Drunk Mail Carrier

Yesterday as I was watching the news, a headline grabbed my attention: “Local Mail Carrier Arrested for Drunk Driving”. Splashed across the screen was a mugshot of Mary, a woman who I knew from my outpatient rehab program. My heart dropped as I listened to the story of her driving her mail truck erratically, nearly hitting other vehicles, smashing into a stop sign, and ultimately being arrested with a blood alcohol level 3 times the legal limit.

I jumped immediately into protective “mama bear” mode. I looked up the story on the news station’s website, scrolled through it and clicked on “comments”, praying that the inevitable firestorm of mean-spirited, ridiculing commentary had not yet started. I became intensely irritated that the news station had posted Mary’s full name and her mugshot for all the world to see. She must be humiliated. Didn’t she have a right to privacy? I guess not.

Seeing that there was no feedback yet, my next line of thinking was “Dammit, Mary!”. I wished she hadn’t dropped out of the program early, that she’d just hung on a little bit longer. Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. If only she had attended a few more group sessions, made it more of a priority, spent a little more time on her homework assignments, been more open to individual therapy… but this line of thinking was also flawed. I realized that even if she had finished the program – graduated “with honors” – the outcome could have been exactly the same.

Finally I was sad. I thought about Mary’s son. I didn’t know him, but I knew how proud of him Mary was. She told us nearly every week. I imagined the 20-something young man feeling frustrated, let down, embarrassed, confused, angry and scared. In reality, he might not have felt any of those things. The truth is that the story was bringing me back to all the feelings I had about my own mother.

I thought about Mary’s pride and self-worth. She was so proud of her job. She lit up when she told us tales of how hard she worked, the challenges she endured from difficult customers to long hours to rain, sleet, snow and hail. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t lose her job because of this incident – that her employer would give her some sort of probation, make her go through treatment, and allow her to keep her job once she had completed a program. Part of me hoped she would lose her job and that the loss would be a consequence serious enough to motivate her to get well – to save her own life. Either way, I hoped this situation didn’t send her into a tailspin of despair – into a dark and terrifying place.

As an alcoholic, I too have driven my mail route drunk. No, I’m not a mail carrier, I don’t have a mail truck, etc. But I’m reasonably certain that if I had Mary’s job the same thing would have happened to me. When I was using, drinking was the only thing that allowed me to get through the day. The painful conference calls, the tedious spreadsheets, the deluge of emails were all a little bit easier to handle after a cocktail (or ten). If I decided I wasn’t going to drink, then I was sick and a swig of booze was the only thing that could curb the nausea, sweats, shakes and paranoia. I imagined that when Mary got in her mail truck the day she was arrested she’d probably had the same battle with herself. She was choosing between being drunk enough to be able to handle the day, or being so sick that her mail route was nearly impossible. She knew what she was doing was wrong – her disease was too powerful for her to make a rational decision.

Mary’s story is so powerful for me because it hits dangerously close to home. The story elicits a physiological response – nausea.  It’s a story of the shame, guilt, sickness, and terror of active addiction. It reminds me of how close I am – just one drink – to spiraling right back into alcoholic madness.