I can’t tell you how proud I am of Alexandra Desbrow, the author of this piece.  This is a chapter from her book in progress.  It’s so terrific, I just have to share it with you, with her permission of course. This is how you stay in a very unpleasant moment, make it visceral for your reader. Notice the mix of scene, backstory, and exposition.

“What do you want to drink?”

“A seltzer with lime please.”

“A what?” she says as she turns her head from trying to get the bartender’s attention and looks at me, longer than necessary, to make sure she understands correctly.

“Are you sure?  Do you want a glass of wine? How about a drink like a vodka tonic?”

“No thanks. I just want seltzer.”

She’s staring at me like I just said something in Chinese.

“Are you sure I can’t get you something else?” she says with a puzzled expression. She’s understandably confused because, ever since we were freshman in college, we’ve gone to bars or parties together basically every weekend where we would drink and socialize.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Come on.  How about just one drink?” she pushes one last time as her 25-year-old head tries to get her head around the idea of being sober at a bar in Manhattan at 9pm on a Saturday.

“No thanks, I don’t drink anymore.”

Without saying anything, Noel turns her attention back to trying to order.

I could explain that during my walkabout I quit drinking because I didn’t like my relationship to alcohol and wanted to change it. But she wouldn’t understand.

She wouldn’t understand because I had what most people would call a “normal” relationship to alcohol. I only drank when I was out with friends; I got no more or less drunk than everyone else I knew; and I didn’t have “problems” like drinking in the morning before work, or drinking at home alone, or blacking out every night.

But I knew I felt the need to drink (and drink the whole night) when I was out at a bar or party or dinner because it felt good and was fun. A part of me also needed alcohol to allow me to even be in those settings. I was dependent on alcohol when I went out socializing at loud, unsettling bars and restaurants. I hated that I needed a drink in order to avoid feeling uncomfortable, or annoyed, or insecure, or unhappy. Why couldn’t I have no drink when I was out, or be able to have one drink, or to have 10?

Because I felt like alcohol had a power over me.

I couldn’t ignore that deep down I knew that wasn’t the relationship I wanted or thought was healthy. I had to do something about it. Anything. Or it would just continue; probably get worse.

The only way I knew how to change alcohol’s influence on me was to give it up completely (possibly forever). I just knew that giving it up would force me to face what I needed to face because I would no longer be able to numb myself with it. I just knew I had to stop suppressing my feelings with alcohol and face head on whatever was there no matter how uncomfortable. If I kept resisting those feelings, they would keep persisting so it was time to handle once and for all whatever drinking allowed me to suppress.

Noel turns her head to check and make sure I’m still here. How could she begin to understand that, since I had my defining moment of awareness and learned and experienced that a different me existed inside of me, the only thing that matters to me now is my ability to recreate that experience, to live that way.

I’m so deeply committed to figuring out how to take the edge off (without substances like alcohol) and live with the edge off, that I’m willing to do whatever it takes, even not drink for the rest of my life.  Heck, I don’t understand it, but I just know that this commitment is more important than anything else so I have to be willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.

Noel is unwavering in her commitment to get the bartender’s attention, and I can tell from the way she’s ignoring me that she’s annoyed with me. Maybe she thinks that because I’m not drinking there’s no way it can be a fun night. Maybe she’s self-conscious about drinking now because she knows I’m going to be aware of and able to remember any ridiculous thing she may say or do during the night.  Or maybe she’s highly invested in my drinking because, when I don’t drink, it starts to threaten an aspect of who she is and everything she believes about drinking (and having fun). Or maybe I’m just projecting what my thoughts would have been a year ago if Noel told me the same thing.

Five minutes have gone by. There’s no way I’m going to be able to stay until 4am like I used to and endure a full seven hours of standing there being pushed from every direction by streams of drunk people with no body awareness trying to get by me despite it being too crowded to comfortably do so. I’m already shifting in pain as my legs try to balance on 2 inch stiletto heels. Why didn’t I just wear flats? No matter what shoes I wear, pretty much everyone is taller than me, so it feels like I keep being bulldozed like a non-existent insect, which makes me feel even more like I’m an invisible piece of nothing.

Ten minutes have gone by. Now I’m getting annoyed because we’re just standing there and making what seems like no progress. We’re behind two rows of people who still need to order their drinks and the guys in front of us are too tall and big that there’s no way we will ever get the bartender’s attention unless we, at some point, move in front of them.  We can barely see what’s going on, so we painfully wait and trust that we’re getting closer.  But, even once the people first in line have gotten their drinks, we’ll probably be stuck here in no man’s land because the bar is so packed there’s no place for anyone to move.

