Three Years in the Life of an Alcoholic.

No one knows you here.

You step inside the halls of your new job, all steel and marble and fiercely-lit screens and blinding lights, and it’s a far cry from the small, sooty startup spaces of where you came from. This is the city, goddammit. You’re not in the country anymore.

Onboarding is a blur of faces and names and teams and terms that you won’t remember in a week. Hell, it’ll take you months before things start to make sense. You step through your initial sprints and weeks and fight for every inch of impact or recognition that you can, but it’s a large pond now, fella.

Three months later, still, no one knows you.

So you start joining the social clubs. You’ve seen them here and there, and there’s an assortment of people into different things: there’s a group for running, there’s a group for art, heck, there’s a group for doing daily pushups. You join them. And you start to find that dammit, city people are guarded as hell. It’s a city of four million people, and no one wants to be your friend. The funk of your growing loneliness must reek. How do they deal with it?

You spot the beer tasting club. You’re not really into it, but hey, maybe the booze will loosen people up. Maybe it’ll loosen you up. You join their chat channels, introduce yourself, maybe a bit too aggressively. “We meet Thursdays, at the Hotel. 5:30, you in?”

—

You woke up at 3AM, still drunk, thirsty as fuck. Now it’s 8:45, and you’re coming up late to work, and the headache is set to kill. Everytime you burp, you can taste everything you regretted putting in your body.

You pile into the elevator, taking care not to breathe — they’d smell the piss on you — but the air is already thick with perfume and it takes all of you not to gag. Harold squeezes in just before the doors close, and he flashes you a smile. “You look like shit,” he says, laughing. “What time did you get home last night?”

Other faces turn your way, and you feel your cheeks warm. Not the way you wanted people to know you goddammit. One of the faces smiles at you. “Sorry mate, missed it. You’re JC, right? Operations?”

You nod. Baz, he calls himself. As the lifts churn up, Harold scatters details —small enough not to implicate, but enough to inform your new friend. He winks at you, because you know.

Somebody knows you now.

The lift chime pings as it reaches your floor, and you start to step off. Baz says, “You going to next week’s? I’ll be there.”

“He’s a good egg,” Harold says, as the elevator doors close.

—

It becomes a ritual, almost.

The booze throws tarp over your anxieties, and you start being able to talk to people better. And they’re fucking amazing people, holy shit. You can’t believe you’re hanging out with them. There’s ex-biologists and mechanical engineers and previous farmers here, and they’ve got great stories to tell. You wouldn’t have been able to hang out if you were sober.

It all comes to focus when everybody’s had a rough day. How good is it that people found a space where they can talk about what’s troubling them, freely, in relative privacy without the asphyxiating confines of the corporate space? For people to just take the time to sit there, unpack, with other people who are willing to listen?

Especially Baz. Man, Baz has had a rough couple of years. Every now and then he gets overboard on the sauce; when no one’s left but you and a handful of the core group, and he starts to talk about his divorce and how much he misses his kids and how he actually loves his ex-wife, and they’ve had fights but dammit, it’s all out of love.

One time, you had to slide him into a taxi, unconscious, while you passed a pissed-off taxi driver and address and 50 bucks. I love you man, he mumbles as he slumps on the backseat. It’s no big deal. That’s what friends do for each other.

I love that guy, you tell yourself as you amble home.

—

Somehow, you’ve ended up organizing a couple of the nights.

You start to realize that people don’t respond to the stuffy, professional persona you put in at work. The proof’s in pints: how much more truthful are the conversations you’re having in the pub? You start thinking: Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone just shed their masks and was able to skip the bullshit and talk to each other like we do at the pub?

So of course, you want to share it. Everybody deserves that reprieve. Everybody’s welcome. So you start advertising, especially to newcomers.

A couple of wowsers (the gall of those killjoys) try to express their concern at the organization promoting drinking culture, but come the fuck on. It’s only once a week, and we’re goddamn adults. We can make our choices for ourselves.

The whole thing stymies you though, and you just want to talk to someone about it, but it’s Wednesday and no one’s keen to do a smaller session. You hit the bottle-o to pick up a six-pack, maybe chill alone at home for a bit. Get the day out of your mind. You stand behind a guy who reeks of whiskey, all a mess of hair and hoodies and slides. He sways as he tries his card at the counter. The checkout guy groans as he realizes that the guy was trying to swipe his driver’s license.

You swear to yourself: god, you’re not gonna be like him.

—

“Where are we going for Christmas party?”, Christina says.

Harold squints. “For after, you mean? Ask JC. He knows how to party,” he says. Everybody knows you now.

