My Drunk Part

Finding love at a wedding

I have a complicated relationship with alcohol. My grandfather was an alcoholic. AA was his church. My industry and social circles often revolve around our favorites bars. I'm not proud of the answer when doctors office forms ask how many drinks I have per week. I sometimes crave it when I'm uncomfortable. I sometimes crave it when I want to celebrate. I can't always stop once I've started. I’ve done sober months. I have an app on my phone called EasyQuitDrinking. I’m not sure how alcoholic is defined.

I’ve come to love so many of my parts that I previously was very ashamed of. But Drunk Stephanie and I still have a complicated relationship.

I appreciate the things she offers me and the things she loves. I know that she holds something she is coping with, probably something beyond just the social anxiety that she effortlessly (and expensively) knows how to ease. I love that she knows how to put us in our body when we're stuck in our heads. And she's fucking fun honestly. She has a great time. She makes friends with strangers. And sometimes she's writes some of our best stuff.

But there's a measure of shame to forgetting things, to being sloppy, and to the waste of time and health. There's an element of you're thirty-five, girlie, not twenty-one. I can feel the judgement from myself laced in every word I write here. Drunk me is watching another part of me edit these sentences over and over in order to make it abundantly clear to any reader that we are judging her before they can.

I haven’t really sat down to talk to her yet. To find out what she's holding tightly and what she's trying to drown. I know I'll have to offer her other coping mechanisms to replace the one she's found safety in.

I’m going through the steps with her a little slower than I have gone through them with other parts. She’s been the hardest. And if there is a place I still hold shame, it is in her.

We still have a lot of work to do together, her and I, but this post is not for that. This post is a bit of beauty in the the midst of the process.

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I went to a wedding this weekend. My partner (and plus one for this wedding) does not drink and never has. He has seen me drink before, but I have always tried to keep it extremely limit and under control. Part of the reason I know I still hold shame in this part of me is because I've been hiding her from him.

He is one of the things my parts all agree on. They sit around the table looking out at him, faces leaned on their hands like they're straight out a 90s teen movie. He is a cafeteria table of enthusiastic yeses. He treats each of them with such care. Every time I introduce him to a part, he takes her hands in his without ever hesitating. He sees her and does not look away. And they fucking swoon. He's our treasure.

And I worry that if he sees Drunk Stephanie, she could fuck it up. I feel ashamed of her, but I also feel shame saying that about her, writing those words. I'm sorry. Another time.

The morning after the wedding, I woke up embarrassed and nervous (and extremely hungover). I didn’t remember parts of the night, which was not surprising, but I had also probably gotten sloppy this time too.

He is wrapped around me. I am sheepish. He is not. Nothing has changed.

“How are you feeling?” the little saint man asks.

I don't pull any anxiety punches anymore. “Are you going to leave me?”

“What? Of course not. We had a great time. Do you want a recap of the night?”

When I drink, I forget super easily. It doesn’t feel like the typical blacking out - I don't feel out of control or sloppy or often even drunk - it's just like my brain isn't interested in paying attention or cataloguing anymore the second the second glass touches my lips.

“Did I throw up?” I already know the answer. I could see the moment. Drunk Stephanie must have left a note with a little picture.

“Yes. You asked me that so many times afterwards during the night. It was so funny.”

“Yeah, I don't know why my brain just turns off. I do remember a lot of bits all throughout.”

“It’s like your other parts are just like… whatever she’s not listening to us anyway… let’s just go to bed.”

I laugh. We all laugh.

“Yeah, they're like we’re tired. She's got this. She's having a good time. You do you Drunk Stephanie. Night night bb.”

“But every once in awhile a different part wakes up and comes down to pop their head in and ask me,

‘Did we throw up?’

‘Yes.’

And then she goes back to bed. Then a little bit later another part checks in again…

Did we throw up?

Yes, couch Stephanie, it's fine.

Oh okay.”

We laugh in bed, picturing my different sleepy parts and their individual reactions to Drunk Stephanie. Shaking their heads but with a hint of a smile. Exhausted but also in love with their wild 21 year old self. Kid Stephanie probably came down and even danced with her for a minute before padding back upstairs.

I picture her, having the time of her life, at the table alone staring out at this beautiful party. She’s dancing on the table, inhibitions gone. She’s making sure all of our friends know how VERY MUCH they are loved. She's orchestrating THE BEST pictures. She's asking everyone their favorite thing in the world. She knows the poet would LOVE that.

She’s not upset the other parts left and she’s touched that that they check in, even if she rolls her eyes sometimes. She makes little hurried notes in her phone about all of the moments that they'd really love, for them to read later.

I picture my parts feeling the next-morning ramifications. Annoyed, head throbbing, stomach tender, the poet unable to write, couch me comforting everyone on the couch, but they are all also kindly laughing at Drunk Stephanie with her hurting head resting on the table.

“Oh no, she's not even at the table, she's still asleep”

He's given Drunk Stephanie and I such a gift.