Drunk Mom Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Jowita Bydlowska

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bydlowska, Jowita

  Drunk mom : a memoir / Jowita Bydlowska.

  eISBN: 978-0-385-67781-3

  1. Bydlowska, Jowita. 2. Alcoholics—Canada—Biography.

  3. Mothers—Canada—Biography. I. Title.

  HV5307.B94A3 2013 362.292092 C2012-906558-7

  Cover design by Andrew Roberts

  Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  This is not “to” or “for” Hugo

  but because I’m sorry, Hugo.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  a night at the museum

  the next day

  i’m a drunk

  motherhood

  bedtime

  birthday

  summer

  harm reduction

  on the beach

  regroup

  how to get rid of bottles

  rats and cocaine

  cosmopolitan

  why

  at the doctor’s

  better now

  on the go

  new home

  at the counsellor’s

  morning after

  intervention

  home for the holidays

  research

  intake

  on my way

  checking in

  inside

  post-traumatic stress disorders

  learning

  the community

  rehab hocus-pocus

  alex

  graduation

  again

  a girl walks into a snake

  group work

  i drink alone

  one

  lost and found

  the moment

  this part of the story

  up the hill

  wednesday

  sade

  sober

  archaeology

  chris

  falling

  A note and acknowledgements

  A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

  One evening I find a baggie of cocaine.

  The cocaine is in the washroom in the big museum in the city. Not the place you’d expect, but that’s where I find it. The powder sits perfectly, almost neon white, in its plastic baggie stamped with pictures of tiny marijuana leaves. It just sits there, on top of the toilet-paper container. Unbelievable.

  So what do I do?

  I pour the powder down the toilet.

  No, no I don’t. I fish the flat makeup-mirror compact out of my clutch and set it on top of the toilet-paper container. I pour the powder onto the shiny surface. I use the business card of the annoying man who hit on me in the elevator to cut a big fat line. A slug of a line. This is the first part.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.

  Above the mirror, I look deep into my nostrils, at the sudden double chin, my own upside-down eyes—you stupid, stupid shit—and I think about the baby, how horrible this is, what I’m about to do—you stupid, stupid shit. I also think how no one ever just finds a baggie of cocaine like this, how this is an opportunity of a sort, how I’m totally lying to myself right now, this is no opportunity, this is horrible and illegal and evil, and then I remember the second part.

  I take out a $20 bill from my wallet. I roll it. I put it against my nostril. And off I go. I’m no longer woozy from booze.

  I charge back into the museum’s restaurant to the party I’m officially attending. I wonder if people will be able to tell, but I don’t care right now, I’m beautiful. I got my nails done specifically for this stupid party and they are red and shiny like blood. God, yes: my hands are narrow and gorgeous with their ruby tips.

  A woman named something like Gigi stops me and says that I look fantastic.

  Thanks.

  How are things?

  Great. Great.

  How’s the baby? Where is he tonight?

  He’s with my sister.

  How sweet.

  I take out my wallet. The cocaine is behind the bank card.

  I turn the picture flap around. I turn the wallet so that Gigi can see it. The picture of the baby.

  She says that he’s adorable and then says something about her own baby but I interrupt her because I can’t listen to this.

  Listen, I say, I’m so sorry to do this.

  She tilts her head. She says, Do what? What is it?

  I just have to go right now, I explain, because I’m late. I have to hit another party.

  She smiles, her waxy hand touching me on the shoulder. Oh, no worries, no worries.

  No worries. What a nice thing to say. No worries.

  I feel like she could be a friend. We could become great friends. We could have adventures together. Talk about our babies.

  We should go out for a coffee sometime, she says. Catch up.

  We should, I say.

  And in this exact instant the desire to become friends with her leaves me. I imagine us sometime in this future, standing in line, our trays stacked with tiny plastic cups filled with weirdly shaped leaves, some kind of a baby lettuce mix, at a place that is shiny and white, some kind of a place where she goes, and where I don’t go, and we are talking about some richer girlfriend she hates, and about bad sex with her husband, and about cracked nipples and sleep training, and I’m completely dead inside. I’m such an asshole.

  She air-kisses me on both sides of my face. Excellent, she says. I’ll call you.

  For sure. Call me. I air-kiss her quickly back, say, Thank you. We have to get together. To talk about babies.

  She’s already turned halfway to talk to a woman who looks just like her but is even more stretched-out around the eyes. She says, Lovely to see you—to her, or to me walking away.

  There is no other party. But I can’t stay here. I have to go somewhere.

  I want something.

  I want a cigarette. I really want a cigarette. I want two cigarettes. Four.

  I’d like another drink too, but with the coke in me I can hold off. But I really need to smoke.

  Maybe another line.

  I want something.

  This is no ordinary wanting.

  This is the wanting that has no end.

