Walker
It was appropriate that I got the call at the restaurant. It was there that I had spent almost every day for the past four years, developing and nurturing my addiction while working 12 to 14 hour shifts. The restaurant was my life and my addiction had become my life. It only made sense that the call that would change my life would happen there.
Mom called in the middle of a busy summer lunch shift to tell me that Walker had died. She didn’t need to tell me how. I knew. I knew because it was the same thing that was going to kill me any day. I was wrestling with the same demon that had now taken Walker’s life.
The shrink I talked to the next day immediately said I needed to go to rehab. He said that my friends would be hearing the same news about me very soon. This was not the counseling I was wanting to hear and I wondered how I would tell my parents. I was wondering how my life would end up, having done a four month stint in rehab. I was wondering how the restaurant would survive losing its leader in the middle of the summer season. I was wondering if I could really quit.
Telling my father was not as bad as I thought it would be. He truly is my hero, this example just one of the many. He asked what the shrink had said, thinking it would be bi-polar disorder or depression. “It’s drugs and alcohol, dad,” I said, my heart breaking. “Well, let’s get you some help,” is all he said.
The funeral was the worst experience I could ever hope to imagine. Walker’s parents, Dana and Nancy- my second parents; my dear, dear friends- were destroyed. My best friend Jud had just lost his younger brother. In a very strange, personal way I had just lost mine too.
We went to the church on Sunday. I saw old friends I hadn’t seen in many years. We talked about what we were doing and how we should get together sometime soon. No one meant it. No one cared. We were all so shocked and numb from what had happened. We listened to “Taps” being played at the end of the service. My father cried. He had heard that same tune at his father’s funeral. I didn’t cry. I was numb. I thought of Dana burying his son on Father’s Day.
I returned to the restaurant hollow. I went through the motions, only now I was “clean.” I wanted to make the call for my drugs with every passing minute. I wanted to score so that I could feel that sweet rush, taste the cocaine and wipe my nose. I wanted to drink as much tequila as I could possibly stand, losing the pain for just a little while. Instead, I worked. Instead, I hated everyone I saw. Everyone with a drink was my enemy. Everyone with a smile I wanted to destroy.
Meetings were powerful and miserable. The longing and the grief that I felt from the other anonymous people was overwhelming. My feelings of doubt were my strongest emotions. I held on to the belief that I was only a drug addict, not an alcoholic. I spoke and I shared, but I held back. I held back that I didn’t believe. I held back that I shouldn’t be there.
Addiction never leaves and addiction is never quiet. It waits for the bad nights. It waits for the weak times and then it yells and screams. It justifies itself and makes things good, until the next day. The next day, addiction is not there to answer for itself. The only thing left is regret and remorse and an incredible self-loathing.
Walker is dead. He died on my sister’s 30th birthday. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. And not a day goes by that I wish that I wasn’t better than the day I learned of his death. I have slipped and I have been weak. I have regretted and I have hurt. Each day, though, I try to honor him and his memory by being better than I was. I tell him that I am trying and that one day I will make him proud. Proud that I kept living after he died.
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