TEN
SEX My first date in sobriety was with a guy I knew from college. When I saw him at <strong>the</strong> restaurant, he was more attractive than I remembered, though he was wearing jeans that ei<strong>the</strong>r marked him as above fashion or distressingly behind it. “I don’t mind if you drink,” I lied <strong>to</strong> him. “I know,” he said, and ordered a Coke. I was getting <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> place where I needed <strong>to</strong> date. (Not want, mind you, but need.) In <strong>the</strong> cocoon of my crooked little carriage house, I watched documentaries back <strong>to</strong> back and unspooled fantasy lives with men I’d never met. The tat<strong>to</strong>oed waiter who read Michael Chabon. The handyman with Paul Newman eyes. I could see myself losing years this way, living nowhere but between my ears. So I forced myself out <strong>the</strong> front door with trembling hands and burgundy lip gloss. All dating is an unknown country, but as far as I knew, mine was uninhabitable. Even friends who didn’t struggle with raging booze problems were unclear how I was going <strong>to</strong> date without alcohol. “I don’t think I’ve ever kissed a guy for <strong>the</strong> first time without drinking,” said my 27-year-old coworker Tracy. And she was a professional sex writer. How did this happen? We were worldly twenty-first-century women, who listened <strong>to</strong> sex podcasts and shared tips on vibra<strong>to</strong>rs and knew all <strong>the</strong> naughty peepholes of <strong>the</strong> Internet. And yet somehow we acquired all this advanced knowledge of sex—threesomes, BDSM, anal—and zero mastery over its most basic building block. The idea of kissing unmoored me. Touching a man’s lips <strong>to</strong> mine without <strong>the</strong> numbing agent of a three-beer buzz sounded like picking up a downed wire and placing it in my mouth. After dinner, my old college friend <strong>to</strong>ok me <strong>to</strong> a coffee shop, where I drank hot chocolate on a breezy patio. I liked him. (Mostly.) He was a doc<strong>to</strong>r. He remembered <strong>the</strong> oddest details about me from college, which was flattering, like he’d been thinking about me all along. I <strong>to</strong>ld him a poignant s<strong>to</strong>ry about my past, because I sensed this was <strong>the</strong> scooching-closer portion of <strong>the</strong> evening, and he <strong>to</strong>ok my hand, which was resting on <strong>the</strong> table. Such a simple gesture: four fingers slipped in<strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> crook of my own. But with that subtle and natural movement, my arm became encased in a block of ice. Oh God, <strong>the</strong> panic. I was afraid <strong>to</strong> pull away. I was afraid <strong>to</strong> invite him closer. I was like a doe who had spied <strong>the</strong> red laser sighting of a gun on my chest. Do not move. They say drinking arrests your emotional development at <strong>the</strong> age when you start using it <strong>to</strong> bypass discomfort, and nothing reminded me of that like sex. In <strong>the</strong> year and a half since I’d quit, I had confronted so many early and unformed parts of myself, but sex continued <strong>to</strong> make me downright squeamish. I was horrified by <strong>the</strong> vulnerability it entailed. Sometimes I walked around in disbelief about blow jobs. Not that I’d given <strong>the</strong>m, but that anyone had, ever. As I sat on <strong>the</strong> patio with my frozen robot arm, I kept flashing <strong>to</strong> an alternate version of this date. The one where I poured rocket fuel down my throat and went barreling <strong>to</strong>ward him with a parted mouth. Instead, when he dropped me off, I darted from his front seat so fast I practically left a cloud of dust. Thankyounice<strong>to</strong>seeyougoodnight. I climbed in<strong>to</strong> my bed and pulled <strong>the</strong> duvet up <strong>to</strong> my chin,
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Begin Reading Table of Contents New
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PRELUDE
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The guy isn’t bad-looking. Slight
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WOMEN WHO DRINK I was 33, and lying
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she did not get—but I’ve never
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In my 20s, friends called with that
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I discussed roofies with Aaron Whit
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a while, a columnist would come alo
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ONE
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when no one was looking, and I woul
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steps, not talking. As much as my f
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Our home was on a major artery thro
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She’d transformed, like Olivia Ne
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I threw up seven times. Hunched ove
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STARVED One of the curious aspects
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more successful her eating disorder
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orrowed. She couldn’t miss the si
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To make it more confounding, Miles
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efused to be won. I drank cup after
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DRESSING IN MEN’S CLOTHES I start
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coffee. But that seemed like a very
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you to imperil our amazing friendsh
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I FINALLY GOT a boyfriend near the
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FOUR
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The production guy passed my desk a
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drank myself to the place where I w
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ehind me, and told him I was moving
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my Harp as soon I walked in the doo
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- Page 61 and 62: “Your key, mademoiselle,” said
- Page 63 and 64: My friend Meredith lived in an apar
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- Page 67 and 68: OF COURSE. OF course I’d gone to
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- Page 73 and 74: When the bottle was drained, I’d
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- Page 85 and 86: But his once-sallow cheeks were ros
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- Page 95 and 96: for me? My friends didn’t necessa
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- Page 99 and 100: said, and she was right. The next w
- Page 101 and 102: fill-in-the-blank letter of apology
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- Page 105 and 106: the tastes of a frat boy, or a grum
- Page 107 and 108: Mine was a recipe for unhappiness.
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- Page 117 and 118: “I’m thinking: Well, that was f
- Page 119 and 120: he’s impotent or not, I don’t k
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- Page 123 and 124: the scorn of strangers. They skip t
- Page 125 and 126: Addiction was the inverse of honest
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- Page 129 and 130: THIS IS THE PLACE A few months befo
- Page 131 and 132: Anna and I have had 20 years of the
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- Page 137 and 138: ABOUT THE AUTHOR SARAH HEPOLA’S w
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