  It’s an obscene appetite; it’s uncontrollable with mouth wide open, insisting. It’s a baby—a wet, hungry baby that no one is picking up to soothe.

  But I’m not a baby, am I? No. And you’d think an intelligent person would stay away, walk away from this kind of wanting.

  Yes, an intelligent person would walk away, knowing well that the next warm hit of a drink—or a puff of a cigarette, or the drip in the back of your throat from cocaine—is only pleasurable for a short time.

  An intelligent person would remember that the soothing inner hug of the wanting being satisfied is brief. It is receding even as I acknowledge it. And it has to be repeated to reactivate the feeling of comfort. Until it reaches oblivion, blackout.

  You’d think an intelligent person would remember all that when she is in the throes of wanting. But this intelligence is no match for the ki
nds of instincts that demand to be satisfied instantly. And there’s fear behind the wanting—the fear that if the wanting gets denied there will be only pain and the fear itself left.

  I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to press the button to relax instantly? Achieve instant pleasure? Instant relief? Is there anything better than that?

  Perhaps. I’ve heard of meditating. Sitting still. Biding your time. Hard work paying off. Yes.

  There are meditators and sittingstillers and timebiders and hard workers. I know. I know. But right now I am very uncomfortable because I want more. I want more relief.

  Perhaps I am always uncomfortable. But what is always? There’s only right now. Have I not achieved what the wise always talk about: living in the moment? I have. And the moment is uncomfortable. Just this moment.

  I could wait.

  But what if I die five minutes from now?

  See, my discomfort is here, right now, and this is the only reality that matters: here and right now. And here and right now I am wanting. Something. To fix it.

  Give it to me.

  I want this to stop. I want ease.

  I’m exactly like a baby. Pounding his heels against the mattress when distressed. Give it to me. Give it to me right now. His face twitching, he cries; he hiccups from crying, he can’t stop. He won’t stop until there’s comfort. Whether it’s a breast or a dry diaper or being turned over onto his belly—it has to happen right now. Now. Now. There is no waiting, no biding time. The wanting is enormous; it swallows him whole in lung-emptying breaths.

  I get it. I get the screaming baby.

  Because my wanting is just as powerful.

  I could run. Maybe if I run I’ll get there faster. Of course I’ll get there faster. Where? Everywhere.

  I want everything. All of it.

  But I know it won’t be enough. I decide to walk it off. Whatever is left of my reason insists on walking.

  Walk. Don’t think. Don’t think about the cocaine.

  Actually, I hate cocaine. I hated it before and I hate it now. Even though it makes me happy. But also so unhappy. Yes, I’m completely unhappy and I want to do more to fix it. That doesn’t make sense. But if I do a little more, I’ll be better, I know.

  It’s always this way.

  I wonder if I should call the man who hit on me in the elevator on my way to the party. I guessed he was in his forties, with a nice suit on, an expensive suit, a silk tie. He looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t be worried about doing cocaine with a stranger. And he could probably get more. He looked like the kind of man who could get more cocaine. More of everything. There was a vibe about him, something like a halo of owning expensive things, like an I-don’t-need-to-give-a-fuck halo, he was that sort of man. Moneybags man. He said he was in sales. He asked what I did.

  I could’ve picked a few things. I could’ve lied. I can’t remember why I told him that I was a new mom. I suppose I just tell people that all the time.

  I can’t remember why he annoyed me. Maybe how insistent he was with his stupid card, looking at my chest and belly as if he wasn’t being challenged by the idea that a baby just came out of the woman he was imagining having sex with. Maybe this only made him want to have me more.

  I don’t call the man. I walk and smoke.

  I love it. I love smoking. I want to smoke more.

  Eventually I have to take a break, because I’m starting to have trouble breathing. I hate taking this break. All I have in my head the entire time is the red glowing tip, the swirling smoke, the white cylinder consumed by the red, turning grey, black.

  After what seems like nothing and forever at the same time, the cocaine rollercoaster finally starts to slow down. I’m thinking about doing more but I’m good, I’m good.

  I’m good now.

  I walk all the way home from the museum. It’s a long walk. I’m trying to walk away from wanting.

  I wonder how long cocaine stays in breast milk.

  At home, my sister is asleep on the pullout bed in the living room. Sleeping, she looks twelve, even though she’s twice that age. She’s my first baby. I want to kiss her on the forehead as if she were a baby. I blow her a kiss instead. I worry my cigarette-cocaine-booze smell will wake her up. She is pure. Nothing like me.

  I turn the light on to see my way up the stairs, memorize them before I go. I turn the light off, climb the stairs, hold my breath.

  I close my eyes. The afterlights turn into flower shapes under my eyelids. Flowers in my head. Flowerheads.

