Tag: alcoholism

I am not anonymous.

No kidding, right? A more obvious statement has not been typed into this space — or any space I frequent on the World Wide Web, for that matter. That’s my given name and my actual mugshot (I just updated it, so it’s even recent!) up there. Both are also attached to the Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts that have all morphed into one big Overshare-y Sobriety Saga since I quit drinking 78 days ago.

My identity right now is completely tied up in the quest to beat addiction and re-route a life that went awry. Not once did I second-guess my decision to “come out” to the world and publicly post the real, raw details of the fight, for every single person with an internet connection to read all about if they so choose.

Well, that’s not completely true. I did have a couple of second guesses. In fact, the subject of this post dominated my thoughts this week after I was gently reminded that technically, forfeiting my anonymity while also taking to the cybersphere to trumpet my affiliation with a decades-old 12-step support group that was founded on that very principle is, let’s just say, potentially problematic.

So I’m not going to reference the support group anymore. I respect traditions and never intended to flout them. I do, however, want to continue talking about the idea of anonymity. More accurately, I want to talk about why one might decide to “out” herself when tackling deep issues that are at once intensely personal and also astonishingly universal. Continue reading “Anonymity” →

My shoes hurt my feet. I was mad at them. My bladder was full. I was mad at it. My headphones weren’t working, so I couldn’t listen to my usual podcasts — or anything at all, except the silence and the cicadas — on my regular early-AM walk in the park. That made me mad, too.

Then, some guy’s phone went off at full-blast during my A.A. meeting, after we’d been given the regular instruction to silence our cells. My anger at him only lasted a second, though, because I quickly had to busy myself trying to hide under the brim of my Cubs hat as tears inexplicably started rolling down my cheeks. Was I overtired? Was I feeling sorry for myself? Do I have Pseudobulbar Affect? Have I officially become my mother? Who knows, but when the meeting ended, I just about threw my folding chair in the cart and ran out the door to my car so I could have a proper cry.

That’s a recap of my Saturday morning, so you can see I’ve come a long way since last week’s post. 🙄

Nope, sober life is still an emotional roller coaster at Day 70, and apparently I’ve graduated from the “emotional mess” stage to the “emotional mess acting like a petulant toddler” stage. 🙄🙄🙄 Continue reading “Miracles” →

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” →