You walk to your workstation, and it’s all highfives and nods on the way there. After all, you’re the fun guy. If people want to know where to go, where to unwind after a hard day at work, they now know to ask you. And if people need someone who can keep pace and keep the party going? Why not tag you along?

Your mobile phone buzzes. It’s Christina. “Can you grab me a couple of Gs? For the party? I can transfer cash over.”

There’s a weird sense of pride in people going to you for these things. It’s trust, you see. You wouldn’t show this side of you to anyone else, right? People coming to you for these sorts of things means that they think you’re a chill guy, someone they can talk to about anything with.

You look at the company walls and there’s some HR posters about being Culture-First. If you could spit at it, you would. You’re facilitating culture. You’re letting people be real. You’re the one welcoming everyone, saying wassup to people however they may be.

Slack pings from your phone, and someone sends you an emoji of an eyeball. It kind of started being a thing because of you: it’s a codeword for someone who wants a quick session at the pub. It’s the third one this week, but you’re feeling a bit strung out from the work and you could use a decompress. You’ve been having trouble sleeping — and it would be good to chill out for a bit, unwind, unpack.

—

You wake to the smell of burnt coffee. You open your eyes, and Christina’s there, humming to herself as she pours herself a cup from the percolator. She spots you, and she flashes a warm smile.

Fuck.

“You want one?” she asks. You feel yourself giving a strained smile, nodding. You’ve been terribly anxious on mornings, and today’s somewhat way worse than usual. She sits on the bed next to you and gives you a kiss. You barely stifle a flinch.

“What was that?”

“Look, I’m not really looking for-” you start, but her eyes already well up because she sees it all on your face. And on her face, you see everything you said while you were blasted out of your mind — everything that sounded sweet or flattering or beautiful at the time now looks flat and sour in the morning light.

“Was it true? Everything you said last night? Was it at least true?” she asks. You can’t answer. You don’t really know.

The next 15 minutes is stony silence as she gets ready and you can’t find it in yourself to get up. Right before she leaves, she goes to you, lips pursed, and says softly: “You’re one clumsy fuckin asshole.”

Right after she leaves, you pour yourself a drink.

—

The red ambulance siren lights are starkly blinding. You can’t tell if it’s because they’re bright, or if you’re fucked out of your mind. Karl’s body lies unconscious in the back of the van. The morning sun winks at the horizon, bathing the sky with a reddish hue. Looks like Aperol, you think to yourself.

Jesus, how are you going to face the work day today?

The ambo asks Karl a bunch of stock questions. “Don’t worry mate, we’re not here to judge,” he says. “Just want to know what you took, so we can help you.”

While Karl rattles off a list, a pit builds at the bottom of your stomach. Is this one on me? you ask yourself. No, no, we’re all adults here. He’s twenty-two, he can own his choices.

But then you start to think of the incoming corporate performance review cycles — you hope Karl doesn’t bring this up, because shit’s going to be awkward. It’s not your work life after all. This is separate.

You go home, get dressed for work, and step into the office a couple of hours later. As soon as you get in, a friend of yours eyes you warily. He says, “This is what, the second time this year?”

It’s not on me, you tell yourself. You look around, and everybody’s giving you the same look. Everybody knows you now.

—

Friday night, and you’re at home. You get a bunch of invites, but you can’t find it in yourself to reply. In front of you, a television on mute streams footage of an aftermath of a tsunami. How invisible the damage, as the water slowly crawls through the land. How stark the wreckage, as the tide creeps back to shore. You’ve been a day sober. Your hand shakes. Your heartbeats kick through your clothing.

I can’t do this, you think to yourself. So you pile on a hoodie, a cap, and some slides, just in case you run into anyone. You take a shot to take the edge off. Maybe another one on top of that. You amble on to the bottle-o.

The guy at the counter gives you a tight lipped smile. “How’s your day been, JC?” he asks. “What’ll it be today?”

There’s a split-second there, in the sterile gray under fluorescent lights where you feel someone’s gaze at the back of your head. The guy gives you a polite nod, but you can tell, because it’s all over their face. God, I’m not gonna be like him, he’s probably thinking.

—

You don’t know how you did it, but you’re three months sober now. But the pang of hunger is still there, gnawing at the back of your neck. You can feel it in the marrow of your bones, as your toes dig in the sand.

It probably won’t go away.

You watch a half-dozen surfers in front of you try to ride the winter waves. Some make it through a good way before they stumble, lose balance and dive through the sand. A couple crash out early. Some bail out when they know they’re not going to make it. Was I missing something? you think to yourself.

Your phone pings, as a couple of messages flow through, inviting you for a night out. You were that guy, after all.

No one knows you here.