The Miracle

By Lynn Sunday

It's so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to.

~Annie Gottlier

I was twenty-nine in 1974 when I rushed my seven-year-old to our family doctor. Doug, who was impulsive, had leaped from a swing in the park, somersaulted and landed on his head. The cut on his scalp wasn't serious although it bled profusely. "No worries," the doctor said calmly, needle in hand. Sure enough, three stitches and a Band-Aid later, the kid was fine. He left the office sucking a lollipop and bragging to his eleven-year-old brother Brad about his "operation."

I wasn't fine — more like a wreck — sitting anxiously on a stool in the antiseptic-smelling office with its paper-covered exam table, shelves piled with cotton swabs and bandages, its container of needles. My fists were clenched, my breathing shallow, and my stomach felt like I'd swallowed rocks. Tears stung my eyes as I turned to leave the office. The doctor noticed and put his freckled old hand on my shoulder. "You're upset, Dorothy," he said kindly. "What's going on?"

That bit of concern was all it took. Crying now, I sat down again and bored the nice doctor with the entire sad story of my recent split from my husband; how he'd taken off and now I had no husband, no job, and no child support.

Having bitten off more angst than he cared to chew, the doctor smiled and scribbled a prescription. "Here, dear," he said, handing me the piece of paper about to change my life. "This will calm you down."

"Couldn't I become addicted?" I asked, eyeing the prescription suspiciously.

"Follow the directions on the bottle," the doctor assured me. "And relax."

The prescription was for Valium; ten milligrams for anxiety, every four hours, or as needed. The bottle contained ninety small blue pills, each one providing hours of blissful, chemically induced calm, enabling me to present myself to the world as a functional person. I worked part-time as a substitute teacher, cared for my kids, even started dating. I sighed with relief; I could sleep again.

It took four years to disentangle myself from the drug.

My husband and I divorced in 1975. He and his girlfriend moved to Nevada. I loaded my sons and what possessions I could fit into Big Bertha, our battered station wagon, and moved across country to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district to start over.

Life was good. I made artwork and sold it to the public. I provided for my kids. I dated. I also consumed forty to fifty milligrams of Valium a day, but was so pleased with my new calm self, I didn't question my habit.

Truthfully, I didn't know I was an addict until I ran out of pills over a holiday weekend and had to wait three days for more. Within hours, my anxiety returned full force, erupting inside me like molten lava preparing to escape a volcano. Every muscle in my body ached. My solar plexus was as tight and hard as a trampoline; my head throbbed constantly — at my temples and between my eyes. I could barely perform routine tasks, like going to the supermarket, or having my car serviced. My moods swung wildly. I couldn't sleep.

I realized then I had a problem. My solution was to never run out of pills again. In the San Francisco of the 1970s, Valium was freely prescribed — easy to come by as alcohol or cigarettes. I had co-workers in the crafts community known as "the Valium for lunch bunch." They were always good for a few pills for a friend in need. I scored fifty once, no questions asked, by telling my doctor my bottle fell in the toilet. Another time I bought fifty from a disabled man who sold his prescription drugs for extra income, to addicts like me.

I wasn't the only rat in the Valium trap. In 1977 at the Balboa Theater, I saw the film I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can starring Jill Clayburgh, about a longtime Valium addict who finally quits cold turkey. She's overwhelmed by anxiety, becomes unable to sleep, feels like bugs are crawling under her skin, goes into convulsions, ends up in a straitjacket, and is carted off to a mental hospital. As a grand finale, she has a nervous breakdown.

"Don't attempt quitting without help," the doctor in the movie warns sternly. "This could happen to you."

Now I not only knew I was an addict, I feared insomnia, bugs under my skin, convulsions, and insanity if I tried quitting. I don't know what to do. I felt trapped. Getting off this drug would take a miracle.

The miracle happened in February 1978. Stuart, my best friend and lover, thirty-nine years old, was killed when his motorcycle was struck by a car that ran a red light. Devastated, I tried to stay strong for my sons' sake. Stuart was their friend and father figure. I saw the hurt and pain in their eyes.

At almost midnight, on the day of the funeral, my sons were asleep in their bedrooms. I sat, wide awake at my kitchen table, with a glass of water in one hand and three Valiums in the other. My intention was to ease my pain.

The thought of Stuart stopped me. He'd known his share of pain — from poverty, harsh parenting, drug use, and bitter divorce years ago, in which he lost custody of his only son. But I never saw him angry, or bitter, or blaming; he always saw the glass as half full. "Sometimes, life knocks you flat," he said, "but if you get right up again — and get up smiling — it can't ever beat you down."

I regarded the pills in my hand. Artificial courage, I thought. They cover the fear, but they can't make it go away. I decided I didn't want them any more and felt my mouth curve into a rare smile. I flushed the pills down the toilet and went to bed.

I can't account for why there were no withdrawal symptoms the next morning, or the next, or after that. I can't account for how a miracle happened at my kitchen table that night, but thankfully, one did. My addiction to Valium was broken from that night, to now, thirty years later.

I wonder if what it really takes to break an addiction is realizing life has knocked you flat — and having the guts to get up smiling.

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