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Now We’ve Arrived at Our Problem

Samuel Collins Hicks

I’m trying to tell you what happened.

It is December 2025. I am 38 years old. Sitting on the couch in my living room, I am preparing to wrap presents under the watchful eye of an enormous ginger tabby named Butler. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, when I will drive to my sister’s house to open early presents and eat smoked chicken wings. Her children, my niece and nephew, are my favorite people in the world.

Their gifts spread out on the coffee table before me, I turn on the TV and open HBO Max, the only streaming service I can afford this month, looking for background noise of a sufficient caliber. Unwilling to waste energy looking for a fresh watch, I scroll deep into my CONTINUE WATCHING list. My cursor hovers over an episode of The West Wing.

Forever I am rewatching The West Wing. 155 episodes across 7 seasons, and I can’t imagine how many times I’ve seen each one. 20 times? 30? I practically have a doctorate in political science at this point. Knowing exactly what to expect over the next 45 minutes, I click PLAY.

While the streaming optimizes, the app reminds me this is Season 3, Episode 10 “Bartlet for America.” HBO summarizes the plot with one vague sentence: Leo fears the worst about the Bartlet investigation.

In the world on the TV screen it is also Christmastime. The episode centers on Leo McGarry (the late John Spencer), President Barlet’s (Martin Sheen) chief of staff and longtime confidant, appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The nameless committee chairman gavels the session into order and brings viewers and characters up to speed.

Many, if not most of us, were surprised by the president’s announcement that he’s been diagnosed with relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis for seven years and never mentioned it, while asking us to vote for him for president. But more surprising still, if not stunning, is that his medical condition could have been kept a secret…this committee would like to know, quite candidly, how it was pulled off. Did people lie? Were people told to lie? Are people lying now?

You don’t need to watch the entire episode to know that by the end the answer will be, effectively, who cares? This is a popular television show in the middle of its third season…how much trouble could the president really be in? Television often creates the illusion of forward momentum without ever moving. Conflicts must be resolved by the end of the episode so we can start from square one next week. And as the neo-liberal politics of the quarter-century old show age like milk, we are reminded that the nuts and bolts of legislation aren’t what we came for. We came for drama.

“Bartlet for America” proceeds with members of congress asking Leo to describe his relationship with the president, and his role in the campaign. Through a handful of flashbacks we are treated to the early days of Bartlet’s primary push for the Democratic nomination. Thanks to the new lore these flashbacks deliver, many fans recall this episode as “the one where CJ throws a basketball through a window” or “the one where Bartlet asks Hoynes to be his VP” or “the one where Leo writes ‘Bartlet for America’ on a cocktail napkin.” But this episode isn’t about political campaigns or broken windows or vice presidents. It’s about alcoholism and addiction. 

Aaron Sorkin, West Wing creator, show runner, and head writer of the show’s first four seasons is a self-described drug addict. The character he created, Leo, is an alcoholic and a drug addict. The actor portraying the character, John Spencer, was an alcoholic in recovery. The subtext is text; life and art are two words for the same disease.

I like the little things, Leo McGarry, John Spencer, Aaron Sorkin, and I say together.

The way a glass feels in your hand – a good glass, thick, with a heavy base. I love the sound an ice cube makes when you drop it from just the right height. Too high and it’ll chip when you drop it. Chip the ice and it’ll melt too fast in the scotch. Good scotch sits in a charcoal barrel for 12 years. Very good scotch gets smoked for 29 years. Johnny Walker Blue, is 60-year-old-scotch.

I do not now nor have I ever shared Leo’s preference for fine spirits, but we both like a good glass. I glance across the coffee table at my purple mug, fragrant with bengal spice tea. This time of night, before I take my daily dose of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics, the veil between reality and hallucination is thin. Instead of my mug’s chipped lip and rising steam I see a squat rocks glass, filled to the brim with bottom shelf bourbon and a splash of Diet Coke, no ice to slow things down.

During a break in the proceedings Leo is speaking privately to his lawyer Jordan Kendall. While Jordan is a relative newcomer to the series, we as viewers understand that she is more than a lawyer assigned to protect Leo, she is as close to his equal as anyone can be. They trade barbs, flirt mercilessly, and clearly care about each other.

What happened in the room, Leo?

He sighs. Now we’ve arrived at our problem.

I blink my eyes hard and reality asserts itself, my mug is back, its contents still hot. I reach for it with both hands, and sip slowly.

I’m trying to tell you what happened.

Jordan asks, You had a drink?

If I wanted, I could pause the episode and recite Leo’s response. I see myself in every sentence.

I’m an alcoholic. I don’t have one drink. I don’t understand people who have one drink. I don’t understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don’t understand people who say they’ve had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer?

