Something was different tonight. Dad and I were on the smokey night of the Sail Club in Port Aransas, Texas. I am not sure why we chose this bar since there are so many on the island to go to. The Sail Club was nicknamed the Jail Club, suggesting that if you stayed till closing, you were probably going to jail. Actually, I once cleaned this place out, by accident, but that is another story.
It was 1989. I was 24. I had a rough year. I quit drinking back in October of 88. For 7 months I managed to stay clean until I convinced myself that I was OK. The fact that I had not drunk in that long clearly meant I could control it. I felt like I was losing my connection with people close to me back in New Hampshire. For that reason, I rationalized myself right back into my dependency. Then I did the swan dive off into self-inflicted chaos. Now, 2400 miles away, 3 months later, unimaginably, I was actually healing. I knew more than ever with no doubt left, not even a fraction of an atom, that I could not drink. I was going to AA meetings. I was showing up early, making coffee for the group, and embracing this lifeline that told me that just maybe, I was not dead.
You could count my sobriety in days here at the Sail Club, so why was I here? My dad and I forged the strongest parts of our friendships in bars. I am not joking. Back when I was a kid, they used to still dye pistachio nuts red and when you ate them they would turn your fingertips red. Bars always had 10-cent bubble gum machines filled with pistachios. My dad would look at my fingers and say, "Oh man, your mother is going to know I brought you to a bar now." We were here because he needed this and so did I. I did not know that I needed it for a reason other than to make memories and grow our friendship.
He was usually pretty together, but tonight he seemed agitated. Not at me, he loved me. He seemed especially annoyed with this guy I did not know. Both of them kept escalating hostilities and then would cool down a little. Dad was drinking Lone Stars, and I was drinking a 32-ounce coffee from Ice Box, the local island convenience store.
Something really was different tonight. Yes, I was in a bar less than 2 weeks after giving up drinking in the aftermath of the ultimate destruction of my life, but I was OK. The jukebox stopped and the noise of people talking made the place a little less ok. I walked over to the jukebox and looked around. There were songs that I would play any day and every time. But something jumped out at me. Something I would never normally play. I did it, Angel of Harlem by U2. I loved U2 in 1983, but now they just seemed overplayed. The opening rhythm guitar started followed by the signature percussion. As I walked back to the bar, I realized that I felt alive for the first time in what seemed to be years. I was truly sober, not just not drinking and feeling like there was a hole in my life. I was thinking clearly. I felt powerful, in control, and stealthily invincible.
At the bar, I could tell Dad was wondering why I played that. But it bounced and was liberating. It was a tribute song to Billy Holiday and had nothing to do with me, but for some reason, it worked. I actually knew who I was and that I would become so much more than I ever was. I was a canvas ready for whatever happened next. I was ready. For the first time, it was not going to happen to me, I was going to make things happen.
As the song picked up everyone in the dark club, the liquor bottles glittered their reflections back at all of us. We were all going to different places and some of us were staying. Dad and his annoyance escalated again into another standoff. I jumped in between them. “No, this is not happening,” I told Dad we really should go as I saw this only getting worse. Fortunately, he listened.
It may seem strange that in that one moment in time, I knew I placed my addiction where it needed to stay. I knew I was good. Many people would say it is foolish to go into a bar days after quitting drinking, but this is how I had to do it. Foot to the floor, a game of chicken with the enemy. It is the only way I could have done it. I have since learned that every time I push past my breaking point, the wall at the point is only something holding me back from my real potential.
It wasn’t long after this that I went back to New Hampshire. I often wonder if Dad would have survived past 1996 had I just stayed. He was asking questions. I know he was proud to see me beating addiction. I know that the “what ifs” will torture me endlessly if I allow them.
This was the last time that I ever attended the Sail Club. Many lost nights were spent here listening to live music and drinking a lot of beer. Each time I hear Angel of Harlem play, I am there. 1989 Port Aransas, staking my claim on a life that until then, I allowed to steer me. That is the night I started a new life.
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