作為一位已婚的全職媽媽,我很快了解到:如果我40%醒著的時間都是喝醉的狀態(tài),那我會十分享受。但這是錯的。我沒有計算比例,也沒有那么享受。
I would go to the store to "buy groceries for a nice dinner" and come back with a couple nice bottles of wine, for our nice dinner, which I would drink while Icooked. At our actual dinner I would have more wine and a cocktail or two. (They do not write this in the "new mom" brochure we get when they discharge us from the hospital, but perhaps they should.)
我會去商店"買一些食材準備美味的晚餐",回來的時候會帶幾瓶酒搭配美味的晚餐,但我在做菜的時候就會開喝。實際吃飯的時候,我會喝更多酒,還會再喝一兩杯雞尾酒。(出院時,他們沒有在發(fā)給我們的"初為人母"的手冊中寫下這一點,但也許他們應(yīng)該加上這一條。)
I drank for relief. I drank because from my first sip at sixteen, alcohol felt like peace, like coming home after a long and arduous journey. Anticipation of the day's first glass was a rush of lifted spirits within me-energy, comfort, being-and by glass number two, I began to feel the way I thought I should feel all the time.
我喝酒是為了放松。因為從16歲喝到的第一口酒開始,它就給我?guī)砹似届o,好比一段漫長而艱辛的旅程之后,我回到了家中。每天對第一杯酒的期待令我精神滿滿--能量、舒適、活于人間--到了第二杯,我開始覺得自己活成了自以為的那個樣子。
Drugs would do the same, but they required such commitment- transactions with people I didn't know, dealers refusing to return my calls. After Ava was born, I was a drug dabbler. I was a fucking grown-up, after all, a mother.
毒品會帶來同樣的情況,但需要做出一定承諾--與陌生人做交易、販毒者拒絕回我電話。艾娃出生后,我曾涉獵過毒品。但畢竟我是一個成年人,一位母親。
More realistically, what saved me from narcotics was that I lived on a ranch ten miles outside an excessively vanilla college town where "partying" looked like nineteen-year-olds doing kegstands, not bumps of cocaine in bathroom stalls.
將我從毒品中拯救出來的更為現(xiàn)實的原因是:我住在一個牧場上,距離超大的香草大學(xué)城十英里,在那里"派對"就是19歲的大學(xué)生喝桶裝啤酒,而不是在浴室里吸可卡因。
And I wasn't seeking drugs because I had alcohol, which was enough-mostly because it was reliable. You could get a bad baggie. You couldn't get a bad handle of Grey Goose. Plus, everyone drank. I could cling to alcohol like it was my last breath of air, but as long as I hid my desperation, the world would assume I was motherly, even sophisticated. They would believe the polish of laughter and smiles, as long as I never looked too excited.
我不再吸毒還有一個原因:我還有酒啊,這就足夠了--主要因為酒能令我安心。你可能會買到壞的手提包。但你卻不會買到壞的灰雁牌伏特加酒。另外,每個人都會喝醉。我堅持飲酒,就像它是最后一縷空氣,但只要我隱瞞我的絕望,整個世界就會以為我是一位好母親,甚至還會認為我經(jīng)驗豐富。他們會相信我的假笑,只要我看上去不至于太過興奮。