These lines echo in my mind across the decades.After five years of sobriety, I still ask myself: How can you have enough of feeling like this?

My answer is only and always: I can’t.

▪

I’M TRYING to tell you what happened.

It is December 2001. I am 14, still years away from my first drink. I am in the basement of my childhood home, sitting cross legged in an overstuffed recliner under the watchful eye of an enormous ginger tabby named Tyler. It is Wednesday night, I am eating popcorn and watching television.

How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer?

The television is speaking directly to me.

My brain works differently.

Everyone agrees I’m moody, but twenty years will pass before my mental disability is correctly diagnosed as bipolar disorder. In the meantime, my parents offer what help they can. Mom tells me I should stop listening to grunge music. My father tells me if I commit suicide I’ll go to hell, and to stop being so dramatic. Like the president on TV, I have a disease inside my head. While the show takes pains to point out that multiple sclerosis is not a fatal diagnosis, in many ways my disease often is.

In the mornings I wake up sweating, and while my siblings eat breakfast before school I am in the bathroom vomiting. A well-meaning doctor prescribes antacids but these symptoms never add up to “anxiety” or “depression” or anything other than an overactive digestive system. No one believes me when I say I hear voices. I know they come from inside my head, so I try not to listen. Many years later I’ll be fired from a job I wanted, and will finally realize that ignoring your symptoms doesn’t stop you from being sick.

At school I do my best to dissociate by reading during class. If a teacher refuses my attempts to hide my book under my desk and insists I at least pretend to pay attention, I face the board with dead eyes and run through dialogue from play rehearsals in my mind. Reciting Shakespeare without moving my lips, I count the hours until I can go home.

At home I count the hours until bed, and try to fill those hours with distractions. Video games are effective, especially if my brother is in the mood to play. Books are the easiest vice to acquire; my mother cannot say no to a new book, or, at the very least a trip to the library.

Television is king. My siblings and I, no overlap in our viewing interests, spend afternoons bartering over control of the remote. As the oldest I’m allowed to stay up a little later, and so my tastes shift from cartoons and sitcoms to hour long dramas and the news. Neither of these interests help me sleep at night. In my always too cold or too hot uninsulated room, I lie in bed trying not to stare at the grotesque faces in the window, who stare back harder the more I tell myself they aren’t real.

Television helps me escape my present and plan my future. As a boy who wants to be an actor, watching prestige television is practically homework. By its third season, The West Wing is a runaway and critical hit with millions of weekly viewers and dozens of industry awards. On this chilly winter evening, as Snuffy Walden’s heroic theme song welcomes the dawn of a new episode, there are eighteen million four hundred thousand people watching with me – I am not alone.

How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer?

I look down at the popcorn bowl in my lap, and nod in understanding. As the scene continues I feel the dread growing in the pit of my stomach, the awareness that soon the show will be over and it will be time for bed and madness. I soothe myself with a promise that someday I will find something that makes me feel like scotch makes Leo feel. And I will not be able to stop myself.

How can you not want to feel like this longer?

▪

I DO NOT WANT to feel like this anymore.

It is December 2020. I am 33. The threat of COVID has kept me alone for 267 days. My sobriety is less than a week old and I can’t tell if my hands are shaking from cold or withdrawal.

I do not want to feel like this anymore – my new mantra. Whenever my brain attempts to trick me into killing myself with bourbon I remember my final hangover and repeat:I do not want to feel like this anymore.

Did people lie? Were people told to lie? Are people lying now?

My drinking required a lot of lying. Tons. For almost fifteen years, every last minute cancellation, scheduling mix-up, double-booking, or stomach bug was a lie. A lie designed to let me get (or stay) drunk. I lied to everyone and anyone. My coworkers, my grandmother, my students; I taught for four years, and every “sick day” was a lie I told to children. I do not want to lie anymore.   

I went to rehab. My friends embraced me when I got out.

I am not in rehab. My detox is supervised by a cat. My only sedatives are herbal tea. But my friends are already embracing me. Whenever I need a boost I’ll find a minor anniversary or landmark and text someone (anyone) to help me celebrate.

Five days sober! That’s a whole work week!

First time eating pizza without a beer! Congratulate me!

Haven’t needed to empty the recycling this week! I’m reducing so much waste!

Crying without getting drunk first! How’s your Tuesday going?

Of course, I post about my newfound sobriety on social media, to maximize emotional support and snag an easy dopamine hit. Beyond my closest circles, I am surprised when people say they are surprised to hear I have a drinking problem. Was I really spending so much time and energy trying to kill myself, without anyone noticing?

I don’t get drunk in front of people. I get drunk alone.

Three years in this apartment and I have spent most of my time alone and drinking. On the bed, the couch, in the bathroom, at the table, everywhere I look I see my ghosts drinking wine from the bottle, cracking beers in the shower, pouring whiskey at breakfast and calling it brunch.

No one has seen this, only felt the effects. People describe me as irritable, sarcastic, mercurial. Apparently they don’t know the word they’re searching for is “hungover.” When I tell people I quit drinking the question I’m most often met with is “For how long?”

“Ever,” I say.

Alone at home with shaking hands I resolve to wash some dishes, and perch my iPad on the shelf above the sink. I tap the Netflix tile and start to scroll. Unwilling to risk being disappointed by a new story while adjusting to my new world, I select the WATCH AGAIN tab intending to fire up an episode of Parks & Recreation. Beside it on the list of old favorites, The West Wing has a red banner across its thumbnail image – Leaving Soon. The perfect excuse for a binge.

From pilot to finale The West Wing is approximately 116 hours long – almost five full days of entertainment. As much as I love rewatching television, the most comforting aspect is easily the length. Pick the right show and you might not need to make another decision for weeks, maybe months. Just click CONTINUE and let it roll.

Smiling, I start the show and open the faucet. My hands steady as they begin their work.

My sobriety is starting to feel good.

How can you have enough of feeling like this?

▪

NOW WE’VE ARRIVED at our problem.

It is December 2005. I am 18 years old, a freshman in college at a theater program in Indiana. As a performance major I am expected to have easy access to big feelings and big energy, and I do not disappoint. But come Friday nights when the student body is sweating and dancing and drinking at illicit off-campus house parties, I prefer to relax in the dorms. Even though my first semester is almost over, I’m still afraid of the open hedonism of college parties.

My girlfriend Michelle is not afraid of college parties. I believe she isn’t afraid of anything. She grew up in a huge city and flew across the country to attend school here. I’m barely a 90 minute drive away from my home in the outer suburbs of Louisville.

We meet during welcome week and before midterms we are already talking about our plans for marriage. Michelle wants to elope, to travel, to have an award winning theatrical career. I want to listen to her.

During the week we spend most of our free time together, eating, studying, making out. But on Friday and Saturday nights Michelle drinks and dances at frat parties and off-campus bangers, while I watch TV alone. When she is ready to come home she calls me, and I happily pick her up from wherever she is and bring her back to campus, often with a stop at McDonald’s first.

Tonight I am flipping through channels on my 13 inch combo TV/DVD player hoping for something to jump out at me.

I stumble onto a mini-marathon of The Best of The West Wing, already in progress on Bravo, which at the time was a channel devoted to prestige film and tv, not real housewives. Smiling, I wonder whose job at Bravo it is to pick which episodes are The Best. Friday night buzzes by as I lose myself in the comforting world of a show I’ve seen before. During commercial breaks I check my flip phone for Michelle’s Pick Me Up text, content with my evening but not wanting to miss her summons.

What happened in the room, Leo?

There’s a knock at the door. I climb down from my bunk bed and open it. Michelle brushes past me, shaking the snow out of her long blonde hair. She brings the excitement and freedom of college into my dorm room with her, and turns it into a secret.

“Close the door, I don’t think anyone saw me.”

I like the little things.

She throws her snow flecked hat on the chair, and closes the blinds. She turns towards me as she unbuttons her coat and hangs it on my bedpost.

“What’re you doing? You missed a good party. Aaron and Mary broke up again, so Mary gave me a ride back” she says, unwrapping her scarf. She lassos me with it, and pulls me close.

“Kiss me.” It isn’t a request.

I do what she says. I taste the vodka on her breath and want to feel the freedom she feels.

How can you have enough of feeling like this?

The stillness of the snow outside seeps into the room, until only our mouths are moving.

I like the little things.

She drops the scarf and pulls her sweater off over her head, before grabbing at my belt buckle with both hands. I start to unbutton her shirt and we are both smiling. The television stays on, offering plausible deniability for any snooping RAs.

“Will you come with me?” she asks, between kisses. “There’s a Christmas party tomorrow, just theater majors. Come with me?”

I nod my head yes, and wait for another kiss.

▪

I’m trying to tell you what happened.

In 2025 the presents are wrapped. In 2001 the popcorn bowl is empty. In 2020 the dishes are drying. In 2005 our belts clink like ice cubes as they hit the tile floor, empty pant legs already entwined. On the television screen the credits roll. The commercials watch us make love.

How can you have enough of feeling like this?

▪ ▪ ▪

Samuel Collins Hicks (he/him) is a writer and actor located in Lexington, KY. Sam is a sober alcoholic who lives with Bipolar II disorder and works to uplift those with severe mental health needs. His debut essay “Very Truly Yours” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Purple Ink Publishing, and his poetry appears in anthologies by Workhorse Publishing. You can hear Sam on 93.9 WLXU and online at MediaLex.us.

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