Deconstructing the Wine Myth

When I was about 10 and my sister 8, there was a rash of home burglaries in our neighborhood. On our side of the street, a ditch ran behind the houses that was about 3’ wide and deep, and on the other side was woods. We spent a lot of time playing back there, and we figured that the burglar was probably escaping over the ditch, through the woods, and to a road.

Along with our neighbor, Nat, we decided to make a trap for the burglar. There were lots of thorn bushes along the ditch, which we took the long stems of, and embedded them into the other side. We did this up and down the ditch for about five properties.

When we heard about another theft we got Nat and headed straight to the ditch. We were about halfway along our trap when we could see something white further up in the ditch. Slowly, we approached until we could see that it was 2 pillowcases. They were lumpy with what we could only assume were stolen goods, but my imagination only allowed for copperheads and severed body parts.

We talked about getting adults to come help, but it was our catch and we didn’t want someone else reeling it in. In the end, it was my horror-loving little sister who hovered over the pillowcases to poke them with a stick and then slowly tip some of the contents out of one. Inside we found an antique-looking mirror, wallet, jewelry, rolled and loose coins, and other miscellaneous items. Then we got the adults.

Not long later after the cops came and returned the loot to its owners, a cop showed up at our house to say the victims had a reward for us. I ran to Nat’s house to get her and her mom. The cop gave each of us kids a 2-dollar bill. I remember my sister looking annoyed. Then he asked, “Did you girls find a bottle of wine,” he said a bulky name for it, to which Nat’s mom corrected with a much more refined pronunciation.

Wine was not a staple in our household. Dad had beers and Mom occasionally made frozen mixed drinks for get-togethers. Wine was something other people drank at glamorous parties and on TV. I thought about that stolen bottle of wine. Did the burglar, confused and scared by his fall into the ditch, still go back to grab it? Maybe there was a third pillowcase, but if so, wouldn’t the homeowners mention other items that we hadn’t recovered? Either way, the message was clear in my 10-year-old brain. That wine was valuable.

My perception of the burglarized couple took on a filter of worldly sophistication and I carried that perception into adulthood. As silly as it seems now, wine was always a special occasion to me. I felt mature when I ordered it with dinner. Felt near divine when its warmth rose to my cheeks. It was still as imbued with the magical properties and richness of a fairytale amulet that the stolen bottle held for me as a child.

Almost 30 years later, that fairytale dismantled itself before my eyes.

I had taken to getting large boxes of wine from the grocery… more practical, I thought. My boyfriend and I had an argument one night, and unbeknownst to me, he’d grabbed my box of wine and tossed it off of my balcony. He was just plain sick of my shit. I came home from work the next day, went out to the balcony, and to my horror on the other side of my fence, in the neighbor’s driveway, was my box of wine. It felt so loud as it laid there, and my need to get to it and hide it back away from the world was all-consuming.

The absurdity of my fancy wine myth struck me hard. Inside that white box, with its bulky plastic bladder, was the same liquid that I romanticized in childhood would be contained in a fancy bejeweled bottle. It was not magic. It did not change me into a glamorous worldly woman. It was a poison that I drank to excess only to transform into the type of person who could drive a reasonable man to throw it off a balcony so hard it landed next door.

The truth was out for me, but by then alcohol had a seemingly unbreakable hold on me. I didn’t see a plausible way out from under it. At that point in time the best I could think of was to switch over to beer. It was all the same in the end, of course. I would still drink whatever I chose to the same amount of intoxication every night.

The main problem became that I could not deny what drinking really was anymore. It was my dirty secret, a daily obsession that I had all but built my life around.

As unsettling as my childhood memory’s impact on me was for decades, it didn’t hold a candle to the power of seeing the box of wine exposed in a suburban driveway. The shame was so sudden, and with it, a sickening thought. ..What had I become?

I wish I could say that it was enough to stop me in my tracks for good, but it still took years to get to the point where I felt capable of standing up to my alcohol problem. Knowing the truth was one thing, but implementing the change required to end my drinking was going to take a mighty effort. Still, I look back on that humiliating moment in a way that surprises me. I feel like it was a gift that was meant just for me. Although, not a rock bottom moment, it illuminated just how hideous my relationship with alcohol had become. It was a tangible thing and I could not un-see it. It was exactly what was necessary to destroy a 10-year-old’s fantasy in conclusive fashion.