Millie is a sober addict so she ordered an expensive mocktail with a cherry. The bartender brought me an old Fashioned in a pretty rocks glass.
“Let me sniff it,” Millie said, ogling my drink.
“What?” I responded.
“I won’t drink it. I’m not about to cash in my AA chip for a basic old fashioned.”
“I don’t know. It’s a pretty good old fashioned,” I said somewhat jokingly.
Millie huffed.
“Let me smell your drink!” she insisted.
“OK, OK,” I conceded.
Millie inhaled the scent with her eyes closed. The whiskey. The sugar cube. The bitters. What an addict.
“Don’t put your nose on my ice cube!”
Millie ignores me, opened her eyes and peered deep into my drink’s amber whiskey. She wants to dive in.
“If you start drinking again, how will I know?” I asked.
“I’ll be out of work by the end of the week,” she replied.
“Grim.”
Impulsively, she stuck her tongue in my drink then quickly pulled it back into her mouth—yes, like a lizard.
“Give me that!” I said, snatching my old fashioned away from her.
She pretended I was overreacting.
“Stop worrying. I didn’t drink it.”
“What are you, a lawyer?” I asked sarcastically.
Millie and I dated briefly, but I wasn’t an addict or a sober addict, so we weren’t a match.
Chris Rock used to joke that a good match is when two crackheads get together: “Because you both got the same goal! You both wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hey, baby, how are we gonna get this $20 today?’”
I fell for Millie because she latched onto me hard. I thought she was head over heels. I got addicted to her codependence. One problem was: I’ve never done crack. Worse: Millie was a dry drunk.
What’s a Dry Drunk?
A dry drunk doesn’t drink anymore, but they’re still doing, saying and thinking toxic behavior patterns from their blackout-drunk days.
For instance, Millie is dependably irritable; she lashes out at people for no reason; she lies, schemes and manipulates for amusement; she walks five steps in front of me like a maniac; she blames everybody for everything; she never says “please,” “thanks” or “I’m sorry.” And, she’s generally the most self-centered know-it-all in the world. Walking away felt less like heartbreak and more like survival.
Millie ordered another mocktail. She looks like a lost little girl and has that glaze in her eyes that says
I can’t believe I can’t drink, I can’t believe I can’t drink ….
“You’re lucky I still talk to you,” I said.
“I know.”
Ryan’s Ordeal
My friend Ryan is dating a sober addict named Eva. He and I met for breakfast one morning. As Ryan cut his eggs, he told me that Eva felt magical at first. Not because she’s great; she’s funny, awful and cute, in that order.
But Ryan thinks of himself as her knight in shining armor, helping her stay clean. To do this, he makes himself available to sober Eva every hour of the day so she won’t have the freedom to race to a bar, get plowed and screw a stranger in the bathroom.
“She calls me from work, from the car and from her mom’s house. She follows me to the bathroom when I pee. She’s on my dick 24/7.”
“Oh, I know this routine. I dated a sober girl like that,” I said. “Eva’s making you her AA sponsor.”
Ryan looked up from his eggs Benedict.
“That’s it exactly,” he agreed.
“Are you keeping her sober?”
“No!”
“Why not?” I questioned.
“I’ll tell you ‘why not.’ She convinced her doctors to put her on ADHD drugs, so now she’s zooming all over the place like a schnoodle.”
“Schnoodle?” I said, bewildered.
“She’s popping some opioids her ex left in her bathroom. She drinks NyQuil. She’s on prescription sleep meds. And she vapes weed and nicotine.”
“Oh she’s ‘California sober’—she does everything but booze,” I said.
“Well, her boss, who she fucked and then got her job, puts alcohol on her desk. He told her, ‘I don’t have any use for you if you’re not drinking.’”
“Let’s go beat him up,” I suggested. “You’ve gotta get out of this relationship.”
“I know, but …” Ryan said hesitantly.
“But what?”
“I got used to it! I can’t stop myself from wanting to fix her!” Ryan admitted.
“But you’re not fixing her, because she’s using. The only person who can save her is her,” I explained.
He stared at his plate of eggs and toast. They were getting cold.
Me? I was enjoying my pancakes. I was feeling an inappropriate surge of relief because I was no longer dating a sober addict.
“Hey, are you gonna eat that toast?” I asked him.