  I open my eyes. Let them get used to the darkness. And then I see the top of his head, the little fist like a flower bud. He’s only an infant, still closed to the world in his few-months-old form, so fragile with soft skull, neck that holds his perfect head away from me. Because, thankfully, he’s turned away from me. I couldn’t bear to see his face right now. I hear him breathe. His breathing so delicate, rose petals falling.

  He is asleep in his crib. In the meadow of pillows and soft toys.

  I think of kissing him on the forehead. The notion is so strong that my mouth waters.

  I don’t kiss him. I can’t go near him right now. It’s poison.

  I’m poison.

  It’s torture to watch him and not touch.

  There’s nothing I want more in my life than to go near him.

  No, that’s a lie. There are other things that I want more—of—in my life.

  I tiptoe back down the stairs, in the familiar darkness.

  My lungs are expanding. There’s a wave of clarity going through my head like an electric zap. I don’t want it. I want the zap to go away, I want to stay unzapped, high.

  But I can feel myself sobering up. I don’t like it. Soon, I will be folded into a knees-to-chin ball of fear. My throat is tightening already. And my nose is rooting like the baby’s mouth for more.

  The house is asleep. Outside, the beginnings of a new day are in the making. It’s still too early for birds but I swear I can already hear them fussing around in their fucking nests.

  I can’t face any of it yet.

  I grab my wallet. I lock the bathroom door just in case.

  THE NEXT DAY

  The cocaine hangover is a bit of a surprise. It’s dull. It’s dullness all over my body and a stuffy nose. I forgot this part.

  I blow my nose over and over for the good feeling that I’m getting rid of the stuff in it. I’m not. Cocaine is ingested into the bloodstream right away. There’s nothing you can do to get rid of it.

  How do I know this? Before bed, I Googled until 4 a.m. to read about cocaine and breast milk and found out that it stays in the system anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours.

  Seventy-two hours. Christ.

  This morning I had to go out, all bleary, stuffed-up and tired, and buy more formula. I tried to recall what it was like to be twenty-five and full of energy after a night like this. I remember experiencing the world in two dimensions, as if depth washed out completely, leaving everything looking like a cardboard cut-out of itself. It was bizarre to me that I used to be able to do this night after night. That’s what twenty-five was like.

  I shake and open the can of premixed formula. I pour it into a bottle, heat it up under hot running water.

  The baby falls back asleep after the first few gulps.

  At the door, on her way out, my sister asks me how I am.

  I say fine.

  Her eyes say, No you’re not.

  She says, Okay. Are you going to be okay?

  What do you mean? I’m the big sister. You can’t ask me that.

  She says nothing.

  I’m just kidding. Jesus.

  Okay, she says. She doesn’t say much more. She’s being distant this morning.

  What’s up with you?

  Nothing. I’ll call you later.

  After she leaves and after the second feeding, I decide to take a bath. I want to wash off the dusty dullness.

  The bruises on my breasts are fading. They were dark, almost
black in some places. After this prolonged break they’re getting lighter. I have to be more diligent about this, I tell myself. Who knows what kinds of damage he’s doing. Sometimes I get too tired to move his mouth back onto a nipple. Before the bath, I squeeze the nipples to relieve all the milk that’s stretching and filling up under my skin, making my breasts rock-hard.

  I watch the thin streams of pearly fluid shoot, explode against the sink. I feel sad, defeated. What a waste.

  But I quickly snap out of this thought. It’s not a waste. It’s poison. It’s all poison, poison going down the drain.

  He starts to cry as soon as I lie down in the bathtub. He has the worst sense of timing. He cries as soon as I sit down to a meal, when I need to shit, do my makeup, have sex, when the doorbell rings, when I take baths. He stays silent and content when I surf the Net in boredom, does nothing when hours stretch into megahours.

  I get out of the bathtub—my body feeling broken, mangled from the night before—and I stumble toward the laundry room which is a nursery, which is a laundry room, which is a nursery.

  The open mouth is one big scream. The baby is a lung being robbed of air.

  My breasts pulse painfully and gently in response, in their own instinctive scream.

  I lift him up and he grabs for them. With his eyes shut, a wrinkled face with a horrible grimace on it, he looks like a frantic, blind old man. He’s a frantic old man grabbing for young tits.

  I gently move his hands and he twists his body as if in pain. I give him his bottle with formula. He sucks hungrily. His eyes remain closed.

  My boyfriend is coming back later. He calls and says he can’t wait to see his little family.

  Little family, that’s us.

  But before my boyfriend gets home that evening I leave the house. Outside, still stuffed-up and cocaine-hungover but already shaky with anticipation, I pick up the pace and I start to sing. I sing to my baby in the stroller and I sing that we are doom-doom-doomed. But it’s a happy song. Well, not that happy, but it’s not like I can do anything about where I’m going right now—even though I know I should not go there—and I feel like singing because I’m excited. I’m excited about where I’m going.