Shaken and stirred

How long was your relapse?

Probably two years. I got sober in 1997. I was obsessed with alcohol when I got out of rehab at the Proud Institute, obsessed with how many days I had sober, and how many days it would be until I had a year sober, and how many days left until I had two years. It was on my mind all the time.

Writing helps tremendously. The only time in my life I haven't written is when I was drinking. Writing is what keeps me tethered. It keeps me aware. I can't hide from myself when I'm writing. It fills the time, and because of what I write now, which is all nonfiction, I've got to have things to write about and that's gonna have to be what I'm thinking about.

But what really got me the second time was alcohol poisoning. It really felt like life or death. I could not sleep because my heart would startle. That absolutely terrified me. I felt the full force of it like I had never felt before so I have a very healthy fear of and respect for alcohol. There are times where I think, oh it would be nice to have a glass of wine, because Dennis enjoys drinking like a normal person and really appreciates certain wines, but it's never actually like craving.

You can have bottles of wine in the house and not feel tempted?

Totally. I never feel worried that I'm going to drink it. I don't feel unsafe with it in the house.

Do you miss anything about drinking?

I don't regret any of it. It was a wonderful experience, as terrible and as life-threatening as it was. To be in your early 20s in New York City making too much money and having a career that demanded play to a large degree and to be a drunk was fun. Alcohol is not like crack or cocaine or heroin in that it is a lot slower. I also figured it was OK to be an alcoholic, because I was high-functioning, so I could get away with it. Some people can be an alcoholic and get away with it. But alcohol will take you down in the end -- your liver shrinks, and your liver cells die and you're not able to metabolize the volume of alcohol you once were, and you require more alcohol to get that same feeling. And once you reach that point, the buzz is gone, and you suddenly have to drink in order to function. Sometimes I miss the obliteration, the mindless, absolute spontaneity of it. But there's so much more that I don't miss. And the things that I have now that I enjoy, I enjoy more than I enjoyed in those moments.

Like what?

Over the weekend, after the book tour, Dennis and I were in our house in Northampton, Mass., with our new 10-week-old puppy and our 1-year-old puppy. Dennis is in the kitchen cooking, the TV is on but it's muted, NPR is playing on the stereo, all the windows are open, it's breezy, and there are candles lit, and I was ready to weep with absolute bliss, for the mind-numbing happiness and simplicity of it. And I never could have appreciated that, never. It's absolutely wonderful.

When you get rid of one addiction, do you take on another one? Do people get addicted to meetings?

Yes, they get addicted to meetings. Some people go once, twice, three times a day. It's not healthy. Get the fuck out of the basement, get your ass out of the folding chair and get a life. That's the kind of recovering alcoholic I never wanted to be. You've just got to push yourself to do things you wouldn't normally do. I was lucky in that I had writing. I could totally channel everything into writing and if I wasn't writing, I could read. I have a lot to catch up on because I have no education. I never had a chance to relax in my life because I'd been working, panicked about not having money, because I've lived in squalor when I was growing up so I've always been very panicky about being homeless. I never had a chance to relax and read a book. I don't think I read a book until I was 24. I read a lot now that I'm sober.

Did you read other drinking memoirs before?

No. Not since, either. I don't know why. It's not a genre I'm interested in. I don't read memoirs. There are too many of them. (Laughs.) I like to read my women's novels: Midwestern women having coffee, talking about their husbands and their kids: That is what I love to read about. Elizabeth Berg. Or A.L. Kennedy, on love and obsession.

Do you think it is possible to carry on a sober life?

I'm having one now, and I am hoping it continues. I never say never, but I don't see myself drinking, even if I were having a crisis. I have a network of people. Even when bad things happen now, I am a lot happier than I was. The thing is, if it weren't easier and better, I wouldn't be sober. It's that simple. If I had to really work at it that hard, I wouldn't be able to do it, because I am lazy and pleasure-seeking.

Do you have any indulgences now that you're not drinking?

I chomp nicotine gum. I'm going to end up with half a jaw.

What do you make of those three old guys sitting at the bar over there, hunched over their highball glasses? They've been here since I got here at noon.

I know the comfort of a highball at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. It happens in the dark. It is blindingly bright outside, and yet in here, it is like pupil dilation-land, and the music is slow jazz and the walls are brick and it's been unchanged. Nine-11 did not happen in this room. People don't die in this room. They are in another world. The fact that it is Wednesday in New York City in the summer is irrelevant in here.

The funny thing about bars is that they are a lot like little A.A. rooms. You walk through a door, and you enter a place that's just outside of society. One place serves cocktails, and one is full of people who are bitter that they don't get to have them anymore. But they're very similar. There are a lot of regulars here. I came here a few times when I was drinking, before I'd go out to the Odeon. It feels profoundly familiar. Those guys over there are probably here for the night. They'll have a burger at 8, go home and have a few more drinks and then pass out and do it again.

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