A Tale of Two Thanksgivings

Forty years ago this week – on the day before Thanksgiving – I finally hit a bottom because of my drinking; "a" bottom but not "the" bottom.

As they say, every bottom has a trap door, as I found out when I insisted on my right to keep drinking – in this case, for another seven years and another, even lower bottom.

Several months earlier, a six-month affair with a co-worker had destroyed what was left of my eight-year marriage. Now, as the holiday season approached, I was tormented by guilt and indecision, spending hours after work that day alternating phone calls -- between an angry ex-wife and an impatient girlfriend -- while dulling the pain of their mutual disappointment with one rum and coke after another.

By 10:30 that Wednesday night, I was finally ready to drive to the girlfriend’s house, but decided to stop on the way to get a burger since there was nothing in my stomach but the better part of a quart of rum.

Apparently, my erratic approach to the drive-through window caught the attention of a fast-food worker because about a block later, I was being pulled over for a roadside sobriety test, which I promptly failed. It was the start of a very long night of being hauled from one form of lockup to another.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, my girlfriend came out looking for me and discovered what had happened. She arranged for a friend to come stay with her two young sons at 5am the next morning so she could bail me out of jail -- just in time for me to drive them all, later that day, to her family's house, more two hours away.

There, I spent the longest days of my life (up to that point) nursing a throbbing hangover and pretending to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with her relatives – none of whom drank and of course, assumed that I didn’t either.

Still, anyone who would bail you out of jail at 5 in the morning must love you a lot, right? So eventually, I talked her into marrying me. And then I kept on drinking until that marriage, too, came crashing to an end. That’s when I finally got “the gift of desperation.” On February 6, 1990, I crawled into the rooms of a well-known 12 Step program and found that yet another gift, the gift of sobriety, was sitting there, waiting for me.

Amazingly, just nine months later, I found myself celebrating my first sober Thanksgiving. I was surrounded by a dozen or so recovering “orphans” – sober folks like me who were alone on this holiday. But together, we pitched in together to create an outstanding Thanksgiving feast that was nourishing in more ways than one.

One of the busiest folks in the kitchen and the happiest that day was “John the cook.” Until recently, John had served as the head cook on a merchant marine ship, a job he lost when he starting drinking again.

He said he’d been sober for over 18 years when he relapsed. He got a resentment after he gave a co-worker a large sum of money to invest for him; the investment crashed and John lost his entire life savings. For now, John was back in meetings again, adding that while he had forgiven his co-worker for what happened, he had not yet forgiven God. “How could God let this happen to me?” he shared at meetings, adding that was something he would have to let go of, if he ever hoped to stay sober. As it was, he barely had a week or so of sobriety.

On that Thanksgiving, however, John was sober and really in his element, cheerfully suggesting what to do next and magically cooking up the juiciest, most delicious turkey dinner I’d ever eaten. He was literally basking in the love and attention of his fellow 12 Step members all evening, as he entertained us with colorful stories about his former life on the high seas.

Unfortunately, the glow of that evening for John ended just after the holidays did. He was never able to “forgive God” and find his sobriety again. And as the new year dawned, we learned that John had died in a fire in his apartment. It started when he passed out in front of the TV set on New Year’s Eve… drinking and smoking.

“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it,” it says in our Book, and when it comes to these two Thanksgiving holidays, the statement is as true as it is poignant.

I still feel sad that John wasn’t able to stay sober but I don’t regret what happened: he helped me realize in my very first year of sobriety that alcoholism really is “cunning, baffling and powerful” – as well as deadly. As a result, I’ve continued to make “living amends” for the pain I often caused loved ones, especially during the holidays.

I also understand that this is a gift I get to receive every year when the holidays roll around.

I get to recall the stark difference in my life on those two very different Thanksgiving holidays: the first, a day filled with guilt, shame, remorse and resentment… and the other, a day filled with love, joy and true gratitude for the life that I’ve been given.

I realize all over again that Thanksgiving Day is the day I get to share my gratitude -- with everyone I meet or spend time with -- on any day of the year I choose.