The Alcoholic Personality

So, it finally happened. I was invited to go to a bar, and not just any bar, but my favorite bar. In an area of Los Angeles called Los Feliz there is a small piece of old Hollywood. It’s a bar and restaurant called The Dresden. The Dresden is a dark, rustic, and classic establishment where the bartenders where tuxedos, or at least they used to. I loved it from before I’d ever been there.

I first saw The Dresden in the movie Swingers, a film starring a young Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn that highlighted a small sub-culture in the late 90’s where people in their early 20’s were way too into swing dancing. At 19, when I first saw the movie, I thought it was so cool. So, when I moved to that very same area a few years later, I visited The Dresden and fell in love with it immediately.

My love was well earned. The drinks were strong, the food was great, and two nights a week the iconic Marty and Elayne played jazz standards where they would feature local jazz musicians and singers to play with them live among the crowd. I have so many amazing memories there. However, I didn’t think I would ever go back. I’m in recovery and didn’t know if I could handle going to a place that held so many great memories of drinking.

Because the truth is, this magical place was magical for me because of all the drinking I did there. It was a place I’d let myself become absorbed into. I’d drink extra dry and extra dirty vodka martinis and old fashions. I’d put on a button up with some slacks and rest my drink on the bar as I tapped my foot to the rat-tat-tat-tat of the drum beat. I felt at home there, as many alcoholics feel about their favorite bar.

However, this night was a special occasion. A young member of a 12 step meeting I attend had just turned 21. To celebrate, she wanted to go to The Dresden and listen to live jazz. I knew that everyone who was tagging along with us was sober, so even though I had never planned to step back into The Dresden, I couldn’t think of a better reason to return.

As I walked up to the front door my heart began to beat faster. At first I thought I was nervous, but no, it was excitement. I stepped under that famous awning, through the open rod iron gate and opened the door like I had so many times before. Then, I stepped right into the past. It was exactly as I had remembered it. It was dark and every round bar table and plush leather booth flickered with candle light. To the right the rock wall with the exposed grand piano pushed up close to it. To the left, the top lit oak finished bar with a row of low back barstools lined against it like a long, satisfied smile. “Damn”, I thought, “it’s good to be back.”

My friends waved me over to a small booth near the grand piano, their dark silhouette’s barely lit by candle light against the dark stone wall behind them. I sauntered past the bar and made my way to the booth and sat down. The cool leather seating felt comfortable and familiar. I commented how it was the first time I had been there as a sober person before realizing I hadn’t been there in years. Just how many years I’m not sure but at least 7.

Then I blurted out a story to my group of sober friends. I told them of the time that I had taken my best friend to that very same bar around 11 am some 18 years ago. He and I sat at the bar and downed 7 Grey Goose extra dirty, extra dry martinis before walking out into the sunlit street where we both completely blacked out until midnight. Out of all the “amazing” memories I’ve had at The Dresden, THAT was the story I chose to tell them.

It’s funny how my alcoholic brain works. I’m sitting at a bar that I considered the greatest bar ever but hadn’t been there in at least 7 years and the one story that stands out the most is when I blacked out in the middle of the day. Then it hit me that those two things, the 7 years and the black out, were related. Getting black out drunk is a serious sign of alcohol abuse. Not going to my favorite bar was not because I didn’t always love it, it was because the past few years of active alcoholism I was completely isolated from the outside world.

My drinking had made my life so unmanageable that I became a recluse. My social circle had practically dropped to zero. Drinking had made my life so awful there was no need to visit my favorite bar because had I gone it would have reminded me of how lonely I was. The one thing I couldn’t handle during those isolation years was looking at myself. The Dresden was a place I took friends to when I looked forward to going places. So as I sat there all these years later, I made it a note to myself to remember that moment.

A few minutes later food comes to the table and we raised our drinks(non-alcoholic) to the birthday girl. The jazz band started up and like the old days I’m tapping my foot to the beat of the drum. I was present. And then I looked to my new friends and realized how close some of us had become. I realized how I wasn’t lonely anymore and how thankful I was to be able to come back to this place and make new, amazing memories. And I can’t say it was better than it was in the past and you know what? I can’t say it was worse either. It was different. I was amazing different. There are a lot memories I had while drinking I wish I could change, but I can’t. However, there wasn’t one damn thing I would change about the other night at The Dresden.

And that makes me happy.

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