Author: jenwielgusjournalism

Follow me on Threads and Bluesky @jenwielgus!
sober lifestyle

Accountability

jenwielgusjournalism

Not to be flip, but if you want to stay on the path of recovery, sidestepping the inevitable landmines of temptation lying in wait here, there, anywhere…might I suggest heading in the direction of higher education?

I can think of no better way to keep yourself accountable than to air your dirty laundry in front of a grad school admissions board, presenting your own battle with alcoholism as a reason you’d be a great fit for their program, and discussing with great passion and emotion your goal of taking your Masters degree and using it to help other addicts change their lives.

No offense to you internet friends — all three of you — to whom I pour out my sober heart and soul every week on this blog, but I could easily just ghost you and “go back out” without much of a brouhaha. It’s a lot more difficult to say “🤬 it” to Doctors and Professors who just heard your story and thought it warranted acceptance into their university’s Class of…(hamster wheel in head turning)…2024?

Continue reading “Accountability” →
sober lifestyle

Victory

jenwielgusjournalism

I put on a pair of jeans to go in to the office.

They fit.

That is the biggest news in my life, lo these past few weeks.

I’ll give you a moment to yawn, because if you’ve never had an eating disorder or grappled with obsessive body image issues — or, on a deeper level, a lack of self-esteem that manifests itself as obsessive body image issues — you have no idea how intense a love-hate relationship with denim pants can be. You don’t understand what it’s like to have your whole day ruined by that snug feeling in your hips and thighs, which in your head means you’re gross and unattractive and lazy and worthless, when in reality nobody else on Planet Earth notices nor gives a 🤬 about bunched-up fabric around your ass.

You think it’s NBD, or maybe a symptom of batshit insanity, but to me, the simple act of putting on said pants, then feeling comfortable enough to leave the house in them, really does evoke enough emotion to inspire an entire blog post.

Maybe I should’ve called this one “Vanity.” 💁🏼‍♀️

Continue reading “Victory” →
sober lifestyle

Clarity

jenwielgusjournalism

Was there a second of time I looked around? Did I sail through or drop my anchor down? Was anything enough to kiss the ground, and say ‘I’m here now…’?

— John Mayer, “Clarity”

I woke up feeling old the other day, all lethargic and ornery, dreading everything that lay ahead on my schedule. And as I staggered downstairs and plopped into my same spot on the couch to drink my same cup — sorry, pot — of coffee and eat my same gluten-free chocolate peanut butter protein bar, I thought to myself with a twinge of despair: “This is it? This is my entire life, right here?” 😩

Side note: I would be cool with a life filled with chocolate peanut butter protein bars. Sobriety has stricken me with an insatiable sweet tooth.

That, and an ugly self-pity streak.

Sometimes, though, in the midst of nursing the dull ache of what’s-the-point-itis — an existential affliction that’s plagued me all my life — I have flashes of clarity. Reminders that “this,” whatever it happens to be at the time, is everything I need.

Sure enough, there I sat in the midst of my morning routine, not really thinking of anything in particular, and I suddenly remembered the hangovers. Out of nowhere, memories of pounding headaches and searing shame, the visceral remnants of a drinking binge, came flooding back.

I used to wake up on mornings just like this, feeling half-dead — but in a much different way.

Continue reading “Clarity” →
sober lifestyle

Honesty

jenwielgusjournalism

My phone ran an update overnight, and when I reached for it, by irresistible force of habit, the second my eyes shot open (around 1 AM), it wanted me to jump through a few setup hoops before I could use it.

CREATE PASSCODE, it commanded.

No, thank you! — my mental reply.

Of course, there was no disobeying the iPhone, and I had to set a passcode before immediately heading to “Settings” to shut it off. The whole exercise took 90 seconds, but the significance of it remains stuck in my head.

I don’t have any reason to lock my phone. And that might be THE greatest gift of sobriety.

It’s difficult to explain, and I’m not going to get into specifics, but when you’ve lived the life of an addict and watched yourself spiral downward into dishonesty and depravity until you are so disgusted with the person you’ve become that you actually drink more to avoid dealing with that guilt and shame, and your spiral picks up steam, driving you lower, quicker…

I mean, yeah, after all that, it feels positively exhilarating to have nothing to hide.

Continue reading “Honesty” →
sober lifestyle

Exhaustion

jenwielgusjournalism

On Thursday, I overslept and missed my regular weekly recovery meeting.

The meeting starts at 6 PM.

