Vodka Diaries
How a night out in CDMX put my sobriety in jeopardy
Greetings from Costa Rica! What am I doing in Costa Rica?
Well, my sister moved here about a year-and-a-half ago and she lives on a house on the southern slope of Lake Arenal, which is in Guanacaste about an hour-and-a-half from Liberia, Costa Rica’s second largest city. The lake is ringed with mountains and a volcano presides over the lake’s eastern extremity. My sister tells me they call this part of the country “the Switzerland of Costa Rica” but the steep, green hills give me Ireland vibes.
It’s the rainy season so the sky is overcast and the volcano is usually shrouded in clouds, so I’m not entirely sure it’s there. I’m sitting on the patio, sipping coffee, watching hummingbirds and butterflies pollinate the purple flowers in front of me. It’s pretty fucking idyllic.
I’m here with my daughter and we’ve been visiting hot springs, going on nature hikes, and chasing after waterfalls. Yesterday we saw a nine-month old sloth and watched a very metal-looking beetle devour a guava. Tomorrow we’re going to the beach. In other words, it’s a true vacation. Plus, my sister has a four-month-old puppy named JoJo so even our down time is pretty lively.
Today I want to talk about something that happened to me when I was in Mexico City. For the final weekend of the trip we were joined by four friends from all over California. We planned out a day of activities, including a visit to Casa Azul aka the Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacan and a cruise around the canals at Xocimilcho. At the end of the day, we returned to the hotel where we were all staying so we could clean up and make it to the rooftop restaurant where we had reservations for dinner. The restaurant was conveniently close so we walked down the park in the middle of Avenida Álvaro Obregôn in Roma Norte.
It took us a bit to figure out how to access the restaurant but as soon as we did we immediately realized the restaurant was fancier than we expected, which was fine, but the crowd was very young and the place was packed. It was the kind of spot where you don’t get seated at a table per se, but directed toward a cluster of cube-shaped chairs around tiny cocktail tables. We made it work, but it’s the kind of environment I struggle in. Even with my hearing aids it can be hard to have a conversation when the music is loud and there are multiple conversations going on in the group and all around us.
We ordered appetizers and a round of drinks. I had a delicious passionfruit agua fresca that didn’t have any alcohol in it. The ladies in our party all had a vodka drink with fresh guava juice. The reason I’m including these details will become apparent in a moment.
The waiter returned and I thought he asked me if he could take my empty glass away, but when he brought me another glass of juice I realized my error. Our group was ready to go but when my juice arrived everyone decided to order another round. No harm, no foul—at least that’s what we thought.
By now the place was loud and crowded. The views up on the rooftop were spectacular, but after thirty minutes we decided to cancel the cocktail order and settle up the tab.
The bill was carefully reviewed to ensure we weren’t paying for drinks that never arrived. That’s when we noticed a mistake. The restaurant had charged us for an extra vodka guava drink and only one fruit juice. We pointed it out to the waiter and he told us it wasn’t a mistake: the drink he had served me had vodka in it and I drank it.
I don’t talk about my sobriety here all that often, and perhaps I should since it’s a very important part of my life. I owe everything I have to my decision to give up drugs and alcohol: my marriage, my relationship with my daughter, my writing career—all of it. Decision isn’t really the right word for it. Thirteen-and-a-half years ago I surrendered to sobriety because I’d made a god out of alcohol and had no control over my life.
Someday I’ll tell the story of my wild sailor days when I drank like a character in a William Faulkner novel and got in a shitload of trouble. How much trouble? I almost got kicked out of the Navy on multiple occasions and was subjected to all kinds of mandatory treatment. When I left active duty and went to college I knew I had a serious drinking problem. When I started to drink, I had trouble stopping, and that led to all kinds of mayhem. For the next twenty years I tried to moderate my drinking. After getting in a fight, going through a bad break-up, or being arrested, I’d curtail my drinking for a while only to eventually return to my old ways, except the old ways kept getting worse. I wasn’t one of those alcoholics who refused to believe I had a problem. I knew what I was.
