It’s Not Really About Not Drinking

Time for (Part One) of our June check-ins

This month yielded a bumper crop of Check-Ins — so many, we’re splitting the yield across two issues.

Let’s get to them. —TSB Editor

If you are unfamiliar with our Check-In format:

All the Anonymous writers below are credited collectively as “The Small Bow Family Orchestra.”

The ***** separates individual entries, as do pull quotes.

And, of course, TSB looks incredible because Edith Zimmerman drew everything.

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Along for the Ride

by The Small Bow Family Orchestra

I’m on year ten coming up without alcohol or cigarettes, which means eight years without one parent and two without my brother, both dead from booze. My living parent seemed strange when I saw them last. It turns out they’ve been drinking in secret, from finishing up the sacramental wine at church (for two services!) to spreading out purchases across states, along with a terminal cancer diagnosis for one of their closest friends.

As my oldest friend told me: “You never really stood a chance.”

I’ve got all kinds of plans to confront my family about how unfair it is for me to lose all these people to alcohol, but I know a blow-up probably only makes things worse. So it’s back to the long-played game of pretending nobody knows anything.

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I’ve been sober for two years and two months. The longer I’m sober, the easier I find it to spend time around friends at bars again. What I’m struggling with now is the impulse to drink alone, which is yet another reminder that I was never really a “normal” drinker. Because I don’t get the urge to drink when I’m having fun with my friends; it comes when I’m alone, having exhausted the alternatives to avoiding my feelings. I went to a meeting last week and shared about the things I didn't want to share with the room or anyone else, even though I felt embarrassed by how long it took me to get the words out without fully losing my shit. I avoided talking to anyone afterwards and spent the rest of the day crying off and on.

Right now, I’m staying sober by reminding myself of what I’ve accomplished in two years and two months of sobriety. They are things that are precious to me because they represent the work I’ve put into showing up for myself and my loved ones. I’d have none of it if I were still drinking because I would have been too hungover or incapacitated to follow through if I had dared to reach for it at all. An ex once told me with pride that I was never going to achieve a single dream as long as he was in my life. Sounds a lot like the shithead voice of my alcoholism. And I deserve better than that.

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I am in a phase of sobriety where it is becoming obvious to even me, my harshest critic, that I have grown leaps and bounds emotionally and I am much less reactive. You might not guess it if you caught me snapping at my husband or flipping someone off in traffic, but every now and then, something happens that reminds me.

Recently, I watched someone have a tantrum in a professional setting. The “threat” she was reacting to didn’t exist and was completely made up. You could tell she’d been rehearsing her monologue in the car and came in ready for a fight that made no sense at all.

As others jumped in to comfort her, I said nothing. Inside, I wanted to scream at all of them. I wanted to shout, “This isn’t real! Why are we spending so much energy pretending it is?”

But instead, I took a breath and realized what was really going on. This person needed some validation. She quietly went back to school which had shifted her expectations for her career. And no one was acknowledging it, because she never told anyone (this is still the part that I find most obnoxious).

In the past, I would’ve just stayed mad. And to be honest, I still have some shitty feelings about it because it was a BIG tantrum and we are middle aged. But I get it. We all have internal struggles and sometimes they pop out in weird ways.

I left that situation feeling so much better than if I had tried to be “right.” I’d love to say I couldn’t have done that 3.5 years ago when I first got sober. But the truth is, I might not have done it last month.

The deeper into sobriety I get, the more I realize it’s not really about not drinking. It’s about learning how to actually live and let others do the same. I know people say that all the time. But this might be the first time I’ve truly felt it, pretty darn close to the moment.

And while I appreciate these reminders, the growth part always freaks me out some, so I am committing to daily meetings for the next few weeks to help me sort through it all. I’m slowly learning that good progress can be as much or not more of a struggle for me as setbacks.

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When I was using coke I’d have dreams about wanting to do more of it. In these dreams I’d find myself in front of a huge pile of the stuff ready to have at it and then something would get in the way. Dream logic would intervene, keeping me from just having more. I’d wake up feeling frustrated.

I’m five months into the coke-free rest of my life, and I still have coke dreams. Except now when my dream self has a bag in hand or is chopping up lines, I’ll start to feel guilty. I’ll think about how doing it would hurt me, how I’d lose the progress I’ve made, and I choose to not do it. I say no.

When I wake up I feel relieved and so happy that I’m still on the right track. Progress.

*****

I am the youngest of seven and will be sober ten years on June 28th.

Since 2015, an out-of-state sibling suffered two alcoholism-related strokes. Surely the smartest of us all, they lost the ability to walk, refused home health care, lived on the couch, and continued to day-drink with their spouse. They died two weeks ago in the hospital. Alone. Their wish.

I am a long-time family caregiver and hoped to be with my 98-year-old mom when she got THE CALL. But this sibling’s spouse called her directly and told her sib just died. Mom called me. I went to her immediately. She asked me to call my other sibs, same as when my dad died. I hate making such calls. Each one was, as you’d imagine, tough. The death of a sibling is intense. One sib asked if she should text the daughter condolences. My two cents: yes. Everyone told their own kids.

I comforted mom and she spoke her mind. I was thankful she was not alone with her thoughts while processing the death of a child. Then the condolence-sending sibling shared the daughter’s reply: the spouse misunderstood the nurse’s phone call. Sib was not dead. Yet. Death was merely imminent. Everyone, including my own adult children, had been told sib died because their unwell and struggling spouse got it wrong.

