remember what happened the next morning?

I know this is one of the penultimate questions; it’s identical on every quiz.

I want to explain to the quiz that alcohol has always made me black out since I was 18. That’s abnormal and I should get a pass because my body just does this.

It used to be less, but I am getting older.

I chose ‘weekly’ and scroll down, feeling guilty.

Have you ever injured someone else because of your drinking?

An easy win.

I do not throw punches or drive drunk.

I just snark at my husband, or he snarks at me, but no one gets physically hurt.

We yell and cry, and then I throw up, but no one is hurt.

I mark ‘never’. Click it twice for good measure.

Has anyone expressed concern about your drinking?

I smile again. Never. Only me. And I only worry when I am feeling really shitty.

I’d even asked our couples therapist about the drinking several years ago, and she had dismissed it unequivocally. I’d called my mom to tell her the prognosis.

“She says we are definitely not alcoholics because we can stop for days to weeks at a time,” I’d proclaimed.

That’s the opposite of concern about my drinking, and she was a professional.

I mark a defiant ‘No’.

The quiz calculates while I wait for it to give me my normal answer.

The sun is up now, and beads of sweat drip down my back. As I pull my sweatshirt off, the tequila stench of my own skin hits me, and I wince.

I’ll need to shower before the park.

I usually shower at night. Why would I skip a shower? The ghost of last night hangs just out of reach.

I pick up the pen again and watch it vibrate in my hand. I will it to be still, steady, but it shakes and shakes.

Frustrated, I pick up my phone ready to be reassured that I am fine.

But, this quiz has populated a response I’ve never seen before. My head swims; my mouth hangs open. I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs.

HIGH SCORE

Your score is 15, which indicates that you are likely to have alcohol dependence.

It is important that you take action on this, and we recommend you meet with your medical doctor/physician.

Then, it gives a list of AA meetings.

I fight the urge to vomit and set the phone down.

“Not possible,” I whisper into the clear sky. The quiz was supposed to make me feel better, not worse.

A tiny part of me worries it is right, while the rest of me wages an angry revolt, reiterating all my successes and accolades the quiz failed to ask about.

I lay there staring into the sky, morose until my husband comes out.

He sits next to me on the blanket and sips my coffee. He does not ask me anything about the night before. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“I took a quiz, and it says I’m an alcoholic,” I whisper to him. His eyebrows crease, but he nods.

He’s been telling me we both are for years.

I am sweating more now—from the summer sun or the panic, I cannot tell.

“Should we go to AA? Online, of course; we can’t go in person.”

His eyebrows raise. His eyes are bleary with sleep and a hangover he won’t acknowledge.

“You can go,” he looks over the city skyline, “if that’s what you want to do.”

I nod, heart sinking. I’ve been abandoned. He said we are alcoholics, but he’s sending me into this alone.

I sign onto my first AA meeting at 9 am and profess my alcoholism. I message a normal-looking woman my phone number and ask her to be my sponsor like they say I should.

She agrees and says we will talk tomorrow.

At 11 am, like always, my husband and I walk to the park—cornhole boards, cooler, dogs. The shaking in my hands has stopped, but I am still vibrating with anxiety.

I chug my water bottle within minutes and am frustrated to be here today.

No one asks why I am not drinking, but I rush to tell them I fear I am an alcoholic.

Everyone laughs.

“We all drink a lot,” they say.

My mood brightens.

“Yes,” I tell them. “That is what I thought too! But the quiz…”

Someone plays me a comedy clip mocking the quiz, and everyone reassures me that there is nothing to worry about.

Fear dies in the air here.

I breathe in humid gulps, grateful for these people who keep me oriented.

I could hug them, but I don’t.

Someone winks at me and reminds me I cannot be an alcoholic because pumpkin beers just hit the shelves.

“I know how much you love Shipyards, so I got this for you, even though it’s NOT fall yet!”

The bottle opens with a hiss, and he hands it to me.

I take a sip and am awash in relief.

I text the woman who I’d asked to be my sponsor an hour before that I am drinking.

Her three dots show me that she is typing back. I turn on Do Not Disturb and slide my phone into my back pocket.

Someone orders French fries from the bar.

My dog chases a frisbee until he can’t stand up anymore. We forgot to bring the dogs water.

I open another beer.

Then another.

Then another.

Gratitude consumes me.

Thank God I am not an alcoholic.

Thank God I have this place.

Tomorrow we will be back in the park.

Next weekend there will be different friends.

Next month, a psychiatrist who says he cannot out-medicate my drinking will replace the quiz.

We will laugh at him, too.