Originally Posted by bexxed

It's funny how years can sneak up on you, how memories work. I was thinking about something I read on this site this morning. I was driving, from one site to another for work. Someone had written something about what people thought, and it got me thinking as I left for my day. I thought about how I'd buy wine at different grocery stores, but always seemed to see the same cashiers. It actually never failed. I'd go to a few different stores- I had 4 on my beat, with a 5th one for "in a pinch". After awhile, I started to feel that recognition... that.... sense. Every time I came to the store, I bought alcohol. In fact, I bought alcohol every day. There was not a day that passed that I did not go to some store, one of the 4 sometimes 5, and purchase alcohol. I bought wine 2 or 3 at a time, with a six pack and a couple talls. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Unlike many people here, I could and did go to sleep with alcohol still in the house, but that didn't change that I seriously bought it every day. And I felt something from the cashiers... I know they knew me as the woman who comes in and gets a six pack of some IPA and a bottle or two of red wine every time she comes in. I could hear their minds working. "Oh, there's 7:30 PM IPA and red wine lady. I wonder if she'll get tortilla chips too. Sometimes she does that."

I told myself that they didn't notice, or care.

Today, suddenly, in traffic, I suddenly remembered "8 pack of wine lady".

A long time ago, I didn't drink like I ended up drinking. I could take it or leave it, and often left it. I was acutely aware of habitual anything and saw in people what looked to be painful or desperate. It was odd to me. I didn't have judgment but I am and have always been very astute with seeing details. I worked in a general store- that sold gas, food, groceries, gifts, tobacco, odds and ends, videos, and a full array of liquor. There was a lady who came in every day around 5 PM and bought 2 little four packs of wine. She struck me because I thought (as a very low income 20 year old person living off my minimum wage job while going to school and emancipated from my family) "wow, what a waste of money. She could get two bottles of wine instead and it would be half the price. I don't understand!" Once I asked her about it. She got really, and I mean really, flustered and said she just liked the little bottles and it kept the wine from going south. There was an awkward moment where I was thinking, "But, you drink 8 of them every day." and you could tell she was thinking that I was thinking that. She didn't come in for a few days. I felt really bad because I hadn't meant to make her uncomfortable. It truly hadn't occurred to me that she would feel uncomfortable. I mean, she was a member of the clergy! (Her checks said "reverend" next to her name) Members of the clergy, adult women who smile and seem put together are not alcoholics, and only alcoholics worry about their drinking. If it's not worrisome there's nothing wrong.

About a year later, she'd moved on to little nips of vodka with her 8 mini bottles. A year after that, it was a small bottle of vodka every day with just 4 mini bottles of wine. This had an effect on the store. We all of a sudden had to change our orders for the minis of chardonnay. At that point I was involved with ordering the booze, and acquiring a taste for it. Not drinking alcoholically by any means (except once or twice getting drunk, but it was more by accident and I hated hangovers.) Then, she suddenly stopped buying the vodka. Then, she stopped buying wine altogether and stopped being a regular customer. A couple weeks went by, and she came in for bread and milk. I asked how she was, and she told me she was expecting. I congratulated her, actually gave her a hug across the counter.

A week or so later, she was back to the wine. A mini or two at a time, then a four pack. Our interactions got really, really tense. It was so hard for me to not ask her if she needed help. I knew that she must, somewhere in her heart, really care. She never looked me in the eye anymore. When that baby came, his eyes were INCHES apart on his face. I'd see her husband with her after that sometimes. I wondered about their life. I felt for all three of them.

It hit me in the car today. Yeah, people know. People in your daily life KNOW. It's strange for me to remember that all of a sudden. It's like I completely forgot that I was a cashier in a glorified liquor store for years of my life, in a totally different chapter. There were lots of people who bought booze every day, now that I think about it. Lots and lots of regular customers. I never thought anything of it, until they started acting weird. And me? I started acting weird at a certain point, just like Reverend 2- 4 packs of minis. When I started acting weird with cashiers, I had stopped enjoying alcohol. Only an alcoholic knows how LONG 30 seconds of swiping your card and waiting for the receipt can take. Or waiting for the cashier to count the change and wish you a nice day. GRUELING.

So that's what happened in my mind today thanks to reading SR this morning. I might be (sort of) anonymous now, but I sure wasn't then. My pain was bursting out of the seams. It's no less unmanageable at 20 days in, but I think I can see some places to start creating a little bit of order.

Thanks for listening.