I wake up—or rather, I am still up—from a night of mild debauchery at Sassy Anne’s, a bar in the 4th and Gill neighborhood where I live. My young friends Magdalena and Lucy are frying salmon patties and the grease sizzles and pops in the cold air—the front door is propped open and it is very cold outside. Magdalena’s tiny kitchen is lit only by colored Christmas lights that flicker on and off from inside the microwave, giving the room a magical quality wherein we are ageless, timeless, and ethereal.

We are out of booze and make plans to go to Raddy’s, the liquor store on Broadway that opens at 8:30 in the morning.

Magdalena and Lucy are texting people in the outside world endlessly, so I wander over and begin doing Magdalena’s dishes. I quite enjoy the experience. There are more plastic cups and glasses than I have ever seen outside of a bar or restaurant: red ones, sickening green ones, pale yellow translucent ones, and clear plastic ones that always seem to have a film no matter how much you wash them. After counting 94 cups and glasses, which I pile in a kind of ready-to-topple sculpture, I prepare to go to Raddy’s. When I count my change and a couple of green dollars, I realize I am still $2 short of buying a pint—so when I hear Lucy saying she needs to go out and buy a mop, I offer her mine, brand new, for $2.

“It’s a great mop,” I tell her. It is, as mops go, a great one. A beautiful shade of yellow, it has a lever on the side to squeeze the dirty water out, so that you hardly have to exert any effort all to clean the floor. I fetch the mop and Lucy hands me $2 with a solemn look, dead in the eye, as if we are doing a major drug deal instead of colluding to buy some vodka.

I pass a mirror on my way out to the store and I’m shocked. My hair is sticking up all over my head and I have neglected to put on make-up, so that I look pale and ghastly and 10 years older than my 64 years. It is intensely disturbing to me when young people call me ma’am and give me their seats on the bus. It is a definite contradiction to how old I feel like I am, or would like to be again: 25.

“What are you looking at?” I ask the gaunt face in the mirror and she looks away. There has to be more to life than this, I think, then brush those thoughts away and hasten out the door.

At the liquor store, I discover that I am still short, so I take out my debit card. I have no idea if any money is on there, but hope for the best, and am pleasantly surprised to find I have enough to buy the vodka with $2 left over. I take my vodka home and give the $2 back to Lucy. “I’m gonna need that mop back,” I tell her. She hands it over like a weapon and the three of us go out to Magdalena’s porch to drink shots together as the sun shines through the glistening, golden gauze someone has thrown over the railing.

Nobody says much. Chemical remorse does not lend itself to conversation, nor are we feeling happy, joyous, and free, as they say in AA, which I attend once or twice a week—in part because they have good coffee, in part because they say things I need to hear. Chasing the ever-disappearing rainbow of the buzz is exhausting. Further, it’s been a long time since the rewards of drinking outweighed the consequences, and today is a perfect example. It feels like there are cobwebs behind my eyes; my body aches as though someone has poured poison in it. Someone did. That person was me and the poison was alcohol—day after day, night after night, so that one hardly knows the difference between being sober and drunk.

Magdalena goes inside to refill our drinks. She is wearing high, black lace-up boots, black and white striped leggings, and one purple sock. Her massive cleavage is in full view as is Lucy’s. She plays the song “Horse and I” by Bat For Lashes and we sit silently and smoke.

The sun is streaming through the golden gauze and at the same instant we all three put on sunglasses, like duelers drawing their guns. From out of the silence and golden light we see a woman get out of her tiny, yellow MINI Cooper and walk over to us. She is young and ravishingly beautiful, with long, brown hair and gray eyes. She is wearing a shirt with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, tight jeans, and very expensive-looking cowboy boots.

“Rachel,” we cry in unison, and the young woman in her early 20s walks over and sits down. There are hugs and kisses all around. The last time I saw Rachel, approximately six months ago, she was driving away in her Mercedes guzzling an open bottle of vodka. Rachel has been in alcohol and drug treatment since then, and good health fairly oozes out of her. Her skin is clear and golden, her eyes sparkling with clarity.

“Hey guys,” she says, her smile radiant, utterly charming as she spouts the program. “I go to meetings three times a day. It’s what I do for fun now.”

Magdalena, Lucy, and I watch Rachel transfixed. We listen and sip our drinks while she talks and talks about sobriety. But we liked her better before, with the bottle of vodka. Now her happiness and health feels like a reproach, though we are certainly happy for her. I feel an intense longing to have what she has.

As Rachel drives away, Magdalena, Lucy, and I avoid looking at one another.

“Good for Rachel,” says Lucy, with a barely discernible trace of sarcasm. Magdalena and I nod in agreement weakly. Soon we disperse, to go back and confront our own self-undoing, alone.

After taking a shower, I wander over to my closet and rifle through my wardrobe. No shoes with laces. No mouthwash with alcohol. No hairdryers. I get out a suitcase and begin packing neatly folded, comfortable, safe clothing. I google various treatment centers and make arrangements to board my dog, Mallory.

I really need to do this, I tell myself. But one small part of me—the alcoholic, addictive part—is defiant. As they say in the program, alcoholism is cunning and baffling.

Lighting a cigarette, I go to the phone to call the treatment ward at Blount Memorial Hospital in Maryville. As the woman on the other end answers the phone, I tell her my name and begin giving her the necessary information for my admission.

I drink the last shot of whiskey in one gulp.

Donna Johnson

Donna Johnson describes herself as a person who thrives on breaking the rules other people have made while also creating rules for herself that do make sense. “My rules do not necessarily follow the law set out by the government and law-abiding citizens,” she says. “They follow an inner law, one unto myself, and when I attempt to go outside this, to conform, disaster follows.” Her stories are often about people who are not recognized by others, who may even seem invisible, but “they often have a great truth to share if one but listens.”