I’m probably irrationally annoyed but my not drinking makes everything I feel seem 1,000 times worse because there’s nothing to temper it. I have to feel everything that’s happening inside of me when I don’t have my alcohol crutch.

I’m starting to feel that sense of loneliness, despite being in a room full of people, including Noel and eventually three of our other friends. I’m starting to feel even more inferior as I keep watching the tall, skinny, beautiful, fashionable women, who glide effortlessly through the bar. Miraculously there’s room for men to part like the Red Sea to ogle.  I watch as these women get attention from the jerks I don’t even want attention from. Yet, a part of me does want their attention, at least once in a night, so I can feel beautiful, desired or just noticed.

I can’t believe I agreed to go out. I’ve been back in New York City from my walkabout for five months and I haven’t been out like this yet.  I just wasn’t able to face it.  I’m different from my friends now.  They’re still going to cheesy Upper East Side bars like Dorion’s until 4 a.m., and I think it’s a waste of time.  Talking about nothing for hours, in a loud crowded bar, fighting to pay for a $10 drink only to find that you need another one half an hour later and that you’re going to keep buying them until the bar closes. Then on top of that, they’ve not only wasted one whole night, but the whole next day recovering from a hangover and lack of sleep.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath so I can pretend for a moment that I’m anywhere but here.

I know how this night will go. I’ll be screaming at the top of my lungs, repeating myself and straining my vocal cords and eardrums in order to have a simple and pointless conversation over loud and terribly cheesy music that won’t ever stop. As the night progresses it’ll take people ten times as long to get one dumb sentence or point across that they think is so meaningful. We’ll be merging our mouths and ears to talk and hear each other over the music and because we’re packed in so tightly there will be no escaping the stench of their breathe, which reeks of booze.  And since they’ll have no body awareness, especially as the night progresses, I’ll feel disgusting sprinkles of spit as they talk and I’ll have to keep dodging their elbows and bodies because they’ll be swaying and coming in too close.

Not drinking has been hard, but it’s even harder right now because I’m stuck in a long, very narrow, rectangular room with generic sports paraphernalia on the walls and a bar that takes up the entire length of the room. The bar takes up so much space that the area for people to stand and walk is completely inadequate. You can’t believe the number of people shoved inside the space. Surely this is a fire hazard. They can barely squeeze past each other.

Plus, it smells like a garbage can that hasn’t been cleaned in a year, which isn’t surprising because the floor is sticky from all the alcohol that spills as people pass each other jostling drinks.  Even the people standing in one place can’t keep liquid in their glasses because they’re so drunk from being there all night. They can only seem to communicate with uncoordinated, exaggerated movements, which is not a good combination when holding a drink.

All I can see around me are bodies. Because I’m 5’2” and we’re so tightly packed my level of sight is at most people’s chest level. That also means my nose has a front row seat to way too many smelly armpits. And I’m forced to listen to an awful pop hit on Z100, played obnoxiously loud, and competing with a 100 different conversations. All I can hear is the din; except when, every now and then, a high-pitched female voice stands out, a squeal of excitement when seeing a friend.

I’m startled out of trying to pretend to be somewhere else. A guy who’s easily a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier reminds me where I am. He practically knocks me over as he tries to get by.

“That’s it,” I feel my body say. Every part of me wants to storm out of the bar like a raging lunatic who’s been stuck in a room with no oxygen for 20 minutes. I desperately need to get out to gasp for breath.

But I can’t. Noel will be so mad at me if I leave her. It’s just the two of us for now and we’ve only been here 15 minutes and I haven’t seen her in months because I knew I couldn’t handle this exact experience.

If I have to be here, I desperately want a way to make the excruciating feelings go away. It would be so easy to tell Noel that I changed my mind, I do want a vodka tonic, but I know this is where the rubber meets the road, and I have to stay strong.

After eight months of not drinking, my taste buds and tolerance have changed and I know that eventually there will be a time when I actually won’t remotely crave alcohol, that I’ll actually find it disgusting. Kind of like what happens to smokers. I can already tell this is happening because I can no longer tolerate then smell of shots, and most of the time I have no desire to have alcohol.  It’s so liberating, and because of that, I thought I was ready to go to a bar.

