When I was actively drinking, I was usually numb during the holidays, except for that one awful Christmas when I lived in Lake Los Angeles with my ex boyfriend, and I went all out and decorated the front lawn with animated Christmas reindeer and an animated Santa Claus. I was drinking wine, chain smoking and decorating. That’s a bad combination, especially if you are dealing with an electric cord that one of yours dogs has chewed up.
I almost got zapped to death while I tried to connect the grinning Santa to the stupid reindeer. I blew out some fuses, which really pissed my ex off, mostly because he was in his room playing Call of Duty. I think he would have been happier if I had been electrocuted and died.
Years later, when I got sober, I became in many ways like old Marley in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—that is, “dead as a doornail.”
For me, the holiday season is kind of like a Pandora’s Box—open it and there are all of Sevasti’s co-occurring disorders floating around, like little animated demons with horns popping out of their heads, holding pitchforks which they have no problem using on me.
I get dark. I isolate. If I hear toy commercials on the alternative rock station, I cringe. A few times I have actually mumbled, “Bah humbug” under my breath. You know the sweet little Salvation Army Santas that stand in front of the supermarkets ringing bells and asking for donations for the poor? Every time I hear one of those bells rings, I think, “Oh, just shut up!!! SHUT UP!!!” When I look at Christmas decorations, especially animated reindeer and Santa, I get freaked out and think, “Shit, that awful Lake LA Christmas has made me a candidate for EMDR.”
But something is starting to brew this year.
In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer has a vision of his dead friend, Jacob Marley. Marley warns Scrooge that three ghosts—past, present and future—will visit him. Marley is pretty messed up—he has to walk around for eternity with rattling chains and fetters—but at least he has the heart to show up and well, be of service to old Scrooge.
Marley warns Ebenezer that when he dies, his own chains and fetters will be much longer and heavier. In other words, Scrooge is screwed.
I didn’t get exactly get a visit from some old ghost with rattling chains, but I did have a weird dream: It was the 1980’s but I wasn’t younger. I was me the way I am today. I was in some music studio where the rock band KISS was mingling with fans at a Christmas party. I was watching them, but I was separated by glass so I could see them but they could not see me. I don’t think they were serving booze (I’ve heard that the members of KISS are clean and sober so that information must have worked its way into my dream).
Suddenly, I turned around and there was Gene Simmons right behind me, in full gear, looking just the way he used to back in the day. He was tuning his guitar. He didn’t say a word; he just sneered.
And then I woke up.
What the hell?
What did this dream mean?
Instead of a Jacob Marley-like vision, I get a visit from Gene Simmons dressed up like his heavy duty demon alterego complete with those retarded dragon boots and clutching his custom made electric bass guitar?
As I pondered that, the ghost of Christmas past showed up: I suddenly had this memory of me as a kid in my room back in the Bronx, writing my first book, which I called In Search of HUG, and oh my God, how had I forgotten this? I was such a studious young girl! There were so many wonderful classic books in my room. And there I was, typing away. My book was about a young groupie who chases a rock band called HUG. By the end of the book, she befriends a young girl who is quite ill, and realizes that her rock idols are merely human, and that happiness is about helping others.
And guess what? HUG was based on the band KISS!!!
I remembered typing my manuscript on an old Corona that my dad had bought me. And I was listening to music! Back then we had albums, so I listened to Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and KISS, of all things. And I was happy!
A few tears trickled down my cheeks.
How had I forgotten this?
The ghost of Christmas present showed up just then, in present day Sevasti-land, where I was hunched in front of my computer, surrounded by my dogs and starting at a freaking cactus outside my window. I was, of all things, on Facebook. I saw my sponsor was on there too so I shot her a message: I feel really down.
GET TO A MEETING! she wrote.
BAH, HUMBUG! I thought, but instead I wrote back, I don’t know. Getting tired of AA. I think I need to see another shrink. Or do some yoga.
Then came a visit from the ghost of Christmas future and well, he wasn’t very nice.
Yes, I saw myself dead, just like old Ebenezer did in the story. But at least the dude got a tombstone. In my case, the cremated remains of Sevasti Scrooge end up in the Potter’s field section of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery—that is, if they are not booked up by the time I get there.
I got up and went to a meeting.
I know that sounds corny, but I went back to my home group in Palmdale. These days I live in the Mojave, so it’s a bit of a trek, but I drove down there. And, not to continue to sound corny, once I was there, I felt better and giddy—just like Ebenezer.
Afterwards, I went to Wal-Mart where I bought Christmas lights and antlers and weird little doggy costumes for my dogs.
As I hung the lights and got my dogs in their holiday gear, I wondered if old Ebenezer was maybe an alcoholic. When he changed, former associates thought that he was mad. But he told them that he wasn’t crazy, he had just come to his wits. He didn’t overanalyze what had happened to him but just shed the darkness of his past, and entered the light. I love that.
Tonight when I go to Rite-Aid to pick up my psych meds, I imagine there will be a Santa in front of Albertsons.
This time I will drop some money in the bucket.
And get my ass to a meeting this weekend.
Photo courtesy of SplitShire
Sponsored DISCLAIMER: This is a paid advertisement for California Behavioral Health, LLC, a CA licensed substance abuse treatment provider and not a service provided by The Fix. Calls to this number are answered by CBH, free and without obligation to the consumer. No one who answers the call receives a fee based upon the consumer’s choice to enter treatment. For additional info on other treatment providers and options visit www.samhsa.gov.