At that rooftop bar in Mexico City, my first response was denial. There couldn’t be alcohol in that drink. At the end of my run, I was a connoisseur of cheap vodka, there wasn’t a kind of juice I hadn’t dumped vodka into—including the orange juice dispensed down in the employee cafeteria at the casino where I worked. Surely I would have known there was vodka in it, right?
Maybe not. The ladies in our group told me they couldn’t taste the vodka in their drinks.
Well, shit. Did I really just fuck-up thirteen-and-a-half years of sobriety? My face felt flushed. Was it the vodka? Or was it because everyone was looking at me, asking me how I felt? I don’t mind being the center of attention every now and again, but I hate making a scene. I could hear my wife quizzing the waiter, who didn’t seem all that fazed about serving a sober person an alcoholic drink. Maybe I should toss a few of those stupid chairs over the railing into the street below? Would that help them understand the gravity of the situation?
The manager was summoned. The manager arrived. If possible, he seemed even less concerned with what had happened than the waiter. I couldn’t understand what the manager was saying, but Nuvia could, and she gave him an earful, then she gave him more than an earful.
When the manager threw up his hands in exasperation and said, “What do you want me to do about it?” Our group insisted he take all the drinks off the bill, which he did, though he wasn’t very happy about it. He never apologized.
I like to think that the love my wife and I share is just as passionate as when we met seventeen years ago. But when you get into your forties and fifties you don’t have as many opportunities to experience the intensity of early love. You’re doing laundry or going grocery shopping or trying to find the time just to have a conversation longer than ten minutes. There just aren’t that many opportunities to fight for your partner—even at the punk rock show. Hell, especially at the punk rock show. We’re not trying to be a middle aged Sid & Nancy.
Not that I had any doubts, but Nuvia had my back that night. It’s one thing to hear it, but to see it was profound. The way she stood up for me almost made the whole episode worthwhile.
I also learned a valuable lesson. Sucking down a vodka cocktail was only going to be a problem if I let it. The drink didn’t teach me that I can have just one, that I’d suddenly transformed into a social drinker. I didn’t treat it like a freebie, a cheat day, and order a round of shots and go on a bender. I’m still an alcoholic. The only thing alcohol can do for me is destroy my life. I know this. I have always known this. A mix-up doesn’t change that.
I have heard many stories about people whose sobriety has been derailed. A beer at a barbecue. A heated exchange on the freeway. A bad art day, a woeful work week, the fucking pandemic.
I am not stronger than those people or smarter than those people. What I am is fortunate: to know what I am, to have people in my life who accept me in spite of my flaws, to have a plan when things go sideways.
That may sound like an over-simplification, but it really isn’t. Getting sober didn’t make my problems go away, but my life is so much easier without alcohol in it. If you struggle with alcohol and are ready to make it stop, there are plenty of options to consider. If you have any questions about sobriety, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Corporate Rock Sucks Links
I appeared on a couple of podcasts that went live recently. I’m on Episode 185 of Punk Till I Die and I talked about Dave Markey’s documentary Reality 86’d on the Rock Docs podcast.
Be well, stay safe, and hang in there.
So, so scary. I used to make fun of NA beers but I drink them at unfamiliar bars for the exact reason you describe here.
As your punk rock doctor I prescribe no listening to FEAR, Gang Green or Murphys Law drinking anthems for a month.
Super glad you didn't let that nightmare derail you.
I am always terribly behind on reading these because I want the space to genuinely take them in, not just make a quick cursory read. Usually, I feel reluctant to comment because of the amount of time that has lapsed from when the post was made. This one made me want to despite all of that. Thanks so much for sharing. I have not dealt with substance issues but do deal with my own hang ups that hold me back and it was great to read your account of reminding yourself of where you were and what is important.