Tag: sobriety

sober lifestyle

Weather

jenwielgusjournalism

The peaceful calm of Friday morning — I did yoga, attended a 12-step meeting, then took a quick walk around the neighborhood with Christmas classics playing in my headphones — quickly dissipated as the day progressed and the weather intensified.

It was Dec. 23rd, and my husband and I were supposed to drive three hours north for the first leg of our weeklong holiday journey. I sat on the couch, fully dressed and packed, waiting with dwindling patience for him to get ready, and listening with mounting concern as the drip, drip of light rain on the deck turned into the rapid rat-a-tat-tat of sleet against the windows and whoosh of wind around the building.

My thoughts raced: WHAT was taking him so long? Furthermore, WHY was it so important that we leave today, when tomorrow might be safer? Anxiety bubbled up inside me like a runaway train, and I, simultaneously exiting the most challenging month of the year and entering the hyper-hormonal “danger zone” of my monthly cycle, felt completely powerless to stop it…

It’s easy to see, now that it’s Jan. 3 and I’m peering at Christmas vacation in my rearview mirror, how this turned into the most difficult holiday season of my recovery thus far.

It’s clear, in hindsight: Fretting over a storm outside instead of tending to the storm inside can be a recipe for relapse.

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sober lifestyle

Exodus

jenwielgusjournalism

My husband and I are supposed to set off today in the ’ole four-wheel-drive sleigh, to embrace the majesty of a holiday road trip to Chicago, via Honesdale, PA.

Our annual Christmas vacation typically takes us to both his (north) and my (west) parents’ houses, and we prefer to drive, rather than fly, because it gives us greater freedom/independence at our destinations — not to mention more room to pack.

Given the chaos at my part-time marketing job (who knows if I’ll even have it when I return to Philly in January), and the uncertainty over my counseling internship at the methadone clinic (they haven’t gotten back to me about training, start date or schedule 🤷🏼‍♀️), I’m especially eager to am-scray this year. I want to travel, even though our cross-regional trek could apparently involve some weather-related perils. 🌨

I mean, at least that’s what I’ve heard from my forecast-obsessed family members, who keep texting me about storm reports they saw on the news. I know they mean well, but getting freaked out about stuff beyond our control is precisely what we recovering alcoholics are trying NOT to do, so…snow–renity now! You know what I’m saying? 🙃

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sober lifestyle

Elevation

jenwielgusjournalism
Sunrise at Tyler State Park, on Dec. 7, 2022, my 41st sober month-iversary.

“Try to give it up to your higher power,” my mom wrote me in a text, shortly after we’d hung up from my second distress call of the week.

Her message popped in just before I left for an appointment to get my 3-years-sober celebratory tattoo, and my entire body was a crackling live wire of rumination and worry.

It wasn’t because I’m a needle-phobe, though. I got over that with tatt #2. The issue du jour — yet again! — was work.

In short, it’s a shitshow. The “other shoe” I was afraid would drop since I agreed to re-join this chaotic company on a part-time basis back in January…well, it appears to be in motion, spelling the imminent demise of my rough-and-tumble marketing “career,” about six months too soon.

I was counting on this paycheck to get me through my next semester of grad school, or until it’s time to transition from the 100-hour “practicum” that starts in January to the full-time internship our program requires in Year 3.

So, add financial stress to the ever-present professional anxiety/depression that’s been hanging over me since I left journalism and started over from scratch in my 40s, and I quickly slip into an emotional spiral. It’s so easy to lose perspective, abandon my recovery toolbox, and let my agita run amok!

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sober lifestyle

Reconciliation

jenwielgusjournalism

At nearly 3 1/2 years sober, I don’t really have drunk dreams anymore. Instead, my “resting” brain has moved on to torturing me with “you’re gonna get in trouble!” scenarios of increasing intensity, and I think that might actually be worse than an imaginary relapse.

The other night, like something out of a 90s teen slasher flick, I dreamt that some woman I didn’t recognize knocked on my door to deliver a hauntingly cryptic message: “I know.” 😱

WTF is that all about?!?

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graduate school, sober lifestyle

Passion

jenwielgusjournalism

You can take the girl out of English class, age her a few decades and put her through the wringer of trying to earn a living wage with the written word, but you can’t take the burning passion for English class out of the girl!

