Eventualities: Allison Ch. 01

She introduced herself, and then wasted no time in dropping the bomb on me. "Are you and Allison having relationship problems? Is there some trouble there at home I need to be concerned about that explains her behavior here at work?"

"Huh? What?" I stammered in confusion. "As far as I knew there is nothing currently happening that should be a problem to her, let alone one that should be causing any situations at work. Why, what is happening?"

She then told me, no surprise, that Allison was drinking again – a couple of margaritas at lunch and then a few more with the girls at when she got off of work at five o'clock. Already my warning lights were going off in my head, since she had told me she told me she didn't get off until after six, and often needed to stay late. In addition during the workday she had been seen several times drinking from a small flask in the stockroom.

This was not good, and could quickly lead back to the problems we had had earlier. I thanked Pamela for the information and I briefly gave a somewhat sanitized history of Allison's problems with alcohol, to which Pam offered a great deal of advice... much of which I wish now I had followed more carefully and completely. In short, alcohol 'rationing' as she put it, simply was probably not going to work in Allison's case, she seemed to need it too desperately, only cutting her off completely 100% (and keeping her off) was likely to have any positive effect. Above all, Pam stressed, Allison needed to be taken to AA – forcibly if need be.

Also, we both needed a vacation, bad timing or not for my work, Pam thought I should get her out of town for a week or two and away from the mostly empty house, hopefully long enough for new (sober) habits to have a chance of sinking in. Her job would still be open for her upon her return. (What a great boss!)

This gave me quite a bit to think about. Yes, the timing was bad, very bad, for me to take any vacation time at the moment. I had been with the HFD for just a little over a year at that point and I did have almost all of my accrued vacation time unused, the problem was my EMT-P classes. Allison needed two full weeks of my attention, day and night, but the most time I could take right now immediately was about 8 days until my next scheduled test for the current block of the study program. If I missed or rescheduled that test, I would have effectively lost my last 2 months of crammed study. In conversations that afternoon with my Station Captain, the Senior Training Chief, and also with Tiny, they all advised "tests be damned – give your woman the attention she needs" – but I was too fixated upon getting that promotion as fast as possible and I thought those eight days would be enough.

I was wrong, and I think I knew it at the time, but I had convinced myself otherwise. I requested and got the eight days of vacation leave, and then suitcases packed for a long driving trip I left the house right at 5 p.m. and went to the Mexican Restaurant & Cantina where Pam assured me that Allison was was every evening. Let the games begin!

*************

To say that Allison didn't appreciate being grabbed by surprise by her arm and be towed literally kicking and screaming out of a crowded bar (and away from two gentleman admirers that had been happily buying her drinks) would be an understatement. She yelled and screamed and called me every curse name in her book. It improved even less when I grabbed her purse from her, upended it and found a mostly empty metal hip flask with vodka in it. Thank goodness there were no condoms, at least. Caught, she turned sullen and became withdrawn from me and my probing questions.

"Smile," I said, "you're on vacation for the next week," as I poured out the last ounce or two from the flask unto the roadway. The flask itself went into the trashcan of the first gas station we later stopped at. "And enjoy that last bit of aftertaste from your Margarita, because as long as I have anything to say about it, that drink was your last."

The mood was ugly in the car for at least the next two hundred miles.

We drove through San Antonio on I-10 going West and kept going and going, stopping only for gas, food and bathroom breaks. Allison remained quiet but surly, once refusing to leave the gas station bathroom until I got the spare key from the attendant and frog marched her back to the car. When yelling failed, she began to beg and cajole. When that failed she pleaded and cried... to no avail.

"The next drink you take will be your last with me as far as I'm concerned. Make up your mind: your drinking or our relationship?" I would tell her, usually about every hour; and usually she had no answer. I drove all night and reached El Paso by mid-morning. I had done my early Army Medic training here at Fort Bliss and I remembered a suitable fleabag drive-in motel with nothing but surrounding miles of desert and not a beer or bottle to be had for love or money; that would suit the situation perfectly!

We slept in separate beds for the first (and only time) we were together. I did make a point of hiding the car keys in case she got the notion to club me with the motel desk lamp and take off in the car in search of a drink (I wouldn't have put it at all past her at that moment in time).

The road trip continued. New Mexico turned into Arizona and the late autumn heat was just enough to defrost the iciness in the car. Allison began to relax a bit and started to enjoy herself, despite sniffy claims to the contrary. She shared my bed that night in Tucson, but we did not make love. Upon her request the next morning, we detoured off to see the famous Wild West town of Tombstone, and while she was painfully itching to have a drink at the infamous Crystal Palace we both made do with a Sarsaparilla (nasty stuff, but wild westerny and non-alcoholic). By the time we stopped for the night, just across the California border, she was sleeping with her head in my lap and, for the first time on our vacation, we made love, slowly and unhurriedly. We had sex every night thereafter but I think this particular bout of lovemaking was special because it was a reaffirmation that we deeply loved each other and neither could really bear the thought of us being separate.

