Author: jenwielgusjournalism

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sober lifestyle

Disenchantment

jenwielgusjournalism

My phone was buzzing away on Friday afternoon, but I was busy banging on a keyboard, finishing out my work week. And by the time 5 o’clock hit, I was so eager to get home and eat my Door Dash sushi, I barely glanced at the long string of texts my family had been firing into our group thread, as I…well, dashed out the door.

I didn’t see the news until this morning.

It’s probably a good thing that I’ve kept baseball beyond arm’s length over the past couple years while I was preoccupied with getting sober, working on my marriage, changing careers — you know, all that annoying “real life” shit that adults have to deal with. There was a time I had a finger planted on the pulse of my favorite sport, but now, it can’t reach me to deliver a debilitating gut punch.

The Big Cubs Breakup has me feeling numb.

I’m in disbelief but not really shocked; the selling-off our 2016 World Series heroes was by no means a bolt from the blue. You’d have to be completely off the grid to miss the telegraphed signs of an imminent fire sale, and if you’ve followed sports for even a little while, you know these things are par for the cyclical course.

I feel more like one would if, say, her parents had been threatening to ground her for months, and all of a sudden one day, she found herself confined to her room with TV and phone privileges revoked.

They did it. They actually did it.

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sober lifestyle

Quantity

jenwielgusjournalism

I didn’t get overly drunk at my wedding. I was too busy, making the rounds and talking to people and dancing to the playlist I painstakingly put together — and besides, the drink of choice back then was Coors Light. Weak! 🚰

It would be five years before I’d start hitting the hard stuff, and hitting the skids.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; at 29, I was regularly consuming mass quantities of alcohol and well on my way to the depths of rock bottom. But, thankfully, I have vivid and wonderful memories of Saturday, July 21, 2007, when those two well-dressed children 👶🏼 tied the knot in the upstairs banquet room at Chicago Firehouse Restaurant on South Michigan Ave., ⬆️ just a few blocks from Grant Park. ⬇️

That was 14 years ago this past Wednesday. So, my husband and I have celebrated two anniversaries this month. It goes without saying: There’s no way we would have made it to one without the other.

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sober lifestyle

Quality

jenwielgusjournalism

You could say that pole did us a favor; an obstructed view of last Monday’s 13-3 debacle was the next best thing to changing the channel. The Cubs have been unwatchable over the last few weeks, so it’s fitting that my husband and I organized a family trip to watch them play live at Wrigley Field, as part of our annual summer visit to Chicagoland.

We’ve lived together in the Philly area for almost 20 years and have an abysmal track record when it comes to Cubs-Phillies games. We probably should have warned my parents, sisters, nieces, brothers-in-law and aunt when we bought the tickets: “Guys, the steel beam blocking half the field will probably be a more pleasing sight than the final score.” 🤷🏼‍♀️

Of course, as lifelong Cubs fans, we’re all used to making light of losing, and we ended up having a blast. Or at least I did!

I sat next to my two younger sisters, a rare treat considering they both live in Illinois and have busy lives with jobs and kids. We spent three-plus hours sweating in 90-plus heat, me sucking down water and diet cola and keeping score on a $1 scorecard (cheaper than Citizens Bank Park!) We clapped and danced along to the ballpark organ and made snide comments (Patrick Wisdom’s pitch selection? Not very wise! …For those of you who missed BP, here’s Eric Sogard on to pitch!) that entertained some out-of-town fans in the row below. We laughed, long and loud and from the gut, just like we did when we were kids at the game with our friends.

It was real, honest-to-goodness “quality time,” the likes of which I rarely — if ever — experienced as an active alcoholic.

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sober lifestyle

Momentum

jenwielgusjournalism

Everything has felt incredibly heavy over the past few weeks: my entire body, the summer air, the constant drag of depression, the side effects of my second COVID shot (before you even ask: Pfizer), the looming responsibilities of attending — and paying for — grad school while working full time…

Lugging all that shit very slowly up a hill at Tyler State Park at 5AM on a Wednesday — less than 10 minutes in, my drenched clothes were like sandbags weighing me down even more — I started to crack.