I made a second set of phone calls. These were difficult and surreal. After another heart-breaking 24 hours, my sibling truly left this world. Being a caregiver, I’m thankful to be present for my mom so she can verbalize her thoughts and doesn’t grieve alone.

I’ve left out the even more sideways details. Revelation: This experience makes me, for the first time as a caregiver, afraid that I won’t have enough gas in the tank to make it through to the end of this gig. I am working to find the positive. I am working to be thankful I am useful.

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I made it through May without getting laid off, both a blessing (I can continue to survive and take care of family) and a curse (I have to continue to cope with the pain of my toxic workplace). Mostly a blessing, I’ll take it, and try to use it as an opportunity to plan what to do with my life next.

A weird fucked-up thing I have going with a dominant woman has messed me up more and it’s coming to a head. Luckily I have resources to help me figure this shit out. I feel less foolish and more — I don’t even know what. It seems important to be going through this but I also wish I could have an endless supply of the good squishy feelings that come from when she’s connected and tender, and the amazing feelings from dark, violent scenes together.

I clearly have a problem there and I don’t even know what to say about it. I’m going to try and get some ketamine treatments and shake off the pain I’m avoiding and the pain I’m self-inflicting.

*****

On May 20, I hit a milestone I’m both grateful for and amazed by: not a single swig of alcohol in 29 years.

Have I thought about drinking? Of course. But alcohol never made anything better — and it would’ve made a lot of things worse.

I got sober at 24. That means I have a lot of “yets.” I’ve yet to go to jail, try cocaine, or overindulge in Fireball. I got the gift of desperation early. My life was falling apart while I was trying to hold it together.

It felt like I was two people: one holding down a job and relationship, the other clinging to life by a thread. I remember thinking, “It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.” But my alcoholism had other plans.

As a blackout drinker I don’t remember much of the last 5 years of drinking. The first 5 years of sobriety were about survival. I never wanted to drink again after my first AA meeting — but I knew I had to stay connected to the solution.

AA isn’t the only path. There are many roads to recovery. What matters is finding the one that stops the bleeding.

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I’m suddenly, totally adrift after completing my Master’s degree, and lately I’ve been (more) concerned (than usual) about my sobriety. I had a ton going on, and now I don’t. My degree is in social work because I wanted to be a helper when I quit drinking five years ago. School kept my brain busy with subjects I loved, as did my internship at a domestic violence agency where I got a calling to do clinical work. But everything ended 2 weeks ago, and I’m getting into some real stinkin’ thinkin’. I don’t know how to deal with this unstructured time yet, and you know what they say about idle hands.

*****

Two years ago, I was fresh out of sex addiction treatment and completely uncertain how I was going to be able to handle life outside. I was utterly terrified.

Today, I am sober for two years and two months from sex, food, and debting/underearning addictions, and coming up on eight years sober from drugs and alcohol (thanks to several 12 step programs ).

In the past few months, some of the biggest stuff that I fear has been happening — there was an emergency situation at work so I was thrown into a position I didn’t think I could handle, I started seeing someone for the first time in my new sobriety and then that ended, my Dad is potentially facing some scary health issues, and that’s on top of just being burned out from working too much between two jobs.

While it’s been kind of crazy, I’ve been thinking of it this way — why has this been happening for me, instead of to me? And that changes everything. This stuff is challenging, but not in the way active addiction is. These are growing pains, and they’re providing so many opportunities for mistakes, learning, and growth. I can’t help but feel super excited about all of it.

The wildest change is that I don’t feel ashamed about any of it — I am thriving in this new work role, the relationship not working out means absolutely nothing about my value and lovability as a person, and I know I can be a supportive child to my Father when he needs it.

This is a huge contrast to how I used to be. I wouldn’t have been able to handle any one of these things without imploding into active addiction.

I’m so grateful for the gifts of recovery.

*****

fin

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OTHER RECENT CHECK-INS:

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This is The Small Bow newsletter. It is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio. And Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday.

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Thanks for helping us grow.

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ZOOM MEETING SCHEDULE

Monday: 5:30 p.m. PT/ 8:30 p.m ET

Tuesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET

Wednesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET

Thursday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Women and non-binary meeting.)

Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET

Saturday: Mental Health Focus (Peer support for bipolar/anxiety/depression.) 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET

Sunday: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET

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If you don’t feel comfortable calling yourself an “alcoholic,” that’s fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, DEBT, codependency, love, loneliness, depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.

FORMAT: CROSSTALK, TOPIC MEETING

We're there for an hour, sometimes more. We'd love to have you.

Meeting ID: 874 2568 6609

PASSWORD TO ZOOM: nickfoles

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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:

At Night

by Yone Noguchi

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At night the Universe grows lean, sober-
faced, of intoxication,
The shadow of the half-sphere curtains
down closely against my world, like a
doorless cage, and the stillness chained by
wrinkled darkness strains throughout the Uni-
verse to be free.
Listen, frogs in the pond, (the world is a pond itself)
cry out for the light, for the truth!
The curtains rattle ghostlily along, bloodily biting
my soul, the winds knocking on my cabin door
with their shadowy hands.

—Via Poets.org

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