Sex, Lies and Amends
Once you get sober sometimes people from your past will start coming out of the woodwork — for good reason. So that you can make your amends.
I have been sober for almost 90 days. Again. My new sobriety date is August 14, 2017. This is about my millionth attempt at sobriety so this is not my first rodeo nor is it my very first clean and sober 90 days. Not by a long shot.
What is different this time is that I had a huge epiphany the last time I ever drank.
I will die if I continue to drink.
I have never admitted this powerlessness to myself before. I hate being powerless. I consider myself to be the strongest person I have ever known. I have raised two amazing young men by myself, without their fathers in the picture. I am extremely college educated, all on my own dime. I put myself through school while working and raising the boys. I am extensively medically trained and certified due to the years and years of experience I have saving lives from when I worked in ICU and trauma in the hospitals (I am a boss at CPR so if y’all ever need it hit a sista’ up).
I have always handled my shit like a boss every single time life decided it wanted to really fuck me sideways.
But the one thing in this life of mine that I have never been able to get a handle on are my addictions. I am an addict of the worst kind, and I get addicted to anything and everything on the planet. Booze, pills, powders, cigarettes, food, men, attention, sex, and oh, the lies. Oh how we get addicted to the lies we tell to cover up our shame and guilt about our addict behavior. It’s a full-time job maintaining all those lies and yes, telling lies becomes an addiction in-and-of itself.
The most important thing about sobriety, at least I feel anyway, is when you start to unshackle yourself from all those lies and you begin to finally live in the light of the truth. You MUST embrace an authentic life. You MUST start telling the truth, because this is what sets you free from all that shameful, guilt-ridden addict behavior.
SEX AND LIES
Okay here we go. I have used the power of my sex countless times in my life when I have been drunk, high or both (mostly both) in order to get what I want. Ladies, you know what kind of sexy lies I️ am talking about here. Oh hey sexy, buy me a drink? Slip me some X? Break out another line of coke baby and I am all yours for the night.
Uggghhhh.
Using my sex and lies to get what I want has always worked astonishingly well in my favor. But here’s the thing. I have only ever ended up using all of these men I plied with sexy lies. Sometimes I used more than one man in one night to get what I want, bouncing around from one depraved, deplorable and degrading attention-seeking-performance to another. I always thought, “My god, I am the shit! Men will throw themselves at me and give me whatever my little heart desires if I just bat an eye and coyly flip my hair back.”
REALITY CHECK: I was simply just pimping out my own sex and lies to keep the party going, at whatever cost. The cost being the men’s hearts, feelings and affections.
This was wrong. So very wrong.
My very best (worst) performance of this type happened over this last summer during the worst relapse and manic episode I have ever had in my life. I used one man to get to a rave party.
CAVEAT: Yes, I know I am way too fucking old to still be going to raves. Give me a break Kari. I am 42 years old. But hey, who gives a fuck about your age when you’re the most notorious party girl in the city still fabulously pulling it off?? Yeah, I am not still fabulously pulling it off by any stretch of the imagination…
I had just met man number one on OkStupid (Cupid) so he wasn’t aware of my alcoholism, bipolar and fucked-upness. Hey baby let’s hang out, wanna have drinks? Let Kari show you a good time! Once I got to the party via man number one, I ditched him and used another man for sex, drugs and Drum ‘n Bass. For those of you who don’t know, Drum ‘n Bass is a genre of electronic music heard at clubs and underground warehouse parties (raves). Man number two has always been the Drum ‘n Bass King in my eyes — he is a DJ and of course he spins DnB, my favorite genre of all electronic music. He was also once my One True Thing (OTT).
Yes, I used my now-former OTT (and former for a good reason — my own transgressions contributed very deeply to the breakdown of our relationship), who I wrote extensively about this summer. Except I left this part out.