But here, I’m like Pavlov’s dog. The clink of glasses, the incessant noise, the uncontrollable need to be anywhere but where I am, and I’m triggered into wanting a vodka tonic. I know eventually I’ll be able to be in a bar and not even remotely want a drink, but for now, I have to face what there is to face.

I tell myself that the vodka tonic would only be a temporary fix to help me handle what I’m feeling in this moment.

I tell myself that I don’t need the vodka tonics to get through it.

I tell myself that eventually the storm of emotions will pass, and that, when I haven’t given into the crutch, I’ll not only feel the quiet after the storm, but an even better reward.

I’ve done this before.  For my whole life, I’ve forced myself to face uncomfortable feelings and push through them to get to the other side. Its like in high school when I trained all summer to run two miles in under twelve minutes to make the Division I varsity soccer team in college, or when I decided to run the LA marathon for Spring break in college so I’d know what it felt like to run a marathon, or after college when I pulled all nighters in investment banking to get presentations done, or on my walkabout when I hiked over 19,000 feet in Nepal to get to the top of a glacier, or in high school when my first love broke up with me and I didn’t allow myself to call him back. Ever.

I’ve always had strong willpower because I could just keep my focus on the long term reward and allow myself to experience and move past the temporary “pain” and discomfort. I motivated myself to do this because I knew the long term reward was so much greater; it was what I really wanted.  No one taught me this. I learned how to be that way through experience.  Each time I’d feel the pleasure of the long term reward outweigh the temporary pain; my level of commitment was reinforced. I learned that I had the capacity to develop that willpower skill/muscle.

Finally there’s progress as I see the guys in front of us. They now have their drinks.

I know that I just have to keep focusing on how empowering it will be to wake up in the morning knowing that I didn’t cave into drinking. I know that winning today’s battle means I’m that much closer to winning my war on alcohol, which is far more important than the temporary relief I’d get with a drink.

It’s hard to think like this because nothing in this moment at the bar or in my life feels empowering.  All I want to do is run out of here and all the way home into bed, or down vodka tonics until I feel great (for the next few hours), no matter what’s going on around me.

What’s happening? The guys in front have their drinks but they’re not moving.  Noel is still stuck behind them. Don’t they fucking know that she wants to get through?  Of course they’re not moving out of the way to let her through, because they’re completely self-focused and inconsiderate and unaware and drunk.  I see Noel pushing them hard enough so that they realize all they need to do is shimmy over so she can swap spots with them and be first in line to order our drinks.

While I’m not allowing myself to drink alcohol, I NEED to hold something and drink something, to get through this night.  Water, seltzer, cranberry juice; it doesn’t matter.  I just need a little bit of help to sooth the uncontrollable,intense feelings inside me.

Ahhh. I see Noel trying to squeeze out from behind the people with two drinks in hand. As she stretches her left arm out ,I grab the glass she’s holding because I know she’s desperate to give herself a better chance of pulling her whole body out without spilling her drink.

She hands me my seltzer, not her Jack and Coke, and as my hand wraps around my glass, something in me starts to quell like a baby who has just been given a pacifier.

My body needed that “drink”.  I need to do something to take me away from what I’m feeling.  I quickly squeeze the lime and then take a big sip from the straw and feel a surge of comfort as the bubbles hit my throat and I taste the clear liquid with a hint of lime.

I know at some point I’ll get to a place where I can go out and not need to even hold a drink.  But right now I’m allowing myself that crutch.  I know there will be a time when I no longer desperately need to push myself to the bar when I first walk in.  I know there will be a time when I can calmly and patiently hang out and just be present with everything, even if I don’t really want to be here.  I know there will be a time when I can go down and hang out at my local bar and drink muddled lemonade and be really happy because that’s a treat.

As I savor the seltzer, I’m relieved that Noel didn’t make it even more difficult on me by getting me a vodka tonic. I could see her doing that as a joke, since the drinks look so much alike and she doesn’t understand why this is so important to me.

From the way she looks at me, I know its time to follow her towards the back of the room so others can move in to order their drinks and we can just get out of the way. As I try to keep my eyes on her black ponytail, I think about how hard it must be for her to relate to me now. I’m the one who has changed.  She and all of our friends are doing what we’ve always done; talking about the same things– reliving past stories, complaining about jobs or dating, talking about future plans, or gossiping about someone in common.

I’m the one who doesn’t want to do that anymore.  I’m the one who doesn’t know how to relate to my old friends anymore.

I wish she could understand.  I wish my parents could understand. I wish I could find someone, anyone who could understand what I’m going through and help.