The Love Pantry

“Oh! so you’ve lost your way and you don’t know what to do.
Seems every day is just too damn much for you.
You’ve lost the fight, your out of gas,
It’s looking like there’s no place left for you.

Here is the House of Love!
Come on in!
Tell me ‘bout your fears, tell me ‘bout your tears, tell me ‘bout your sins.
Love can change everything.

Here is the House of Love
And it’s just for you.
You hit rock bottom, you got no place to go, but here,
Here in the House of Love. “ ¹

Once upon a time, back in 1985, I was a thirty-three year old who could not stop drinking.

Strangely, it never occurred to me that I was alcoholic.

I just couldn’t not drink.

Every morning, shattered by the booze and escapades of the night before, sick with a morning-after hangover of brutal magnitude, I vowed, promised myself, with my all of my heart, that I would not take a drink that day.

I meant it when I said it.

But, by the afternoon, with my hangover fading, along with the ugly memories of the previous night mysteriously shifting to an it-wasn’t-THAT-bad status, I would inevitably forget my promise to myself.

Without a second thought I would pick up a drink and, once again, set out for who the hell knew where.

Then, one morning the cycle stopped its spin.

A miracle occurred.

“God! help me out of the mess I am in!”, I had cried out at the ceiling of my basement apartment bedroom, startling myself, a hardened non-believer.

Late for my lunch hour waitress shift with another beauty of a hangover, I climbed out of bed and jumped in the shower. I thought nothing more about my out-of-nowhere plea.

A couple days later I was in a psychiatrist’s office.

I had been referred to him by my therapist of two years who was an idiot, which is why I liked her. She had told me that I was NOT an alcoholic and I thought that was brilliant. Plus our weekly sessions gave me the sense of dealing with my issues.

Of course, a key element of the disease of alcoholism is denial. Denial enables an alcoholic to believe they are going someplace in a car without tires. Denial makes for tangled dishonest thinking, impervious to facts.

Denial is fierce.

As I placed my hand on the door knob of the psychiatrist’s office, an internal storm stopped. I paused, certain that nothing would ever be the same with me after I opened the door, while at the same time having no clue of what was ahead.

I entered in.

The doctor was a very large, kind-faced man in his late sixties. I seated myself in front of his desk on which sat a humongous ceramic ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. His questions floated across the desk on a cloud of cigarette smoke.

”How much do you drink?” he finally asked matter of factly, punctuating the question with a huge exhale.

I glanced to my left at the adjacent wall and bookcase, trying to calculate how many cases of Budweiser, stacked one on top of another, it would take to reach the ceiling.

I decided to give the doctor a low-ball estimate.

“Honey”, he said, “You are an alcoholic!” and with a flourish of finality he extinguished yet another cigarette in the huge ashtray, along with the last vestiges of my alcoholic denial.

“Yes”, I admitted to him and myself. I am an alcoholic.

He suggested three possible courses of action for me: take Antabuse², go to treatment or attend thirty recovery meetings in thirty days.

I chose door #3.

“Write me a letter and tell me how it goes for you. I want to know,” he told me as I got up to leave the smoke-filled office.

A few days after our appointment my compulsion to drink had evaporated and I was headed to a meeting.

”And you don’t have to say a word
I know how it’s been.
Believe me when I say,
You never have to go back again.”

The basement entrance was around back off the parking lot of the Methodist church. A few people clustered around the butt can outside the door before heading inside. It was a chilly evening.

I followed them and found myself in a smallish-sized, jam-packed Sunday school classroom with a mix-tape of cheerful voices, laughter, electric coffee pot gurgles and chair shuffling, blasting a Come-On-In vibe.

It was a truly unconditionally positive welcome, as in no dress code, account minimum, age, or educational requirements necessary, just a come-as-you -are, as I am, right now, next time, no matter what, just because, we’re all in the same damn boat kind of howdy.

I had found my people. I was home in the House of Love.

They laughed a lot, the meeting goers did. I didn’t. It was difficult to make sense of what people were saying, but a few simple words and phrases such as ‘surrender’ and ‘ hitting bottom’ and ‘acceptance’ floated around a lot, plus ‘one day at a time.’

One old guy shared, “We will love you until you can yourself.” I squirmed.

A kind, mild-mannered-looking woman seated next to me leaned over and shared that her name was ‘Karen, too’ and told me to ‘keep coming back.’ I smiled and tightly clenched the coffee cup perched on my knee.

The gathering ended with us rising from our seats to stand and hold hands. I cringed slightly. The room boomed with the Serenity Prayer.

Someone handed me a meeting schedule. Many stopped to tell me how glad they were that I had made it. I edged towards the door.

Before I managed to free myself from the warm outpourings, Jill, a put-together, loud-mouthed gal with a big southern drawl, pulled me aside and while scribbling something on a piece of paper, gently warned me to ‘stay away from the men’ and ‘go take care of myself’. I stared at her blankly, took the note and split.

The note read ‘The Love Pantry’, a local sex toy store.

For some reason I returned every Friday night and eventually came to understand what what was being said, what was being shared: the experience, strength and hope of recovery, the unconditional love of alcoholics who pulled me into their boat of hope.

After completing ‘thirty in thirty’ meetings, I sent a letter to the chain-smoking psychiatrist and thanked him.

For the next several years I went to a meeting somewhere in the city every day, working my waitress job at night.

My new world of recovery grew wider and brighter with each meeting. I heard stories that would make my hair stand on end, met the most amazing people and learned that there is always hope. Always.

Best of all, the promise that I would be loved until I could love myself came true, one day at a time.

Oh! go on and cry.
You need a friend, brother, so do I.
And we’re never gonna make it alone.
Come on now, we’re almost home.

Here is the House of Love
And it’s just for you
You hit rock bottom, you got no place left to go, but here,
Here in the House of Love. “

1. The House of Love, words & music by Karin Blaine/dudessdahlia records © 2014 All Rights Reserved.

2. Antabuse, now called Disulfiram, is an alcohol antagonist drug, producing unpleasant side effects/illness if the patient drinks while using the drug.