Crack Whore Patty was my alter ego in college. For the sake
of not repeating the word “whore” over and over again, let’s call her “CWP.”
CWP was born a little seedling in high school, when I discovered alcohol and my
love of partying. The unencumbered joy, the laughter and dancing, the
excitement was all addictive – as it is for most teenagers. But I didn’t love
drinking for the same reason most teenagers love it. I’m pretty darn sure I
loved it for the same reason most 70-year-old salty sailors with innumerable
illegitimate children love it – because it was a ticket to freedom from
self-imposed pressures that otherwise felt inescapable. After a few drinks, I
felt as close to weightless and worry-free as it was going to get for me. I
didn’t worry about school or making my dad proud or letting people down. I
didn’t worry about boys liking me or question if I was funny enough or pretty
enough. I just let myself be. It was like a long awaited exhale every time.
The escape offered by cheap rum drinks and warm beer proved
too alluring by freshman year of college, when the CWP seedling had blossomed
into one of those carnivorous Venus-fly trap plants. I started to push the
limits for what was “normal” drinking and partying and was hungry for that
freedom all the time. I’m sure there are old classmates that would tell you
they questioned if I was an alcoholic in training. I’ll be the first to admit I
had already left one of the training wheels back in the summer between high
school and college. My best friend spent most of college gluing the second
training wheel back on, gently asking in the morning if I remembered her
dragging me home from the curb I insisted upon “resting” on for a few minutes
outside the bar. I never remembered. I only drank when everyone else was
drinking and partying though– never mind that was 3-4 nights a week and
sometimes on Sunday Fun-days – so I never had any motivation to question if
there was something different about my drinking. And of course who wants
to question that when you’re in college. No one.
I couldn’t get bombed fast enough in those days – it was
like running 100 mph at a brick wall. Drunk hit me hard and fast, but the wall
was a break from that side of myself that grew increasingly exhausting
–the side that worried about the future and supporting myself and making
everyone around me happy. I tore into
cocktails (of any kind) or beer (of the cheapest kind) and within no time I shattered
the microscope I always put myself under. That’s when CWP would emerge. She had
the time of her life and made sure everyone else was having the time of their lives
too. She was wild and you never knew what she’d do next, but you could bet it
would be funny and often a spectacle. She had a blast and she never worried
about tomorrow. Never.
Sometimes CWP would black out her teeth and rat her hair and
sing songs in her underwear on a stool in the living room, cigarette dangling
from her hand, one eye crossed (I can still do that), southern whiskey drawl
spot-on. Other times she would get mouthy defending the honor of a friend
against a Boston bridge-and-tunnel chick who could have nailed her to the wall.
Thank god that scrappy alter-ego was a fast “flight” responder to fear. She
would have hysterical conversations with serial killer cab drivers in French, walk
home barefoot through the Back Bay alone, spend money she didn’t have bouncing from
bars to parties to bars again with people she barely knew. No matter what the
night entailed, she was certainly the “life of the party,” at least until she
had to be carried home.
CWP insulated herself with the fiercest of friends and
endless wild nights but there was an obvious price. She didn’t date anyone
seriously all through college because she was “having too much fun,” (when she
wasn’t too steeped in PAD and slept through class) but she was really just afraid
of getting hurt or rejected. She knew she couldn’t expect the level of respect
and kind of love she deserved as long as she partied the way she did – she was
at least smart enough to know that. But she felt powerful and free and on top
of the world when she drank. She hated feeling vulnerable so she chose partying
over companionship. Ironically, that felt safer to her.
CWP dissolved by morning and I woke up depressed and lonely.
I was sad a lot of the time but even in daylight I knew I was supposed to be
the tough one, the fun one. I never wanted to be a downer so I hid how affected
I was by the drinking as much as I could. (My roommates might find that
laughable when they recall all the times they found me sleeping by the door
with a blanket, pillow and bottle of orange soda. Not much hiding there.)
CWP made it difficult to decipher if I drank until I lost
control because I didn’t feel good about myself or if I didn’t feel good about
myself because I drank until I lost control. It was a “chicken or the egg”
thing. Either way you look at it – I simply didn’t feel good about myself most
days back then. I was lost. I was stuck. Drinking had introduced me to the cycle of sin
now and atone later. I thought if I balanced out the “party” with enough “punish”
then I wouldn’t do too much damage- to my grades or my body or my reputation. What
I didn’t understand was that the damage was already done – if only through the
inception of that loop of self-destruction.
It took me a long time to understand that I wasn’t ever
going to move forward towards success, happiness, or a fulfilling relationship
if I didn’t leave CWP and her unhealthy cycle of sinning and atonement behind.
I might have gone a bit too far in the control-freak direction, but it’s better
than the self-loathing that was de rigeuer in those days. I’m not ashamed of what
I went through, it’s an important part of who I am, but the untapped potential
and damage I did in those years is nothing to be proud of either. I never loved
that lifestyle and it sure didn’t love me back. Self-control, discipline, and a
strong will to be kind to myself and my body have given me a life that I love
and lots of things (and people) that love me back the way I deserve to be loved.
There just isn’t room for CWP in my life anymore. She might be entertaining and
the life of the party, but she’s the high-priced hooker of alter-egos – she
charges a price you’re not willing to pay.
