I’ve been wanting to sit down and write this piece for awhile now. But something about it intimidates me. Something about it feels a little too… honest? Vulnerable? Perhaps the word is overstepping. Whatever it is, there’s been something quieting my voice on the matter of, well, my sobriety. Let me clear my throat and say it again: my sobriety.
Just typing that word, I expect some readers to react. A word loaded with implications and assumptions, burdened with the weight of its own definition - likely different for all of us and heavily based upon our personal past experience. To have (and to have the right to talk about?) “sobriety” must mean we hit some type of rock bottom as an alcoholic or addict, right? It must imply that we lost a job, destroyed our relationships, were homeless, incarcerated, or almost killed ourselves in the process of finally realizing we had a problem and needed a change.
At least that’s the story I had written…
And then one day I started asking questions. What if I don’t have to take it that far? What if, as I started practicing mindfulness in all aspects of my life - yes, including my “social” drinking life - it became undeniably clear that alcohol was simply no longer working for me?
It certainly didn’t come in a single moment of white light epiphany. It was a process that required a slow unfolding. A sometimes meticulous and sometimes sloppy sifting through, sorting out, and clarifying of my beliefs, definitions, and choices. What was hidden just below the surface of my innocent fun? What was I drinking for, and what was I drinking to avoid? As I became willing to get radically honest with myself, truth came pouring forward.
I feared alcoholism. Intensely. They say addiction runs in families, and as some of you may know, I come from a big Irish Catholic one. The kind where asking for help is viewed as weakness, problems are sugar-coated or ignored, and issues are never spoken of directly. That is, at least, until the elephant in the room does something drastic, like breaks into your sweet elderly grandmother’s house to steal and pawn her jewelry, or overdoses alone many states away, requiring a stranger to call your house on a random and otherwise quiet Monday morning asking your dad to fly across the country to identify and bring home his brother’s body - a brother he hasn’t seen or spoken to in years, by the way. But even then, the conversation is short-lived, the self-inquiry is minimal, and full disclosure - we get to tell ourselves, as we pour ourselves a glass of wine in the name of normal coping, that we’re doing just fine. Because comparatively speaking, there’s always someone worse. When we look out and not in, fingers are so easily pointed. They have the problem, not us. Thank goodness it dodged my genes. Close one.
In identifying this fear I carried - the fear of my own potential alcoholism realizing itself into more concrete realms - I saw that I was constantly attacking myself. Regardless of how much or little I drank (and if I’m again being quite honest, it was much much more than it was little), I’d feel ashamed afterward. I’d feel guilty. Post-binge, no matter how justified or rationalized said binge after binge was (I lived in the islands after all, it was a lifestyle there), I’d often slide into cycles of self-hatred during which I’d feel angry at myself, confused about my relationship with alcohol, and all too ready to drink again to, um, not feel that anger, confusion, and self-hatred. Believe it or not, I still didn’t fit my own definition of an alcoholic.
Reading that now, I shake my head and almost chuckle at the fact that it took me so long to just drop the damn definition. To stop putting so much effort into telling myself and showing the world that I didn’t fit into what I had designed as a very tiny (read imprisoning, no pun intended), nicely labeled box of the medically documented, AA-attending, and don’t forget job-losing, bitter-family-having, DUI-weilding, barely scraped by with her life version of the alcoholic in need of recovery. But of course that would require me dropping a stigma. And releasing that stigma would require what I really resisted - releasing my sense of superiority with it.
Another new definition: Perhaps rock bottom is nothing more than the place in which we find humility.
All of a sudden, no comparison was ever again required. Rather than telling myself “Sure, Jen, you can enjoy a drink like a ‘normal’ person and do it without feeling guilty because you probably won’t ruin your life in a direct, immediate, falling domino-type way like X, Y, and Z did”, I could sit in a place of honest curiosity and ask myself, from a place of empowered decision making, “Jen, does this serve?”
Does this work? Does this align? Does this feel beautiful, loving, and good?
I probably don’t have to tell you, since I’m writing this and you’re reading it, that the honest answer to all of those questions since the first time I chose to ask has been a clear and resounding no, thank you.
And guess what else? No longer requiring X, Y, and Z to stay close by and stay “sick” so I could tell myself I wasn’t by comparison not only set me free, but freed them from my unconscious prison as well. Big surprise, a lot of them actually started doing better as I focused my attention on my own needs rather than on what I perceived as theirs. Regardless, it stopped mattering. We all became empowered to make our own choices on our own journeys. No control of others required. The freedom here is indescribable. Still a process, of course.
Here’s the other thing that surprised me. I found that no amount of hate, no amount of anger, no amount of battle, would ever lead me to sustainable change. Self-hatred and regret are simply not motivators. Self-love and self-acceptance are. Gratitude is.
This idea came to me as I read a book written by Caroline Knapp titled Drinking, A Love Story. In her memoir, Knapp beautifully and artistically compares her alcoholism to a deeply passionate, complicated, long-term relationship with a lover from which her own disentanglement is the healthiest choice moving forward. Now this was something I could relate to.
Rather than demonizing a substance, hating myself for using it, blocking its number, and forcefully pushing against it ever speaking to me again (Wait, are we talking booze or boys here? Got a little mixed up.), could I look upon my thirteen year, passionate yet somewhat messy relationship with alcohol through the lens of gratitude? Could I authentically thank it for the fun, thank it for the lessons, thank it for the awareness now unfolding... Thank it but no thank it? Could I accept that at one point in my life it had worked, we had vibed, it had contributed in some way to my perceived well-being at the time, but now, in the present moment and as I had grown and changed, the distance between us simply grew, and could I let that be okay? It was likely the kindest thing for both of us - because in loving myself enough to walk away, I would also stop trying to force it to be something for me, something that it was neither capable of nor ever intended to be for me. It could be itself, freed finally from my needs and my conditions. (Shit, am I talking boys again?)
After this realization, it truly did become easy. It’s not that I never thought about it. It’s not that I didn’t see it on every billboard and commercial. It’s not that I didn’t feel uncomfortable going to a bar or on a boat for awhile, or hanging with mutual friends questioning whether he’d be there and if I’d be strong enough to resist. (Oops, did I say he? It, I meant it.) What became easy was not resisting alcohol, but choosing me. There was simply nothing to resist. No battle, no competition. There was only something to love, something to care for and celebrate. And for the first time in my life, that something was me. Consistently and in every moment.
I noticed my mental clarity increasing. I watched my energy and vitality expand. My creativity began to flow. My relationships deepened with those who chose to stay close (yes, including X, Y, and Z). And, my laugh. It was hearty and genuine. It effervesced from a place deeper within than I had touched in a long, long time. Now, this shit serves.
So, will I ever have a drink again? In this moment I certainly have my doubts, but the honest answer is that I don’t know. Things just aren’t that black and white for me anymore, battened down into nice little boxes, labeled and wrapped with a bow. I prefer to live my life in the infinite shades of color between. In the places where open-minded curiosity and revolutionary honesty replace rules and rigidity. In the places where questions can be asked and answered without consulting fear carried in from past and future. Where expectations are laid down, and people meet for the first time, again and again and again. I prefer to be present there. To be mindful there. I prefer to live, not one day at a time, but one breath at a time. And if you’re up for it, I invite you to join me. Because goddamn, it’s beautiful here.
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