Get in a room with a bunch of addicts and mention the fact you used to hide a bottle of plonk behind the Drano in the utility cupboard, and everyone starts nodding like bobble-head dolls on a dashboard. It’s universal I think – this concept of hoarding your poison of choice in a “secure place”. With me there was always the feeling that I wasn’t going to get enough. And during the times when I made a big, loud deal about “cutting back on drinking” it was my way of safeguarding my addiction.
Let me count the ways I hid the booze:
- Laura and the kids still talk about how they used to look for something under my bathroom sink (like a hairdryer or hand cream) and a half-bottle of chard would roll out with a clank, onto the tile floor.
- I had a cupboard in my office that housed my printer and sending a document to it was risky – there was always a bottle teetering against the paper feed.
- I dated a teetotaler once. A long distance romance – and I would go without drinking for the entire weekend of his visit. I kept a screw cap bottle and plastic glasses in the spare tire well so I could start drinking ASAP after I let him off at the airport. Who knows what would have happened if I’d had a flat tire – I took out the spare to make room for my makeshift bar…
- I kept little “shooter” roadies in the glove box.
- I’d leave glasses of wine on the pantry shelf, behind coats in my closet, under bed skirts and behind curtains and potted plants. Then I’d forget where I’d hid them – they were always spilling, with glass breaking at inopportune times.
- Interestingly, my refrigerator usually only had one bottle of wine on the shelf – I guess I really thought I was fooling everybody.
Rae Green says, “It’s the same as a caveman hiding berries and a slab of mastodon behind a rock for survival. With a substance abuse disorder (SAD) the disease causes the inappropriate need to stockpile – for the survival of the addiction.”
It goes hand in hand: hiding and lying and addiction. I’m trying to think if I have anything embarrassing hidden behind my coats anymore… I suppose I wouldn’t want strangers going through my underwear drawer, but I’m kind of an open book these days. Thank God.
Anyone have any good stories about where you hid the goods?