I'll spare the lengthy details of the rest of the vacation other than to say we made it as far as San Francisco (where we did leave pieces of our hearts, and vowed to return someday) before we had to drive home in a 48 hour non-stop frenzy via Las Vegas, which attracted our hearts not at all; we didn't even stop for gas there. We made it back to Houston with literally only 30 minutes to spare before my scheduled testing time.

I somehow nearly aced the test despite no sleep for 3 days and 'crammed' by either reading in the car while Allison drove or having Allison read my textbooks aloud to me while I drove. Madness, but I'd make that trip all over again in a heartbeat. Itwastoo short.

Those glorious eight days of 'our vacation' were the high-water mark of our relationship. We returned to my lengthy and awkward work and study schedule and Allison began to work nearly as hard herself in order to recover her boss's previous good impressions of her. Things weren't bad at her work, but there was now an obvious strain in her working relationships with her direct supervisor that didn't entirely go away. She did not get that promotion to Shift Supervisor and there were only vague hints that such a promotion would be at all likely to occur anytime soon. Allison's discouragement began to grow and she even began to hint that she thought it was time to change jobs once more, to start new somewhere else and without the baggage. I told her to hang on and show some loyalty to her boss, and for now she did.

**********

When Allison had been sober for a month, she remarked that 'this was the longest she had been without a drink since she was 15 years old!' She did have some alcohol withdrawal symptoms, her hands noticeably shook at times, even a month later, and her temper became quite short as if she was occasionally in physical pain. It was obvious that staying sober was a daily battle for her and the nights when she was alone were apparently even worse. When the urge to go have a drink started became too powerful for her she would call me at work. At least several times a week I would get her late night phone call at the fire station or a message to call her back ASAP when I returned from an EMS call. Soon it got to the point where I would just call her several times a night just to reassure and comfort her. There were good days and bad days, and I was beginning to worry that the good days weren't occurring frequently enough.

It was the week of Thanksgiving when I think the wheels started to come off the tracks and Allison lost her battle against the bottle and began to drink again.

***********

That Thanksgiving holiday was pretty much a disaster for us both. I still had about half of my training course left to go and my long expected but feared transfer occurred right after Halloween. My new fire station was quite a bit farther from home giving me a longer commute, but more importantly less opportunity to stop by the house by surprise for a few minutes some evenings when things at the station were quiet and I would be able to run out for an 'errand' or two.

There was almost never a slow period at this new station and I spent every shift elbow deep in blood dealing with gunshot wounds, stabbings and drug overdoses. This station was located in one of the worse parts of the city in a high crime area where highly trained trauma EMT's were a critical necessity. We were understaffed and overworked, with many of our veteran EMT's in bad 'burnout

. About half of the EMT staff quit and left the profession entirely during the two and half years that I worked that District. I worked five non-stop days that Thanksgiving holiday weekend with little more than occasional catnaps and almost no opportunity to phone Allison, let alone stop by the house and see her. When I got home, I did not like what I found.

The house was a wreck, bits of broken china and glass remained unswept in a corner of the kitchen. She appeared somewhat manic, alternating laughing and crying, demanding to know where I had been, and why wasn't I home with her? No answer I could give was satisfactory. Her kisses had the distinct odor of mouthwash and breath-freshener but 'No', she denied having anything to drink. My gut told me she was lying... but I couldn't prove it.

Covert searching over the next three days failed to find any hidden liquor bottles, but I began to feel certain I just wasn't looking hard enough or in the right place. She did admit she had quit her job, but wasn't going to look for another one quite yet. She admitted to being out of sorts and wanted time to 'straighten her head out.' We didn't particularly need her income and her head certainly needed something... I agreed without debate.

What should have disturbed me the most was that she was now skipping her regular AA meetings nearly constantly now.

Over the next month I saw more and more signs of the old Allison, her confidence seemed to significantly improve and she became much livelier, but she remained moody as if she had a number of things on her mind. The lingering aroma of breath freshener and strong mouthwash became a constant in our home. Whenever I got the opportunity I searched everywhere I could in the apartment and in her car but just couldn't find any hidden bottles stashed away. Something told me that I was missing something important but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Allison began to very much resent my new attitude of suspicion and the entire month of December started with a strain to our relationship that nothing seemed to alleviate. I admitted defeat to myself in proving that she was again drinking and let the matter remain dropped. By Christmas time I had pretty much decided the whole thing was just in my overworked and overstressed imagination. Then, on that New Years Eve day, Tiny showed up at my fire station wanting to take me to lunch and my whole world came crashing down upon me.