Tag: alcoholism

We just got home from a lovely weekend celebrating early Christmas with my husband’s parents in the Poconos. It’s an hour until my bedtime. And while I only have to get up at 4 a.m. for two more days in the year 2019, tomorrow is one of those days.

So, this is going to be a quick one. (That’s what he said?)

It’s more of a note than a blog post.

A thank-you note.

When I started writing about my sobriety journey almost six months ago, it was only because I desperately needed an outlet for the overflowing toilet that was/is my brain. I never expected anyone else to read, much less care about, my everlong overshares packed with random pop culture references, none newer than 1999. I expected even less that anyone would take the time to reach out and tell me they cared. 

You guys did all three of those things.

You might not anymore if I keep talking about toilets, but while you’re here right now, I want to tell you how much your readership and support means to me.  Continue reading “Appreciation” →

As expected, decorating the Christmas tree without draining a bottle of Jose Cuervo — as much a staple of the season, for me, as Mannheim Steamroller music, “Christmas Vacation” quotes and Hallmark keepsake ornaments — was the hardest part of this holiday weekend.

Well, that, and getting my 🤬-ing period on Thanksgiving Eve, but we don’t need to get into that…too much.

I did dump a bottle of tequila, technically (see picture), but that wasn’t the least bit difficult. When I came across the cheap piece of decorative glass I brought home from my retail job last year around this time, when I had just about reached “raging” on the alcoholic spectrum, I marched right past the tree and over to the recycling bin. RIP, shiny souvenir of shitty decisions!

If there had been any actual booze in that bottle, this might have been a different story, because for all the years since I moved out of my parents’ house back in 2000, drinking and decorating went together like “Why is the carpet all wet, Todd?” and “I don’t KNOW, Margo!” in my head. Continue reading “Gratitude” →

Perhaps my most potent proof-of-a-higher-power moment came Saturday morning when I was asked, five minutes before the start of a recovery meeting, to pick a reading from the literature and start off the discussion. Stricken by a wave of performance anxiety, I fumbled with the book, anxiously flipping through pages until finally landing on one near the middle. The first few sentences sliced straight through my mental fog, instantly dissolving panic into peace.

I’d found a story about an alcoholic who liked to make up stories when she was young!

This is my life story. In fact, just this week, as I cleared the 4 1/2-month mark in my sobriety journey, a dramatic realization hit me: As a kid, I wanted to be an author.

Actually, I kind of was an author, back then. Someone in the family bought me a bunch of little blank booklets, a paper playground for my hyperactive imagination and collection of art supplies, and I would fill pages and pages with fictional tales of talking animals — complete with colored-pencil illustrations. Such riveting titles as “Lucky The Ladybug Goes To School” and “Skiing With The Best Friend Bunnies” (that one was part of a series, in the vein of “The Babysitters Club”) might have — who knows? — gone on to become beloved children’s classics had I ever, once, finished those stories instead of abandoning them mid-plot and moving on to a new booklet because I couldn’t think of a good ending.

Those damn endings got me, every time. My parents found a bunch of my booklets in the basement, years later after I’d moved away, and they texted me, like, “What ever happened to Lucky The Ladybug? This book just stops on Page 12.” 😂 Continue reading “Creativity” →