Fun

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It’s been about a year since I started working full-time as a therapist. And these days, whether it’s because the mental health field can be incredibly intense and all-consuming, and/or I’m starting to feel my age, and/or the world seems more f*cked-up with each passing minute, my concept of time is really slipping.

I have trouble remembering what day it is, especially during the week; they all blend and blur together as I shift from appointment to appointment, then zone out watching Hulu before falling into bed. I’m able to focus solely on the individual face in front of me, then the next one, and I move through my waking hours with a jumble of clients’ words, gestures, facial expressions, heavy experiences and perplexing questions — not to mention cringey things I said or did in session — endlessly swirling through my head. An occasional “doomscroll” through IG Threads only adds more chaos to the mental clutter.

So, the reason I’m aware of this professional anniversary is that my boss used the final five minutes of our monthly meeting to congratulate me.

She also presented me with a pay raise.

Staunch critic of capitalistic consumer culture that I am (🙄), I instantly went online and bought a new pair of hiking shoes to back up the ones that got trashed on the overgrown and saturated trails of Hickory Run State Park a few weekends ago. There’s no recovering once the stale, musty smell of mud puddles, wet grass and sweaty feet seeps into mesh fabric! ☠️

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My husband booked our last-minute Pocono getaway for June 7, and if he hadn’t explicitly stated that it was meant to commemorate my 71 months of continuous sobriety, I might not have made the connection.

On one hand, it’s nice to be so far removed from my drinking days, and even from counting my sober days, that it takes some external force hitting me over the head to realize what’s happening: I am beating a 20-year addiction to alcohol. I have crawled up and out from rock bottom and built a whole new life in my 40s. Cool!

On the other hand, it’s a little disconcerting, not just to need those reminders to snap me out of this fog I’ve been lost in for the past however-many months, but to receive the reminder and feel…numb? Detached? Nonplussed? Weird.

I mean, I’m happy that recovery is no longer my entire personality — we’re maybe down to like 85-90% now? 😉 — but it’s a bummer to think that I’ve lost my sense of excitement, my celebratory attitude, my ability to recognize that continuing to live without alcohol when I once seemed willing to die for it is A REALLY BIG DEAL.

There are times I look around my life at almost six years sober and wonder, is there really anything to celebrate or be excited about?

Am I having any fun?

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Forgive the self-diagnosis, but my Eeyore attitude might be a manifestation of depression. I mean, it makes perfect sense that my preexisting mental health issues would be flaring up, given the demands of my job and… *gestures at everything*… But I haven’t allowed myself to really go there, because “there” is a deep dark abyss, and you don’t stop drinking just to give up and dive in.

I will say that pressing on through unprecedented times with a veneer of “everything’s fine” is way easier when you’re not constantly flooding your system with alcohol.

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I do try to have some fun from time to time, even if it’s usually my hubby’s influence that forces me out of the house.

Hiking tends to be our main shared recreational activity, but we still enjoy the occasional sporting event. Emphasis on occasional; in fact, after spending 90 very anxious minutes crawling through bumper-to-bumper traffic and navigating detours and construction zones on the way home from Citizens Bank Park last Wednesday, with a full bladder, I told Hubby that I had my fill of society for the rest of the year, and actually, I’d love it if he didn’t take me anywhere ever again.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!“ is what I imagined him thinking as he stared straight ahead, white-knuckling the wheel.

How different things seem from the way they started! In our 20s and 30s, we were coast-to-coast road-tripping baseball fanatics, and alt/indie-rock groupies, in addition to being rabid rec-league softball players and competitive CrossFitters. All of these activities involved drinking in some way, at least for me, and if I’m being honest, that was the carrot, my incentive to engage.

So. life today is a lot tamer. Quieter. Definitely cheaper! Is it….less fun? I suppose that’s a matter of perspective.

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I got a taste of how other people see/judge non-drinkers when I was interviewing for therapist jobs a little over a year ago. I shared with an interviewer that my personal experience with alcoholism and recovery inspired me to go into counseling, and they go, “Well, we’re fun here. We like to drink. Is that going to be a problem?”

As insulting and infuriating as that flip comment had the potential to be — OK, totally was — I found it pretty amusing.

I mean, I used to be all-in, unquestioningly, on the misguided mentality that alcohol=fun. It took a ridiculous amount of not-fun shit, happening over and over while under the influence, to show me the truth and force me to change.

Now that I’m on the other side, having been set free from social conditioning, Big Alcohol propaganda and the insane hamster wheel of my own consumption habits, why should it offend me to be “othered” by folks who are still under the spell? What do I care if, by choosing to do what’s best for me, I’m doing things differently from everyone else?