Safe to say I was totally in my element Tuesday night at Delaware Valley University’s annual Student Writing Conference, where I went to read one of my early-2022 blog posts, plus a short snippet of an even older piece that I struggled to slice and dice into a 100-word “Tiny Memoir.” (I only made it down to 126; shit, it’s tough being your own editor! 😫)

I attended the event to “celebrate writing” with classmates and kindred spirits, and just to soak up as much of “carefree” grad student life as I can before “the real world” hits — again — next semester in the form of an unpaid counseling internship that will usher in my second career transition in the past four years.

I was probably the oldest person in the room, besides the professors running the thing, and yet I was acting much like the 1990s tween/teen who sat riveted at a Park View School/Niles West High desk while Mr. Paulos or Dr. Graham led discussions of great literature and the art of storytelling.

Once a “try hard,” always a “try hard”…
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graduate school, sober lifestyle

Silence

jenwielgusjournalism

I enjoy running immensely — I mean, who wouldn’t, with this (👀⬆️) beautiful, soft, flat nature trail at their disposal? — but I am by no means a runner. Come to the Delaware Canal towpath on any Sunday morning if you want to witness the clear contrast between regular, middle-aged schmoes like me and the real deal.

I mean, besides the obvious difference in speed and overall physique, I’ve got music from a carefully curated playlist blaring in my ear buds. I will slow down or even stop, if I need to adjust said music. Serious runners don’t mess with those types of pedestrian creature comforts. They motor through the miles in steely silence.

Me, vs. Them:

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sober lifestyle

Growth

jenwielgusjournalism

Driving home from class in Doylestown three nights a week is a litmus test for my emotional regulatory skills — still a bit of a shortcoming at 3+ years sober. More often than not, I end up at max acidity, raging behind the bumper of a car doing 25 mph in a 45 zone and braking to 20 at every bend, all the way down 413 to Newtown.

And other times, hallelujah, it’s smooth sailing. This past Tuesday, there was not a car nor a deer in sight, and the U2 station on the free-trial Sirius radio service in my new (Cubbie-blue) Jeep was playing “Angel of Harlem,” after which the Lithium station was playing STP’s “Big Empty,” and “Low” by Cracker, and I felt a glorious sense of freedom as I cruised along the open road, singing my heart out to the same 90s hits that used to pump from the tape deck in my teenage bedroom.

Those two contrasting scenarios are a pretty good illustration of how much my life changed between October 2021 and today. I went from a tired, bitter commuter sitting in rush-hour traffic twice a day, working and going to school full-time, to about as free-spirited as a Type-A gal can be, enjoying plenty of the open space and self-care time that has been such a huge key to my mental health and recovery.

This charmed life is, of course, about to end. I’m in a surreal calm-before-the-storm period with no idea what the future will bring. All the growth I’ve undergone in the past four years is about to be put to the test.

Sounds familiar…

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sober lifestyle

Fatigue

jenwielgusjournalism

I attended a panel discussion on prison reform at DelVal U. this past week for a grad school class, and one of the guest experts was a straight-shooting ex-con and recovering addict named Dan, who “graduated” from a life behind bars to become a criminal justice educator, researcher and community leader down in Delaware. (He used the old “Penn State and the State Pen.” joke to describe his background, but I won’t count that against him. 😉)

The second Dan began talking, I felt instantly close to him, like I’d known him a long time. He had the down-to-Earth attitude and weathered, “f^cked around and found out” look of well-earned wisdom you get from the school of hard knocks. It’s a look I’ve seen time and again on sports fields and in 12-step meetings at various points over the past 20 years, and one I’ve come to associate with “my kind of people.”

When Dan spoke about waking up in jail on his 30th birthday and just feeling tired — as in, done with the whole in-and-out vicious cycle of the repeat-offender lifestyle and unable to fathom doing the same old shit for the rest of his life…I felt it, big-time, like a punch in the gut mixed with a nice warm hug.

That’s exactly the feeling that hit me on that June morning in 2019 on my parents’ back deck when my drunk-chick act officially got old. It’s the same kind of “come-to-Jesus” moment that started my recovery story more than three years ago.

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