Up In Smoke

So I have been reading a bunch of other AA-type blogs and all of them seem to stress focusing outside of yourself, being grateful for things you usually take for granted, and whatnot.

This is extraordinarily hard for me. I grew up learning that you get what you work for, and nothing is handed to you. So I don't really know how to look at the world and say "I'm grateful for..." because somewhere, deep down inside of me, I believe that I earned it.

But here goes...

I am grateful that my dad and all his work buddies are safe (my dad works for the Los Angeles City Fire Department and was dispatched to the fire this past weekend)

I am grateful that my best friend's house is still in the "voluntary evacuation" area, and that his family is safe.

I am grateful that God sent me Nurse Pam the day I was discharged from the hospital, because I don't think I would have been ready to listen to her before that, and I don't think I would've been willing to hear what she had to say if it had come out of anyone else's mouth.

I am grateful for Parker, who has been there for me pretty much every time I've fucked up in the past two years and has always picked me up and put me back on my feet and never judged me when I fell down again.

I am grateful that USC requires all their students to have health insurance.

I am grateful that West Hills Hospital allows visitors to the CCU 24/7.

I am grateful to everyone who took advantage of those visiting hours.

I am grateful to my new roommates, who have treated me family even though I moved in two days ago.


I'm all tapped out. That was my best try.

That picture, which I stole from LATimes.com, was taken about two miles from my house. I live off the Adams exit of the 110.

I Hate AA Meetings

Every meeting I go to has a bunch of 50-somethings who are 20 years sober but are still crying about how they ruined their lives by drinking.

I don't want to be like that.

I want to have moved on by the time I'm 50.

Or 30.

Or hell, by next week. Can that happen?

What I Remember

I do not remember how I ended up 35 miles away from school, on the curb outside the house where I used to live. I do not know who called 911. I do not remember buying - much less drinking - the bottle of tequila the police found next to me, or downing the bottles of pills the fire department pulled out of my purse.

I remember laughing, hysterically, that somehow two policemen and two paramedics had been dispatched to me at 3:30 in the morning, just because I drank too much. I remember asking names and station numbers because I was convinced that I was going to send them cookies to thank them for their trouble.

"It's our job, ma'am," they all said, which made me laugh harder, because I was twenty and drunk and found alone on the side of the road and they were calling me "ma'am."

The paramedics both knew my dad. I remember threatening them with HIPAA lawsuits if they told my dad what I had done. They rolled their eyes. The police officers told me they could not comprehend how I managed to get all the way out to the Valley from downtown without getting a DUI. I believe their actual phrase was that there had been a "widespread failure in LAPD and CHP" that night.

One of the police officers sat in the ambulance with us while the other one followed behind. I asked if I was going to have to be restrained, or if they would put me on a 5150. He said I seemed nice and compliant and he would let the psychiatrist decide whether I should go on a 5150 or not. I promised I would pretend to be sorry for trying to kill myself as long as I could get out of a 5150. He looked sad.

At the ER I waved a cheerful goodbye to the firefighters and tried to make small talk with the officers. They played along, I guess because they had nothing better to do than listen to my drunk ramblings, and hey, as long as I'm rambling, I'm alive.

I remember the nurse coming in and saying they were going to pump my stomach. I remember screaming that I'd rather die, and I remember trying to stand, and I don't remember anything else.

I woke up two days later in the CCU, with restraints on my wrists, but my armed guard gone. A nurse told me my heart had stopped. I'd had my stomach pumped, charcoal forced down my throat, been dead for a minute, and completely unresponsive for two days. I had bruises on my wrists from where I'd apparently tried to fight free of the restraints before my heart stopped but after I'd blacked out from the alcohol.

How, exactly, have I gotten to this point in life before I ever turned 21?