A ghost story for Christmas.

We introduced our daughter to The Muppet Christmas Carol, a childhood favorite of mine, as Paul Williams’ lyrics are forever seared into my brain. I also recently finished reading Dan Simmons’ Drood, which is a phantasmagoric take on the last years of Charles Dickens’ life, told through the laudanum-soaked POV of his friend, and author of The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins. I enjoyed the novel, although it did give a startling look at how squalid life was in Victorian London, where the Thames river was brimming with raw sewage, garbage, and dead animals. (They usually leave this part out in most Dickens adaptations.)

I have always liked A Christmas Carol, and I think it’s due to its total lack of sentimentality. Sure, Scrooge gets all squishy and teared up by the end, but on the whole, it’s a story about a man who is a stone-cold dick and hates everyone around him. He’s only motivated to change his ways when he’s confronted by a vision of his death and the knowledge that no one will mourn him.

I like to think of Scrooge’s ghosts as the different kinds of alcohol-induced “revelations” one can experience after a night of drinking. The Ghost of Christmas Past represents the memories that alcohol has a way of uncovering and magnifying. Nostalgia is to be expected around the holidays, but when you’ve got a drinking problem, memories can quickly turn into regrets.  And before you know it, bad memories become justifications for present-day attitudes and behaviors.

In Scrooged, Bill Murray is taken back in time to watch his childhood Christmas, and it’s incredibly bleak. This is one of the many sad events that shape the person he will later become: a cynical, cold-blooded businessman who only cares about money.

I was sure I had some pretty good reasons for drinking, and if I acted like an asshole, well, I couldn’t help it. Later, attending AA meetings I’d hear folks recount their truly awful upbringings and think: Well, of course you drank everyday/tried to kill yourself/did heroin. That makes complete sense.

Scrooge—in whatever incarnation he appears, be it Bill Murray, Michael Caine, or Scrooge McDuck—has a secret sob story to explain why he’s mean to everybody. He has a legitimate grievance, but it’s not fair that his making it a problem for other people. 🎵 Cause that’s the cycle of trauma 🎵

The Ghost of Christmas Present is the manifestation of the jolliness and joy of the holidays, a Holiday Spirit, if you will. He takes Scrooge around town to see what’s happening on Christmas Day, revealing that most people are having a good time, like the Cratchit family.

I always feel a little bit like Scrooge this time of year, watching everyone around me have a good time. That’s why I’d drink to feel as jolly as everyone else seemed, or just numb myself enough to get through to January 2^nd. These days, I handle things a little differently, by embracing my own new traditions. I also understand that the holidays are tough for a lot of people, regardless of whether or not addiction is an issue.  Some people, like me and Scrooge, get all prickly because of the negative associations we have with Christmas and crappy past childhood experiences. Other people may feel stressed out, overwhelmed, lonely, they may be missing loved ones, and some people are just bummed that it gets dark at 4pm.

I think a balanced perspective to bring to this holiday is understanding that it’s complicated. The whole Christian monoculture aspect, the naked capitalism, the strange-ass Santa stuff, and all the songs all month long talking about “love” and “home” as if these are given things everybody has waiting for them. Some people love Christmas, fine. For others, it’s complicated. There’s not a right or wrong way to view it.

And then, there’s the third ghost that visits old Scrooge—the scary one. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. I have been visited by this ghost before, in the form of a 4am panic attack. I used to get those with some regularity after going to bed drunk. It’s the time of night that one can experience true cosmic horror: I AM ALONE IN THIS UNIVERSE. I WILL DIE ALONE.

It’s this last ghost that scares Scrooge enough to change his ways.

I appreciate that the spirit is depicted as the Grim Reaper and that he takes Scrooge to a spooky graveyard. But the true Ghost of Christmas Future, the one that I actually find deeply frightening, isn’t from any adaptation of A Christmas Carol, it’s from Appointment in Samarra, a 1934 novel by John O’Hara.

Appointment in Samarra takes place over December 24-26th, during which the protagonist, Julian English, slowly blows up his life. He destroys his relationships, drinks himself into oblivion, and by the end of the book, he’s dead at age 30. In terms of plot, not all that much actually happens: Julian dooms himself when the throws a drink in another man’s face at a party. This gets people talking—it’s a small town after all. He makes things worse by arguing with this wife, attempting (drunkenly) to seduce another woman, and picking other fights with friends along the way.

Julian doesn’t actually do anything unforgivable, I mean, he’s definitely horrible to his wife and she has every reason to divorce him—but he doesn’t do anything that warrants the death penalty. I think that’s why I like this book so much, the way O’Hara captures the claustrophobic hopelessness that comes during an alcoholic crisis. The grim realization that suicide is no longer a vague way out you entertain now and again, but the only option you have left.

But that’s not true. There’s always another way out.

It’s just that booze, mental health stuff, and a scared, stressed out nervous system make it hard to see the other options. But simply removing the alcohol from the equation, that’s already clearing space for a way out. That’s why putting the bottle down is always an excellent place to start (no matter how many times it takes).

That claustrophobic and hopeless state of mind, that was my Ghost of Christmas Future. I like to remind myself now and again, not to be morbid or in a “scared straight” kind of way, but to remember how much bigger my world is now in sobriety. When problems crop up, or I feel cornered, I know that there’s always a way to get through it. No longer being doomed is a wonderful kind of freedom.

So with that, I wish you Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year. And if you’re ignoring Christmas and watching horror movies, I would like to also give you a high five.