"Thank you very much for your help. Your opinion counts. Have a good day!"
For the umpteenth time that afternoon, I delivered my canned lines, hung up the phone and sighed. Such a monotonous job. I worked for a market research company, calling people all around the country for their opinions about products they’d used—today it was a line of air fresheners. After following the same script for hours, I dialed the next number from my list and looked at my watch. 1:30 PM. Just a few more hours until I could get back home and pour myself a glass of gin.
I knew, deep down, that I had a problem with alcohol. I just couldn’t admit it. In the past year, I'd gone from having a few drinks before dinner to drinking all the way up until bedtime. My husband and teenage daughter worried about me. I was 41 going on 42, but the way the drinking had ravaged my body, I felt much older. “Mommy, you’re hurting yourself,” my daughter said. “I’m scared.” I’d tried going to AA meetings, but I always kept drinking.
Just two days earlier, I’d asked my prayer group at church for help. Yet, immediately after I asked, I backtracked. “Actually, don’t pray for me,” I blurted. “It’s not that big a deal, I’m not even sure if I need to quit.” If God wanted me to get sober, he’d have to speak louder.
I quit thinking about that gin when a woman answered the phone. I introduced myself, read through my script, and ran through the survey questions. "Thank you very much for your help,” I repeated at the end. “Your opinion counts. Have a good day!"
"You have a good day too, sweetheart,” the woman said. “And don't pull an Elvis on me.”
"What?" I asked.
“Don’t die on me,” she said.
The line went silent, but her words echoed. A teenager in the 50s, I knew all about Elvis Presley, and his sudden death due to substance abuse… at the age of 42, the age I was about to be. Why would a total stranger make a point of saying that to me? Did she know, somehow, I was headed down the same road?
I came home that afternoon to my bottle of gin and poured it down the sink. It’s been many years, and I haven’t touched another drop.