Such is the surreal world I’m living in at 16 months sober. I’m not sure how it happened, but my schedule got completely out of whack —waking up and doing work at 2AM has become the norm — and during the hours I’m actually awake, my energy levels have plummeted so drastically that I literally cannot wait to climb back in bed. I find myself eating dinner at 3PM, drinking “Sleepytime” tea while the school buses are unloading kids outside my window, and thinking it’s morning when my husband comes in the bedroom to announce he’s done with work.

I’m tired, you guys. More tired than I can ever remember feeling.

I think maybe all the fighting has taken its toll.

Continue reading “Exhaustion” →
sober lifestyle

Punctuality

jenwielgusjournalism
Gratuitous nature pic, Day 475.

“If I’m ever late, alert the authorities; there’s been foul play.”

They could put that on my tombstone. I mean, hopefully they won’t; I’d much prefer natural causes, but you know what I mean. If I have anything close to a catchphrase, it’s that little nugget of brilliance. 😏 You might’ve even heard me say it, back in the days we used to go places, when I showed up somewhere like an hour or more early. (Thanks for humoring me with the polite chuckle, BTW.)

Punctuality is actually listed among my professional skills on my resume. It should probably have a “hyper-” before it.

Come to think of it, hyper is putting it mildly, considering the intense physical reaction I had those two or three times in my life when I thought I might be late for something. Still have nightmares about driving to the Atlanta airport on the early morning of Christmas Eve 2000, that fateful day the alarm in my Macon apartment didn’t go off and I ended up with only 15 minutes of wait time at my gate. 😱

Continue reading “Punctuality” →
sober lifestyle

Patience

jenwielgusjournalism

What I love about the Delaware Canal towpath — long, flat, soft stretches of trail uninterrupted by roadways — is also what I hate about it. How I’m feeling depends on whether I’m on the way out on a run, or on the way back, when I’ve gone as far as my achy lower back, touchy hamstrings and crampy calves can carry me without anything snapping or falling off, and I’ve slowed to a walking pace out of self-preservation.

That return trip to the car takes for-EVER.

It feels like plodding away on a treadmill, watching the seconds tick by but not really getting anywhere. You know you’re covering ground, but the distance ahead only seems to grow and grow. Your mind starts to dwell on all forms of discomfort: you’re cold, even moreso because you’re sweaty, and the coffee + energy drink from an hour ago is sloshing in your bladder, and your entire lower body is stiff as 🤬, and you wish like hell you could time warp to the point when you’re showered and cozy in house coat and pajama pants, probably also a winter hat for added warmth, and you’re eating egg whites with spinach and broccoli in front of some “Law & Order” rerun on TV.

It occurred to me, as that exact scenario played out on Sunday morning, that I spend a ridiculous amount of my life wishing away my life. I’m constantly looking at the clock, then looking anxiously ahead to when whatever is happening will be over.

This is why I’m not a good cook. Who wants to stand idly in a kitchen for 20 minutes, waiting for meat to reach that no-longer-potentially-deadly “done” point, or for a pizza to get un-soggy in the center? Who wants to spend TWO minutes heating up water for tea in the microwave? It’s so uncomfortable I have to, like, grab my phone and start scrolling through Twitter to occupy the emptiness.

“Patience is a virtue…something something…” Hell, I couldn’t even stay in the moment long enough to listen to the entire proverb my grandmother used to say back in the day. No clue why she was always saying it to me. 😉

Continue reading “Patience” →
sober lifestyle

Recommendation

jenwielgusjournalism

The biggest news in my life right now, other than the tatt and what’s going on every week in Season 4 of “Fargo” (Timothy Olyphant 😍…that’s pretty much it), is my quest to study psychology in grad school.

We’re officially in Phase 2 of that quest; I just received an email from the admissions office saying they reviewed my application and they’d like to invite me to a formal interview with the program director and other high-ranking school officials.

🥳

I learned a few things during Phase 1:

  • Openly identifying as an addict isn’t a professional death sentence;
  • My GPA at Northwestern was lower than I thought;
  • Probably the best decision I made in my (pre-sobriety) life was to move to Bucks County, PA, to join the local newspaper community.

Like most things you’re immersed in day after day for years, I didn’t really appreciate what — and who — I had in that community until I left it. I had a surrogate home/family, both in the company buildings and out on the sports beat, even if my loner personality made me, like, the distant third cousin twice removed in that scenario.

(Here’s where I am obliged to mention that I met my husband at the paper back in 2002.)

Most of us who moved on from the Bucks County Courier Times/Doylestown Intelligencer in the Gatehouse era did not do so voluntarily, so we didn’t really get to stop on our way out the door, look around and get proper perspective on our careers there and all the relationships we built over the years.

Continue reading “Recommendation” →