I knew my still-OTT-at-the-time would be at the party on this one particular Saturday night because I had texted him earlier in the day to see if he was going. I wasn’t in a position to ask to go with him to the party because we were on shaky ground (for about the thousandth time), but I used my sex to get to him at whatever cost. You see, I had set this whole thing up via man number one just by using the power of my Womanly Sex and Lies. I then further used my drunken sexual prowess later in the night when I “ran into” man number two at the party, so that I️ could go home with him in order to keep drinking more. Hey let’s have screwdrivers and mimosas in the morning doesn’t that just sound so swanky and sexy and great??
REALITY CHECK: When I start drinking I never stop. So I will do whatever it takes to make sure I can keep right on drinking.
The reason my former OTT “decimated my belief that he was my OTT” was because, well, I used my sex to get what I wanted from him — which was to help me ditch man number one so that I could continue to drink until Sunday night. Sunday Morning Liquor Store Lyft at 7 am, hell yeah! That’s how we roll baby!! OTT was furious after the fact. Enraged. I call it the most delayed reaction on the planet because it wasn’t until a week later that his true feelings came out about the shit I had pulled that night. This was the rage-filled berating/cussing/swearing/verbal assault/have-a-nice-fucking-life-Kari on the phone that occurred that decimated my belief that he would ever still be my OTT. But I deserved it. Oh my god did I ever deserve it.
And man number one let me have it too:
What in the fuck kind of person are you? Who the fuck do you think you are to do this to someone? Like SERIOUSLY what the fuck is wrong with you? You are one fucked-up chick you know that.
Yes sir. Yes, I do. I know. And I’m so ashamed and so very sorry.
Using one’s sex in order to get what one wants is an egregious crime against humanity, and I admit my culpability here and now.
If you are hoping I got what I deserved for being this evil succubus, I did. I got what I deserved in the end. I continued to drink with now-former-OTT well into Sunday evening (August 13th) because I directly manipulated and convinced him to do so. I finally passed-out/blacked-out at 7 pm Sunday night. I woke up at 2 am Monday morning (August 14th) with the absolute worst hangover of my entire life. I laid on the cold, hard, unforgiving tile of his bathroom floor in the fetal position for hours. I prayed for death it was so bad. And I did almost die. I was in full-blown alcohol poisoning and had a seizure. I did not wake OTT while this was happening because for all that I had done, I knew I deserved to suffer this horrific, drunken, near-fatal misery alone. Hence:
I WILL DIE IF I EVER DRINK AGAIN.
AMENDS
My former OTT just found out yesterday that I had gone through this horrific alcohol withdrawal alone in his bathroom while he slept. He asked why I did not wake him up for help. I told him simply that at the time I knew I did not deserve his help. And also because every single time I ever drank with him over the weekends (ahhh yes the miserably failed weekend-warrior shit), I somehow always managed to contribute to the fact that he would never make it in to work on Monday mornings. For once I decided to let him sleep it off so that he could make it to work that Monday morning. And he did.
I told him how sorry I was for all the horrible shit I pulled that night. Yesterday was the first time since the verbal assault that we have spoken. In part, I absolutely deserved this verbal assault and I am owning my shit with that now.
I am sorry for being such a lying, booze-soaked shit show. And none of it was sexy either, even though at the time alcohol absolutely convinced me that I was the sexiest woman to have ever lived on Planet Earth (not true). This is what I do when I drink.
TO EVERYONE I HAVE EVER CAUSED UNDUE CHAOS FOR BECAUSE OF MY ALCOHOLISM AND MENTAL ILLNESSES:
I am sorry I let you down.
I am sorry that I used you.
I am sorry that I am a lying sack of shit when I drink.
I am sorry that I never once considered your feelings.
I am sorry that I fucked up what we had and that I didn’t until now admit my culpability as to how and why I have destroyed and lost so many relationships that actually had INCREDIBLE value and worth to me.
I am sorry for ever hurting you. I hurt too because I hurt you, and I deserve to feel that pain.
I am sorry I brought you through the fires of hell with my alcoholism and mania.
I am sorry that I become so out-of-control when I use, and that I have so disturbingly, inappropriately and unacceptably forced my being out-of-control onto your life.
Thank you for every good thing you all have ever brought into my life. I cherish it more than you will ever know.
