“I was desperate to stay on top, so I did whatever it took. I kept drinking. At first I hated it. It made me sick and it wore my body down. When you’re in football, staying in prime physical shape is everything to a guy. The last thing you want or need is a bunch of chemicals polluting your system. I was at war between what I knew was best for my body and what I wanted most of all—acceptance from those above me on the team.”
“You chose the team.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’d never had big brothers. I’m the oldest in my family. The responsible one, ya know? So when faced with someone older than me telling me what to do, I crumbled. I did what they said. I drank. And I taught my body to manage it all the way through high school and college. Because by then my body had learned to depend on it. So I gave it just enough to where I could still function at peak performance, but I could party, too. By the time I was a senior in high school I was rocking hard on the weekends, but I was the leader of the team. So I could tone it down somewhat and let the others pick up the slack, which meant I coasted by okay my senior year, enough to pick up that scholarship.
“But then college came around, and I was low man on the totem pole and it started all over again. I had to drink hard and party hard to fit in. By then I was already accustomed to doing whatever it took, so the daily drinking began. And the grades were easy to come by, so I spent a lot of time in college drunk.”
Mick paused, unscrewed the top of his water, and took a long drink. Tara released the breath she’d been holding, not wanting to say a word, hurting inside for what he’d endured.
“Anyway,” he said, replacing the top on his bottle of water. “By junior year of college the alcohol was starting to take its toll on my grades and my football performance. Coach started to notice it, and so did my parents. Once they started looking closer, it didn’t take them long to figure out I had an alcohol problem.”
“What did they do?” she asked.
He shrugged. “They told me to get help. But the thing is with an alcoholic, we’re big into denial. I was certain I didn’t have a drinking problem. I knew how to handle it. I could stop whenever I wanted to.”
“So did you?”
“I tried because they told me I couldn’t. Coach even benched me for a game, and in college that’s some serious shit. I had to prove to them I could stop. The problem was, I couldn’t. I went home for a weekend and tried not to drink for two days, and it damn near killed me.”
Tara squeezed his hand, aching inside for him, wanting to fold him in her arms and hold him, wanting him not to have to relive this, but knowing it was important to him to tell her his story.
“I’d never been so sick. I was shaking, sweating. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t think straight. I started hallucinating. God, the things I saw that weren’t real. They scared the shit out of me. But the thing that scared me most was that I craved a drink more than anything. I was such a bastard to anyone around me. I screamed at them that they were killing me. And I wanted to kill anyone who got in the way of me getting a goddamn drink.”
“Oh, Mick, I’m so sorry.”
He shot her a straight look. “Don’t be sorry for me, Tara. I did it to myself. I had no one to blame but myself for how I felt.”
She nodded. She knew what it was like to be a drunk, had faced it every day she’d lived with her parents.
“I came at my dad and I hit him because he wouldn’t give me the keys to my car so I could go to the liquor store. I hit my father.”
Tears filled Mick’s eyes, and Tara couldn’t stand it. She felt the sting of her own tears but knew she had to allow him to finish.
“My dad refused, wouldn’t punch me back, just let me continue to fight him. Fortunately I was too weak by that point to do much damage, and I finally gave up. I don’t even remember the crying and the begging, thank God. I just remember waking up the next morning, mortified that I’d hit my father. After that I knew they were right. I was an alcoholic. I admitted it and asked for help.”
“Thank God you were smart enough to realize that.”
His eyes were narrow slits of anger. “I wasn’t smart. If I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have become an alcoholic in the first place. I was lucky people loved me enough to want to help me and push me into realizing how bad I f**ked up. I went to a treatment center, dried out, and got counseling. I haven’t had a drink since. It scared the hell out of me. I could have lost everything, all because I wanted to fit in and be popular. All because of one night all those years ago when I was fourteen. That started it all. So I’m sorry if you think what happened to Nathan is no big deal. To me it’s a big f**king deal.”
“But you don’t talk about it. Nobody knows you’re an alcoholic, right?”
“No. No one knows, and that was my choice. I chose not to make it public. I go to meetings and it’s done quietly. But I’m willing to take Nathan to a meeting with me if you think it might prevent him from making the same mistakes I did.”
“Mick, I can’t ask you to do that. Not for my son.”
“Isn’t he worth it?”
“Dammit, that’s not what I meant. Of course he’s worth it. Nathan is everything to me. I’d put myself in front of a bullet for that kid.” She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “But don’t put me in this position. Don’t ask me to risk you over my son.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. What if someone sees you going to a meeting?”
He laughed. “I’ve been going to meetings for ten years now, Tara. That’s why they call it anonymous.”
“You’d do this—for Nathan.”
“And for you. Because I don’t want you to ever have to go through what I put my mother through.”
She laid her head on his chest.
It took him a minute, but he finally put his arms around her. She felt his tension, so she climbed onto his lap and raised her head, saw the anguish in his eyes.
“You’ve never told a woman about this, have you?”
“It’s not easy for me to trust people with the story. In the wrong hands it could go worldwide in an instant.”
She laid the palm of her hand on his face. “You can trust me.”