Why Philadelphia is a Great City for an Alcoholic
I believe we all have cities or whole countries that make us feel as if we are coming back to apart of ourselves. Like a part of our soul was left there in a previous lifetime and we’ve come back to retrieve it. Philadelphia was that for me.
The way I got there was so abnormal being that I had planned to be in Arizona and to choose Phoenix as my flight attendant base out of training. In the middle of training, we had already put in our bid for a base and I had put Phoenix on the top of my list which pretty much ensured I would get it since they needed flight attendants there. Our supervisor comes in one day and says the bids have been lost and we need to rebid and at this point I had started to learn much more about the job and learned that Philadelphia did a lot of international flying. Also my gay besties that I had become close to in the weeks prior were choosing it and I’ve always been a good follower, especially when an obvious party is involved. So I change my bid and I put Philly at the top. Two weeks later I’m heading to Philly and I will be living with 4 other gay guys in a 2 bedroom, make shift crash pad.
One night when it was just me inhabiting the crash pad because we all had different flying schedules, I drank almost a whole fifth of flavored vodka which was not my usual drink. Obviously I was in a frisky mood to change it up and give a spin to my normal alcoholic behavior. I am sitting on the grass out front of our pretty shabby apartment, chain smoking cigarettes and listening to music in my headphones. I had this obsession with anything that could make me feel deeper when I was wickedly lit, if that meant a call with an old friend (who was far from interested in the blabbering drunkenness on the other end) or a dance party to electronic music alone. This night in particular sticks with me because I ended it crying. Not because I was actually sad but because I was so happy. I was so happy to be feeling. Alcohol tricked me into thinking I was feeling all of life. That I was connected to those around me and the biggest lie it told me was that I was connected to myself. With the right amount of booze and cigarettes I could access a faux euphoria that in someway depicted what the touch of God feels like in the deep meditative states I experience today. That night in particular was the beginning of the end for me. Yes I would have many more nights of fake transcendental experiences uplifted by any drug that was in a 10 foot sphere of me but that night was a pivotal point to all those who probably saw me dancing in the streets like a wild woman, that I was absolutely not okay.
I was so un-okay that I had gone all the way to other spectrum of being convincingly okay to all the parts of my psyche that protected me. The human mind continues to baffle the fuck out of me. It’s a ghostly surgeon, amputating parts of our experience and placing them just below the surface so we can’t hurt them anymore. The mind doesn’t cremate the dead parts of itself like we do in the flesh but saves them like a hoarder, so that if we ever decide we wanna come back and retrieve them we can. Once we decide to open the cupboard under the stairs where are lost parts wait for retrieval we are in for some serious work. To feel whole again: these aged, rotting limbs ask for deep love, acceptance and compassion metaphorically like bandages, rubbing alcohol and Neosporin. Just like a weathered limb, they do not heal over night, they demand time and patience and a courageous heart because your denied parts are not similar to fine wine, where they age gracefully. Nothing in the human psyche does well with denial.
From that day on I spent about two more years, and two more apartments in Philadelphia, not knowing I was actually slowly working myself into a desperate bottom.
At one point, some of my closest buddies were the old men who sat at the bar below my house from around noon until they passed out. I usually joined them a couple times a week when my wine ran out and sat at the bar top talking about God knows what chain smoking cigarettes. One of my favorite parts of this bar and a lot of the bars in Philly was that you can smoke inside. Cigarettes and alcohol went together like peanut butter and jelly for me and anywhere that allowed me to use both, without any problems, was a place I wanted to be.
This bar for troubled souls was a safe place for me. Although from the outside it may seem incredibly unsafe, these people cherished me in the only way they knew how. We created a tiny family and I knew I always had my drinking buddies downstairs when I felt lonely. At this point in my active addiction I became very good at using people. I adopted male friends in the area that worshipped me. Although I was a full blown drug addict I was still pretty cute, I held a normal job and with the right mascara and not too much liquor I pulled off a pretty tolerable composure, at least I thought so. I was a magnet for lost men in the neighborhood. I would listen and take them on grand drug induced adventures and they would do anything for me.
During the hours of lucidly or days when I wanted to act “healthy” I would walk the streets of South Philadelphia, listening to music and people watching. The streets would change from block to block leaving you with the impression that you inhabited numerous different countries in a matter of miles. The rawness of that area breathed a sense of life into me I had never experienced. I felt like I was accessing movie scenes in real life. My privileged West Coast upbringing made me ripe for a culture shock and I was eating it up with no satiety in sight. It absolutely fascinated me to see Italian men playing cards and drinking coffee one street, and the next to find black families playing in the streets, dancing to music or smoking cigarettes on the stoop. I realized on those walks through Philly that depth, diversity and different types of suffering turned me on. Not in a way that may make sense but again, it allowed me to feel. I felt more when I watched these people live their lives because it was a much different way then I had ever experienced.
The time I lived in Philadelphia continues to mean more to me the longer I am sober. I used to joke about the city bringing out the devil in me, or a great place to bottom out but I see it from a new angle these days. I now view it as a place that raised me. My family of origin instilled in me many lessons, strategies and support to be human but places like Philly backhanded me into adulthood. I didn’t know then but I really needed that. Philly was like a stern grandmother who doesn’t allow you to backtalk or get up from the table without your plate finished. We need these people in our life, and we need these places too. I got my ass handed to me numerous times in this city and although it stung like hell, I am grateful.
Philly is a great city to be an alcoholic AND it’s also a great city to learn about yourself in any way. The colorful streets and loud, feisty people demand that you be authentic to them and yourself.
Thank you Philly.
Arielle Rush
@recoverwitharielle on all social media
