Chapter 4 #3
It wasn’t until then that Zack’s eyes grazed each one of us before freezing on his mother.
And freeze they did—not only did he lock on her, but his expression was ice cold—but his mother’s voice changed to soft and caring, probably exactly what her son needed at that very moment. “Are you struggling with addiction?”
“What does that even mean, struggling?”
“Come on, Zack,” his grandpa said, “we’re not here to mince words. We want to help you.”
“And I can tell you exactly what I mean,” his mother said. “Is it hard to get through the day without a drink? Do you find yourself obsessing over when you’re going to get your next one? And are you experiencing those feelings with more than just alcohol?”
Zack leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and looking up at the ceiling, almost like he was back in high school hoping to communicate his teenage disdain to the teacher at the front of the room.
But his mother was not to be stopped. Instead, she reached a hand across the table—and, even though she couldn’t touch Zack, the message was received.
“I’ve had my own struggles with drinking, son…
and I—actually, we, all of us—want to help you through it.
I haven’t been with you on tour and I only visited once when you lived in Denver, so I don’t know what you’re going through—but if you need a drink to make it through the day…
well, that’s something I can talk about. ”
“You?”
“I have moments,” she said, baring her soul in front of all of us—and her words were far more powerful than any of ours could have been. “I haven’t gone to rehab, but I know how, uh, easy it can be to become dependent on knocking back a few drinks.”
His grandfather spoke again. “You remember that time during your sophomore year when your mom went on a vacation without you?”
Zack’s green eyes seemed clear and calm—he was listening, taking it all in. “How could I forget? I was so pissed at you,” he said to his mother.
“Well, that was a lie. I didn’t go to rehab, but I took off work and detoxed myself.”
It was easy to see that this was news to Zack, and he sat up in his chair. “Then where’d you go?”
“I went to a spa in the San Luis Valley. I started by sleeping for, like, three days straight, just getting up to pee and eat breakfast and dinner. And I’m not gonna lie—it was hard, but I was able to stop.”
I had so many questions—because I knew she was still an active drinker. It wasn’t like she had given it up completely. But her next words seemed to answer that—or at least tried to.
“I still drink, bud, but I don’t let it rule my life.”
“I don’t either,” said Zack, some of the earlier hostility sneaking in.
Lacey looked our way. “I’m not gonna throw anybody under the bus, but I think that’s not entirely true.”
Was she wanting us to jump in? Was that why she was shifting her sights to us?
If so, I didn’t want to leave her in the lurch—and Zack needed to know we weren’t just there as silent observers. Trying to keep the hostility out of my voice, I said, “Zack, I don’t want to contradict you, but I hope you can see that there were times where your drinking…got out of control.”
“I was just partyin’.”
Braden squeezed my knee under the table—and it wasn’t until I spoke that I understood it was some sort of signal: I’d given him the courage to speak up as well.
“Dude, it was more than that. I know it started out that way…but I think, if you’re honest with yourself, that there are some days on the tour that you can’t even remember. ”
Although Zack scowled, he didn’t lash out. After a second, he turned his gaze to Cy. “You got anything you want to add?”
“Just that I’m here if you need anything.”
Chickenshit.
“That’s what I want to impress upon you, son,” Lacey said, leaning forward again.
I could sense that she desperately wanted to pull Zack into an embrace, but she would have had to get up to do that—and he might have rejected her at this point.
“That we’re just doing this because we care.
Because we want to help. And…if you’re not ready, fine. We just want you to—”
“Ready? For what?”
“To acknowledge what you’re going through…figure out how to get a handle on, um, your situation.”
For several long, heavy seconds, all of our words seemed to sink in, and he looked like he was pondering it all, absorbing the feedback, taking it into consideration, weighing it all against his own perception of himself. That had to be progress.
But when he spoke again, I knew he was still deep in denial.
Maybe ultimately what we’d said would resonate, but he clearly wasn’t in the right place to hear it.
“Well, thanks, everybody,” he said, a touch of sarcasm laced in his words, “but I don’t need any help.
I’m sorry you’re all so worried about me, but I’m actually having fun—for the first time in my life.
I’m acting like a real rock star and having the time of my life—and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. ”
When he stood, he somehow seemed taller, his spine straighter, making me think maybe he was doing better than we’d given him credit for. “I’m fine, okay? And, by the way, I can drink legally now, so there’s that.”
“Zack—” his mom said, but he was already leaving the room, making me realize just how futile this whole thing had been. Maybe because we’d disguised it as a birthday party instead of what we’d actually wanted it to be had weakened the message.
“I gotta go. I’m already late for a date.”
A date? With alcohol—or a person?
Lacey stood, following him into the living room. “You’re just blowing me off.”
“No, mom—I really do have a date. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I could barely hear his mother’s voice. “Can we talk about this more over breakfast?”
“Maybe.” And, with that, the front door shut. It didn’t slam, but it wasn’t exactly gentle either.
Zack’s grandpa asked, “When the hell did that kid get so stubborn?”
Lacey came back in the dining room. “I think he got that from you, old man.” Her father raised his eyebrows, but there was a twinkle in his brown eyes. She asked, “Anyone want another piece of cake?”
And that was that—even though Braden and I talked about it more that night, we understood that, if things got worse with Zack, we’d probably have to arrange an intervention ourselves.
If we did, we’d have to find a professional because we were all clearly out of our league—and Zack was an expert at lying to himself.