When you throw parties, the fortune-teller told me with a smile, the dead come to enjoy the vibe. They love to celebrate Life with you and your friends. At the next gathering of my tribe I imagined indigenous people dancing and drumming in the meadow, while the previous owners of the land cracked open a bottle of champagne, pouring it into old-fashioned coupe glasses.

Always with gatherings, there would be libations. Adult beverages, as a friend of mine, a true wino, calls them. A true wino meaning someone who has an extensive wine cellar of fine vintages of the grape, who can hold forth in flowery language about “terroir” (the wine tastes like where it was grown) and “legs” (wine streaks on a glass, called tears) and flavors reminiscent of blueberries, figs, lemons, lapsang-souchong, black pepper with just a hint of raspberry. Whatever. A connoisseur, who basically likes to get drunk every night, ideally with like-minded bon-vivants.

In my previous life, there was never a gathering without wine, a good bottle or two or three or four. This definitely got the conversation and other juices flowing. My first husband was a sommelier (French for wine steward) as well as a gourmet chef, so not only did I not need to cook (and was, in fact, banned from the kitchen), I also got to get loaded with our guests at every gathering. Afternoons, evenings and weekends that were filled with storytelling, laughter, dancing, sunset-watching and star-gazing. I’m not complaining! As they say, the fun never stopped.

Until it got old.

Or was it that I did?

Coming home to a house full of unexpected guests, and putting on the “drink bag” (like a horse with a sack full of oats hanging from its ears) became less and less appealing.  Not to mention the flirtations that I witnessed when I was occasionally sober, my then-husband’s especially. No one realizes how transparent they become when they’re high. Why? Because they’re high! Really kind of a blessing.

We were always seeking our tribe, and finding it. Real community, yet so often we found ourselves celebrating in the bottom of a bottle.

One evening a dear friend, at the time a total lush, suggested I open something from the “cellar” the cellar being a stack of cardboard boxes filled with wine in the darkest corner of the closet, so I dove in. I thought the vintage said 1994. As I opened the bottle of Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet I looked more carefully at the label, Nineteen Seventy Four. Ooops.

Oh no, I yelped, and started to push the cork back in.

Well, that won’t work girlie, said my friend, laughing, and so I pulled the cork out all the way. We each had a couple of glasses as we sat on the Adirondack chairs and watched the sunset over the ocean. Not only was it deliciously forbidden wine, it was actually the best wine I’d ever had, before or since (with the exception of a lady winemaker friend’s Santa Maria Chardonnay that tasted like flowers, but that’s another story.)

I learned later that the Napa Valley Cabernets from the 1970’s weren’t as amped with alcohol: 11-12% instead of the 14 or 15% which is the norm today. A much smoother, gentler buzz, and no hangover.

Speaking of hangovers, I was the Hangover Queen. It seemed at every gathering I would draw the short straw and be the one with the vicious, killer hangover.

They came in all kinds: the creeping slow tide, when I would wake up and give thanks to God that I had dodged the bullet, only to have the classic splitting headache come on later and last for a few days. Or, the kind when I would feel so woozy I couldn’t eat breakfast, or even have a cup of coffee. Or, and this one happened to me a lot, the icepick through the eyeball variety, leaving me wondering for hours if I was on the verge of keeling over.

One night when Torrey was in the hospital at the University of Iowa, I forgot the damage two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc in a lonely hotel room can do. At the hospital pharmacy the next day I found myself eyeballing the Alka-seltzer packages. I asked a beautiful young woman, clearly a pharmacy student, if this kind of Alka-seltzer was, um, good for hangovers?

I even confessed that I had one, and needed relief.

You know, I said,  “Plop, plop –  fizz, fizz oh what a relief it is?” I didn’t expect she would get this. I showed her the 50-year old TV commercial on You-tube, which she appreciated.

She asked the senior pharmacist in the back, who also remembered the famous jingle.

Actually not this kind of Alka-seltzer, but Naproxen (aka Aleve) will help, she told me.

Oh, and the acetaminophen (Tylenol) I’d been taking for hangovers for years? It’s contraindicated for alcohol use. Who knew?

What a blessing it is to get older and finally give all that up. I miss the celebrations of course, but relish feeling better in the mornings, and all day long. I also confess to feeling a little smug. At last, I’m getting over this life-long case of AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder). Hallelujah!

I drank my last glass of wine when I met a friend for lunch the day before my husband, the one who had rescued me, passed away. Exhausted and agitated after six months of battle in the hospital wars, I had no understanding that he was going home, and so very soon.

The caregiver suggested I take a short break, and that shared bottle of wine was like a dose of Ativan. Later that afternoon Hospice arrived and Torrey set off on his voyage.  

The next day, as I pressed my body against his in our bed, his body cold, turning into sacred marble, mine still pumping blood, weak with grief, I felt the last little molecules of the grape leaving my system. For good. That craving is gone.

The following day I poured the last of the cheap red wine down the kitchen sink.

What is a soul family? Do we gather with them after we die? Torrey thought so. We were family to each other on this earthly plane, with a love both intimate and unconditional. Because of this, our souls grew deeper in unexpected ways. Such a blessing to have this, at least once in a lifetime.

It could be that we are all in the same tribe and can’t feel it, at least not yet. When I would sit in circles in retreats, I would say to myself, who are these people? I don’t think I have anything in common with them. Then we would start sharing our stories, and I would realize, without a doubt: we are the same, we are connected. Just variations on a theme.

But the soul family, these are the souls that follow each other from life to life, learning, loving, growing. This round the soul is my mother, later, my child. This life, my enemy, next life, my friend.  Who was I last time? Who will I be next time? Imponderable questions.

One thing I know for certain – there are people we are supposed to meet. When you see the light in the eyes of your beloved, you follow that person, through hell if necessary, and all the way up to the gates of heaven if you can.

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