The unfairness of luck

Some things you don't get over—you just learn how to carry them.

Content note: This post discusses a drunk-driving accident in which people were killed. I’ve changed names and some identifying details.

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February 19th was the first good night I’d had since Ari ended things with me in December. Winter break had passed in a slog of confused tears, booze, and the quintessentially 19-year-old experience of grieving the end of a romantic relationship that was never clearly defined.

The first weeks back at school were more of the same: drinking, crying, and trying to pretend I was fine. When I saw him at a party, I’d flirt shamelessly with other guys, but my unquenchable thirst for alcohol made the facade flimsy and transparent. My LOOK AT HOW HAPPY I AM pantomime would eventually dissolve into drunken, rambling sobs.

But on February 19th, I ended up at a bar with Ari and our good friend Cooper. In the bright, smoke-filled room, we talked, laughed, and drank. For the first time in months, I felt like a normal person hanging out with her normal friends. When Ari left, I didn’t feel the cold, panicked disappointment of not leaving with him or wondering where he was going. This shift felt so massive, so consequential, that I was giddy. I didn’t want the night to end. After last call, I suggested we go to the 24-hour diner just outside of town.

We swallowed the last of our flat, cheap beer; Cooper grabbed his car keys, and we took off running—down the icy sidewalk, toward the car, towards the diner, toward the next chapter where I wasn’t so sad.

The following afternoon, I ran into Ari outside the dining hall.

“You and Cooper went to the diner last night?” he said.

I nodded.

Ari shook his head.“He's got to stop driving drunk,” he said, though he didn't seem overly concerned.

We briefly chatted about the party we'd see each other at that night and said goodbye. Again, it felt like victory. Like that cloud of heartbreak was finally gone and I would be okay.

*

Twelve or so hours later, I was shaken awake by a friend with tears in his eyes. Cooper and Ari had been in a car accident. They’d been drinking and crashed into a tree. They were both dead.

*

I’m trying to keep this terrible story short because I didn’t want to tell it in the first place. But I’m writing this on February 19th, and it will arrive in your inbox on February 20th, and my head won’t go anywhere else. I don’t have a better illustration of how random and unfair recovery can be. I was in the car with Coop the night before. We were driving at my suggestion. Ari—that very afternoon—had criticized Cooper for driving drunk.

Every year I’ve been sober, I’ve asked myself the same questions on this day: How am I sitting here sober and alive, while Ari—who on more than one occasion expressed concerned about my drinking—isn’t? Yes, we were all dumb, reckless kids, and sometimes reckless kids' lives end in tragedy. Sometimes, lives end in tragedy when no one has been dumb or reckless at all. Intellectually, I know this. I don’t carry the guilt that I used to, but it still feels like a cruelty of the universe that I can accept but never be at peace with.

In AA, there’s a saying, “There but for the grace of God go I;” as an agnostic, I tend to think of it more like “There but for a tangled mess of luck, privilege, and fifty billion unknowable factors go I.”

Many people I know in recovery have a story like this or worse. Sometimes, they’ve been the cause of a tragedy. Sometimes, they made a narrow escape, surviving a bad batch of something when that same batch killed their friends. The list goes on. There is nothing unique or special about my story.

So, besides putting out a truly depressing edition of AASL, why am I talking about this? First, I have no interest in pretending I’m some kind of recovery guru who is at peace with all things past and present. Second, out of the swirling mixed emotions I feel when I think about the accident, there is one instructive thread that I’ve held onto throughout my sobriety: I was lucky enough to find recovery, so I better hang the fuck onto it because not everyone gets that chance.

It’s been 21 years since the accident—they’ve now been gone the same amount of time they were alive. I think about them all the time. As I’ve watched my other friends get married and start families, I think about what their lives would be like now. Would they have spouses and kids? Would Ari have made some brilliant scientific discoveries? Would Cooper be teaching English somewhere in East Asia? What would their lives have been if not for those few minutes in a car on a dark street? Nothing (not even drinking, believe me, I spent a couple of years trying) can mitigate the pain I feel when I think about the futures they were never able to realize.

So what do I do with that? What can I do? Mostly, nothing. But there are certain things I know. I know that they would both be proud (and surprised) that I haven’t picked up a drink in 17 years. I know that I can honor them by continuing to stay sober. I know I can use the utter emotional devastation of the months and the years after the accident to be a more empathetic and understanding person—especially when it comes to people struggling with substance use.

Smart people sometimes do dumb things. Good people sometimes do bad things. People deserve—even if they don’t always get— second, third, and fourth chances. Life is hard and complicated, and how these chances are doled out isn’t always fair and rarely makes sense. But you don’t have to feel deserving of a second chance to take it.

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I’m not a doctor or mental health professional, so my advice shouldn’t be construed as medical or therapeutic. You are free to take or leave it.