It began as a guttural groan, like a mortally wounded animal crawling off to die, and crescendoed into a primal scream.

“OH MY GOD YOU’RE SO F*CKING FAT!!!”

😳

Of course, the sane part of me knows that verbally abusing oneself out loud in a public park not only doesn’t provide the satisfying release one seeks from abject misery, but it also drains additional energy from an already sputtering engine. Still, I yelled my putdowns and profanities, searing rage flying off me with every splash of sweat as I lumbered along my typical 30-minute jogging route.

I guess the key takeaway from this charming anecdote is that I kept going. I did not stop “running,” or give up and go home early, or throw myself into Neshaminy Creek hoping to float away forever — don’t think I haven’t contemplated that — and when my disgusting, dripping slab of meat finally burst back through the door into the air-conditioned entryway, creating an instant puddle on the wood floor, I felt a little better.

And that, friends, perfectly sums up my entire second year of sobriety. Well, the first 359 days of it. I still have one week to go. 😬

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sober lifestyle

Confrontation

jenwielgusjournalism

Well, friends, it happened. That cringe-worthy, uncomfortable scenario you imagine and try to plan for, but never really expect to encounter in real life.

Someone offered me a drink.

Maybe I would’ve handled it differently, had it been in an actual social setting — I don’t really do social settings, precisely so I can avoid this type of hellaciously awkward interaction — but it was at work. So I was caught completely off guard.

It’s hard to just brush it off when you’re cornered in an office and there are two hours left before you can leave.

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sober lifestyle

Calculation

jenwielgusjournalism

For our first “date night” of the summer, my husband and I dove headfirst into the deep end of post-COVID reality, crawling through stop-and-go traffic down I-95 to Citizens Bank Park for last Sunday’s full-capacity Phillies-Yankees game.

On the drive to the stadium, we discussed how nice it was not to have a dog in the fight.

You see, the last time we were here, back in August of 2019, we came to see the Cubs…who rewarded our loyalty by blowing a 5-run lead and serving up a walk-off grand slam to Bryce Harper. 🤨

It was at that game that I first tried keeping score as a sobriety strategy — a hands-busying distraction from all the alcohol swirling around me — and it worked so well on Day 40 that I went back to it on Day 708.

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sober lifestyle

Choice

jenwielgusjournalism

You know what scares me? I mean, besides needles — heading to get a COVID shot in a few hours…thoughts and prayers, please?!? — and heights and enclosed spaces and failure and feisty geese on the Delaware Canal…

OK, so nearly everything scares me. But specifically, what I’m talking about here, is my own laziness.

Maybe that’s a harsh way to put it. But how else would you describe a natural inclination, when given free time and freedom of choice, to choose the path of least resistance — or, really, the path of no resistance — every time?

In other words, unless I believe I HAVE to do something, I will ALWAYS choose to do nothing.

Thinking back, pretty much everything I’ve ever done in my life, outside of sitting on my ass in my home watching TV, or lying in my bed sleeping, I did because I forced myself to do it. I told myself I didn’t have a choice.

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sober lifestyle

Composure

jenwielgusjournalism

“Now, I don’t want you to freak out…” my boss said as she walked into my office on Monday morning, my 21st day at this new job.

As if there’s any other possible thing to do after hearing that.

As if I hadn’t been hanging on by a thread to begin with.

Luckily, I’ve become rather good at stuffing down my emotions over the past few years — I mean, it’s not really a “good” thing, given the effect it’s had on my digestive health, but it has kept me employed and more or less free of conflict in my personal life since I quit drinking — and so I only cracked a little bit when my boss told me she’s leaving the company. I only shed a few tears when I learned that, despite taking this job largely because I liked this person and felt comfortable working for her, and then relying on her to help ease my transition into an unfamiliar industry and whole new set of professional duties, I’d have to adjust AGAIN to working for a completely different person before I’d even settled in to my role.

Inside, I was absolutely freaking out, but I managed to keep my composure within the walls of my workspace. I kept showing up and hanging on to that thread for four more days.

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