Good job, everyone. Stellar submissions. Please keep us in mind when you or someone you love wants some crazy-good writing to serve as their boon companion along this bumpy, endless road to recovery. Stay safe, sober, and sane. See you next month! — AJD

Everything had been on such an even keel for so long, I suppose I was destined for some misery. And in the past month, boy, has there been misery. Two friends — one close, one not — died, both far too young. My finances, which had seemed poised to stop flailing at the beginning of the year, have only become more precarious after several potential clients decided to hire someone else. I got dumped unexpectedly, over the phone, right before a planned date. And oh my god the shitty fucking February weather. I haven’t wanted to drink over any of it, but everything has felt unbearably sad. I’m not sure there hasn’t been a day that I didn’t cry the entire month. But it’s March now, the sun’s out and it’s a little warmer. I just got a new sponsor and am going to start working the steps again. I’m going to yoga almost every day, and it’s helping. I’m still here, and I’m still sober, and some days, that has to be enough.

I’m only twenty-three weeks into my sobriety but my husband this April will reach his fifteen year mark of sobriety.  

We are having the hardest time this winter.   

Five years ago we moved ourselves from the beautiful mountains of Oregon to the Northern Ontario Canadian boreal forest just so we could afford to buy land and maybe not have a wildfire sweep through it. (Yes I am half Canadian because of my mom being born here.)

What, are we crazy? Yes. 

This winter has been the hardest. It’s been so cold that when we hike on our trails it smells like a walk-in freezer. Our eyelids freeze and our dogs begin to limp on two feet. 

Also, I don’t know if the depression we are experiencing is because we have the unfiltered news at our fingertips, witnessing people in our home country being murdered by the government. Or is it the sideways blowing snow storms turning everything white and record freezing temps that are making us feel depressed? Most people usually just drink their sorrows away? I mean that is what I did for these past four years. Now I have to come face to face with my depressed and stressed self. 

Thank goodness for my husband who has so many skills to help us emotionally survive.  For example when it seems like we are getting too mad at each other for whatever reason he says, “let’s do a do-over.” So we have to give each other another chance to communicate to approach and talk to the person in a good way and not harm the other person with words. I think I would have a harder time being sober if it wasn’t for my husband. 

I asked him the questions that you asked for the March check-in since he is the one in the family with the most experience.

He says he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about recovery these days because he spent so much time thinking about it for so many years. He just ingrained it into himself to the point that it is just who he is now, it’s not something he has to think about.  

He is both in an emotional hole and loving life.

What’s bringing him down is this winter and the dominant culture of this world is bringing him down big time. 

What is keeping him sane is knowing that there are people out there that also feel the same way about how f-ing stupid this world is but also how beautiful and magical it can be.  

Movies help keep him sane.

What brings him up is to try to be grateful for what he has and he is constantly surprised with how much clarity and focus and self discipline he can have when not fucked up on drugs or alcohol and that is a good thing for him. 

I moved to Ireland in November. I had been over here without my family up until mid-February when my wife and daughter joined me. It was a really cool experience to be on my own. I said “yes” to almost every social engagement, I connected with a decent amount of folks through the local recovery community, and I have felt as comfortable with who I am in about forever. It is really interesting to notice how quickly I can/did fall into old patterns of less than emotionally sober behavior when my family got here. It was a rough couple of weeks. It is a lot easier for me to be spiritual when I’m by myself, but that is not what I want. I want to imperfectly interact with the people who I love with curiosity and compassion (for them and for me). Absolutely none of this would be possible without recovery.

“How am I doing?” he asked somewhat incredulously due to the absurdity of the question. “Are you sure you want to know?”

These past two weeks have epitomized the high/low, peaks/valleys of life for me. Prior to this, I had relapsed for a week. The stress of work, lack of intimacy in my relationship, and a tween daughter whose outbursts trigger me to no end had me running to look at soft porn and fantasy on reddit. I justified it because it was gifs, not actual videos, and no penetration, so it wasn’t in my inner circle. But let’s be honest — you know it when you see it. 

I told on my addict to my therapist and home-group, reset my sobriety, recommitted to the program, and unlike past relapses, did not beat the shit out of myself. I’m still a good person — I’m still learning how to do better. I also essentially bricked my phone after installing some filters that I, given my lack of technical savvy, do not know how to remove. 

This past week brought a storm to the northeast, two days without power, two days in a hotel with partner, kid, and dog all on top of one another, an absolute epic 5-hour career-making pitch that I absolutely smashed (truly a grand-slam, while in said hotel room!), the delivery of another high value proposal on a super tight timeline, me frantically trying to get around the blocks I put on my phone to deal with the stress of it all (white knuckle behavior), and getting calls from my dad who is dealing my mom (my original bully), currently degrading due to Alzheimers, who is hitting and cursing and abusing him so much he had to call the police to the house, who subsequently wrapped her in a blanket so she wouldn’t hurt herself or them, and who is now in the psych ward of the local hospital zoned out on Ativan. 

My heart aches for my father, and I am so sad and afraid my mom is gone . . . But I am here, accepting and surrendering to the absurdity of it all.

If I continue to not drink, March will mark nine years that I’ve been alcohol free. I have no fucking idea how the hell I’ve done it. I didn’t go to rehab, I’m on-again-off-again with recovery meetings and I haven’t formally done the steps for either program (AA and Al-Anon). I’ve only recently given up weed and not by choice. Yet here I am, still not drinking. The only constant in these almost nine years is taking life one day at a time. That’s it. When I reach nine years and one day since I’ve had alcohol, I will still be taking it one day at a time. 

Oh man. I’m currently on a trip back in the country I’m from, which is on the other side of the world from where I feel at home. A lunch with some old family friends followed by afternoon tea with my aunt led to conversations between people who haven’t seen each other in decades about the circumstances of my childhood. All these months — years now, I suppose — that I’ve been exploring recovery, not totally sure how I fit in, wading through the uncanny sense of familiarity, and one afternoon reveals that the people who’ve known my estranged dad the best and longest are in agreement that he’s been addicted to painkillers my whole life (and most of his), and that as a kid I was unwittingly party to helping him procure them. 

And: okay. I knew he was the person in my life who made ACA and other sobriety programs feel relevant. But I really didn’t know how clear-cut it was. It feels so obvious in retrospect — bleedingly, blindingly obvious — and yet this insight (and the fact that it took this long to gain it) feels like one I’m gonna have to swallow without really knowing how to get my teeth around it. I’m not even sure where to begin with it, except to start telling people I’m close to. I’m looking forward to getting home again, so I can attend meetings in a time zone that works for me, and start piecing this together.

fin

ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN