Although I have personally never used drugs or experienced substance abuse, I am still no stranger to the concept.
I began working in restaurants when I was 16 years old. One of my first inklings that perhaps not everyone was like me came when my general manager once showed up to work drunk at 10 a.m. I was quietly scandalized, my inner thoughts racing as I tried to understand why any decent, sensible person would disrespect their job and employees like that.
I grew up in a very small, conservative town in East Tennessee. Church, family dinners and small-town gossip were as common as iced tea (that’s sweet, not unsweet). It was rare to return home from the grocery store without seeing someone you knew — and I thought I knew everyone. Restaurants were my first real awakening.
This was an entirely new set of individuals. They had their own rules, own clothes, own substances. If you had the right look (and I never did), they’d offer you weed during your first week. Coming into work hungover (or high) wasn’t too out of the ordinary.
For two years, I carefully observed this culture as I worked right in the middle of it. The head chef was a former felon, fresh out of jail and toothless. My coworker bragged about her drunk escapades — meanwhile, she was two grades below me. My background was such that I thought one sip of alcohol could make me a high school dropout. Everyone who vaped had zero future, and “partying” meant instant depravity. I never deigned to participate in my coworkers’ culture, but I did listen and ultimately judge them.
I remember my high school graduation party, safe and secure in my assurance that I was “on the right track” (whatever that is). I hugged my friends with a starry-eyed confidence that college would only elevate my shining social status and quality reputation.
A rude awakening followed. Sure, I still had plenty of judging left in me and plenty to use it on. Frat parties? What a waste of someone’s life. The Strip on a Friday night? Fodder for my jokes. I was into academics, making money and building a resume. I was certain that having fun had no need for alcohol.
No, my awakening did not come from my daily life. It came from my new job here in Knoxville. I was back in a restaurant once again, but this time, I was making friends inside it.
I grew to know these quirky, weird people as themselves, coming from all different walks of life and belief systems. I saw them for the humans that they were just by listening to their stories.
Stories about a cancer diagnosis with no money for chemo. Stories about parents who sabotaged their child’s chance for a full ride to college. Stories about a year spent living in their car, using a Walgreens extension cord to bum wifi off people’s houses. Stories that shook me to my core and made me desperately grateful for the comfortable life I knew.
These people were giving life their very best. And sometimes, that meant that their drugs came along with them. My best friend at work has a self-proclaimed drinking problem. Do we have hard conversations sometimes? Yes. But do I celebrate their small wins and ultimately let them make their own choices? Most definitely. The drugs are plenty, and — as I’ve gotten older — the offers to join have grown in number, but I couldn’t do my job without every single one of those crazy cooks. I have had louder, deeper laughter in that kitchen than anywhere else, and there is nothing quite like a conversation with the bar regular as I pass them their fifth Coors Light.
Just like that greasy restaurant, this special issue has pushed me to encounter uncomfortable, hard stories — to think about lives so different from mine that my instinct is to squirm and run away. But what does running away truly do? It breaks down your character and makes you an empty shell of a person. Let us be people who see others as just that: people. Let our differences and backgrounds fade away as we rest in our common humanity.
Just like my coworkers, I hope this UT community feels that they have a friend at the Beacon. I hope they know I will always be here to listen, judgment-free.
