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Back in my drinking days (LOL; it’s such a trip to be able to say that), this was a regular routine:

I’d wake in the middle of the night — or, what most normal people would consider “the middle,” whereas for me it was always about an hour before my 4 o’clock alarm, so, too early to get up and too late to go back to sleep — and flip out.

My panic-stricken brain would spin the same soundtrack: What day is it? Am I late for something? What embarrassing shit did I do last night (which is to say, THIS time)? Is [husband’s name] mad at me? …And on and on it played as I took inventory, trying to figure out just where I was on the shame spectrum (Feel Bad Rainbow? 😂) heading into another day.

I have since come to learn, through obsessively reading “quit lit” and listening to recovery podcasts, that the 3 o’clock roll call of regrets is par for the alcoholic course. It happens to everyone! This has been one of many comforting revelations I’ve experienced through A.A. and the “sobersphere,” assuring me that my soul-crushing struggle with addiction does not make me a crazy freak or a worthless failure; it makes me human.

I sleep a lot better these days, but the wee-hour panic attacks still happen from time to time. I had another one this morning — Day 63! — which might explain why I’m awake and writing at (checks computer clock) 3:31 AM on a Saturday. Realizing it was Saturday, and I didn’t have to go to work, and the man lying beside me is not only NOT mad at me but has cheered my sobriety with flowers, “Proud Of You” balloons and cases upon cases of Diet Sunkist, and the most embarrassing thing I’ve done in the last two months is tell the new guy at work he looks like Kyle Schwarber, then before he can even finish nodding politely and start slowly backing away, corner the poor kid into hearing my entire life story as a sports fan 😬… Continue reading “Inventory” →

In the journalism world that was more or less my life for two decades, between junior year in college and last year right about this time, the symbol — 30 — signifies the end of a story.

It’s now been a little more than 30 days since I closed the book on alcohol, and I have a beautiful red 1-Month coin from my regular Tuesday night A.A. meeting to show for it. But this is, by no means, any kind of ending.

Thirty days is where my story begins, and at this moment, the plot is an absolute mystery.

I’ve never made it past 30 days without drinking in my entire adult life, and only reached 30 days twice before. In 2016 and 2017, I messed around with “Sober October” experiments that were never borne out of a serious desire to quit. I celebrated the end of those dry months with Big Gulp tumblers filled with silver Jose Cuervo and flavored sparkling water, a concoction I dubbed “The Jengarita” and was so proud of that I regularly posted really compelling photos like this on my social media:

Continue reading “Thirty” →

I hate clichés. Don’t want to write them. Don’t want to say them. Don’t want to be one. I’ve always fancied myself a hard-core champion of originality, to the point that I can’t even bring myself to write “Happy Birthday” on someone’s Facebook page, because what’s the point of saying the same damn thing others have written 100 times already? If you can’t find the inspiration or time to give them something unique, might as well not bother!

Whew. Well, getting the f*ck over myself is a topic for another day.

Today we’re talking about clichés, because dammit, even though it’s difficult for someone like me to accept, clichés are often absolutely true and perfectly meaningful. You want to get all overthink-y and complicate things (and by “you,” I mean “I”) but in reality, a simple statement uttered and written a gazillion times throughout human history can really be the key to a happy life — if you internalize the message and turn it into action.

Take “One Day at a Time,” for example. Continue reading “24 Hours” →

I was already sweating, thanks to our ancient air conditioner that decided to break last Saturday — the day I took my last drink — and the home warranty company still giving us the business about fixing it four days later.

I was already on the verge of tears, after walking into a narrow room in a church basement packed with about 25 strangers. It was a bigger crowd than I had been expecting, a crowd that necessitated setting up chairs behind and alongside the main circle. I was an outsider, in every sense of the word. Continue reading “The Introduction” →