I preach to clients all the time that focusing on how life feels, rather than how it looks, is a pathway to inner peace. It’s important for a recovering addict like me to remember: feeling “meh” or “blah” or “ugh” is an inevitable and necessary part of being alive, especially when you’re living within a climate of cruelty, hatred, fear and destruction.

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No, tailgating at the ballpark does not feel the same with a Recess mocktail as it did with….whatever boozy crap I used to start guzzling hours before first pitch, back when MLB games were a standard part of our summer schedule.

Recovery means trading those euphoric short-term dopamine spikes for the sustained pursuit of low-key homeostasis. Feeling consistently fine is a big win. Being able to self-regulate through life’s ups and downs is a precious reward.

If that sounds like a tough sell for a lifelong member of the all-or-nothing club…well, yeah; it really f*cking is! I’m someone who’s naturally wired to want it all, right now, living in a society primed by smartphones and socials to expect constant distraction and instant gratification — and to believe that nothing I am or have or do is ever enough (so click that link, spend more money, take these meds, get this stuff! 🤑)

Sobriety is complicated, because you simultaneously never want to step back into the vicious cycle of chasing cheap thrills and easy escapes AND you’ll always miss the intense euphoria of checking out, of feeling free, even for a blink.

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The truth is that I drank because I couldn’t handle the truth, didn’t want to face reality, and alcohol only created an artificial feeling of relief that made things much worse once it inevitably wore off. I suppose that if my life without alcohol neither feels nor looks particularly fun right now, it’s because in reality, no one’s does — not if they’re paying attention and give a shit.

⬆️ That is basically my job description as a therapist, and doing this work right now means doing whatever’s necessary outside of session to protect my peace.

That means not drinking, obviously, but also just laying low. Staying close to my tame, quiet, chaos-free comfort zone and cozying up with my hubby, whether we’re sloshing through the woods or scratching “K”s on the Cubs half of the scorecard, or crashing out to some or other Hulu show.

We just decided to subscribe, by the way, and I’ve been making up for lost time. Can I just say “The Bear” has been a spiritual experience, between the breathtaking shots of/references to my sweet home Chicago and the addiction/Al-Anon angle of the storyline and the soul-stirring soundtrack filled with Mellencamp, Van Morrison, Wilco, Pearl Jam and Radiohead? 😭

One day, I am gonna grow wings

A chemical reaction

Hysterical and useless…

— Radiohead, “Let Down,” the song soaring in the background of “The Bear” Season 1 climax 🫶🏻

Music is actually what prompted this whole post, because listening to it in the car to/from work is one of those small ways I try to make each day a little more fun. Of course, music isn’t just joy and frivolity; it brings up all sorts of complicated and painful emotions. And my playlist has been really roughing me up lately, transporting me back to concerts, date nights, vacays, holidays, beach days, my youth, when I thought I was “living it up,” with booze as my constant, most trusty companion — and my hubby along for the ride.

Music forces me to confront a dream that died — was destined to die: that I could get away with not growing up, with not feeling my pain or dealing with my depression and anxiety, with listlessly spinning my wheels both personally and professionally, with shirking responsibility and expecting my life partner to pick up the slack or repair the broken pieces. I dreamed that getting drunk was a portal to the promised land, where I’d find comfort in my skin, intimate (but secure) connections, safety in my surroundings, endless enjoyment…

Hurts to admit, but life was not meant to be that way!

There are times when living sober can feel like you fell from heaven, like you’ll never feel really good again. Depression sees openings like that and swoops right in to distort reality and warp your perspective. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle, where joy and grief and hope and despair intermingle in a complicated — and often uncomfortable — stew.

Capitalist culture pushes the lie that life can be nonstop carefree fun if we just keep buying and consuming more stuff. Alcohol takes that impossible dream to the extreme. Quitting drinking, for me, has been a kind of return to Earth, to being human, which leaves me vulnerable to depression while opening me up to what life’s really supposed to be about. Becoming a therapist has been a way to take my place in the bigger picture, play my role in the grand scheme, and at least try to contribute to a greater good.

I have enjoyed sitting in the stew with my fellow humans over the past year, even as the world around us builds to a boil. My clients and I have shared tears and smiles, laughter and rage, love and grief, raw truth and unfiltered reality — all the stuff you sign up for when you decide life is worth living. We have “gone there” together, to the edge of the abyss, and turned back and pressed on every time.

As I inch toward the end of Year 6 in my sobriety journey, I plan to continue paying attention and giving a shit, and to keep looking for whatever good I can find in the time I have. I know what happens when you choose the alternative, and I can tell you for certain: That life is no fun.