When you are an alcoholic, a hotel is a test.

Yesterday was Day 2,190.

Six years, to be exact.

Yet somehow, hotels still put me to the test.

They don’t come at you all at once. They poke you. They prod.

First comes the lobby.
Warm smile.
Small talk.

“Hello, and where are you lovely folks traveling from? And would it be your first time staying with us?

Oh, and allow me to hand you this lovely chilled flute: champagne—”

“Oh, no. Thank you. But I’m all set.”

✅ Check 1.

But that’s just the entrance exam.

It gets worse.

The room isn’t ready.

It’s 4:00 p.m. on a Friday, and the hotel is packed.

“So sorry, but wouldn’t you please allow our concierge to show you to our lovely roof lounge?

Please, relax, have a drink, enjoy the view.”

You walk in. The view is spectacular. The wine, chilled. On display. Right there for the taking.

Your husband orders a beer.

They don’t have your usual nonalcoholic one. In fact, they’re out of all NA options.

Another test.

✅ Check 2.

Then, at last, arrival at the room—hurrah!

Lovely room.

Fully stocked.

And there it is: “Honor bar.”

Little bottles.

Tiny temptations.

A whole, see-through shelf to make you second-guess, “would anybody really notice?”

✅ Check 3.

When you are an alcoholic, a hotel is a test.

It asks questions.

It lets you stew on the answers.

It makes you negotiate with yourself in ways that feel utterly absurd and pathetic and self-loathesome, and yet, also sort of oddly comforting, for they are so very familiar.

In any event, luckily, yesterday, this hotel had a safe space for my dangerous inner dialogue:

Scrabble.

They were out of my beer.

But they had my game.

So Matt and I sat there in the lounge and played.

We battled.
We jousted.
We stayed.

I overheard a young couple whisper, “Look at that cute married couple playing Scrabble in the corner.”

And I thought: yes.
Exactly.
That.

When you are an alcoholic, a hotel is a test.

Yesterday, I passed.

But today is another day.

Day 2,191, to be exact.

Back to the battlefield.

💌 Amanda

P.S. Anyone else’s busy brain take solace in a good game of Scrabble?