2012 - Getting Sober on the Inside

I have been avoiding getting sober on the inside.  I have been avoiding the transformation that I know, I just know, it entails.  In my three years of not drinking, I’ve learned so much about the depth and range of my alcoholism but it’s only in the last few months that I’ve begun to catch glimpses of just how deeply I can change, my life can change, once I dive deeper into sober living beyond just not drinking. 

Now that I’ve been connecting slightly more regularly with a particular group, now that I’ve actually committed to a sponsor, I feel like I’m on the precipice of a change as big as the one I made when I put down my wine.  I can see why I’ve avoided this. It’s scary!  I know I will discover honesty, which will enable me to identify and articulate some pretty major illusions about my life that were fueled by alcoholism.  I still wear alcoholic lenses and I am about to take them off.  It’s time.  It’s just time to do so.  And I know what this will entail.  Honesty about my career.  Honesty about my marriage.  I adore my husband and I have a good career but I now have the perspective and courage to articulate, even if just to myself, all of the issues I glossed over when I built this life in my wine-drenched days.  Forever I have always buried my own needs, desires, interests in order to please others (raise your hand if you are also the daughter of an alcoholic!).  And my career?  Wow. I am evolving so much just via not drinking (“re-covering” my true self?) that I feel like I’m almost a bystander, watching in fascination as new (or just buried?) interests and talents emerge. 

 My alcoholism functioned in two powerful ways ~ it buried things for me to avoid or it colored things so I could romanticize them.  That’s my alcoholic life in a nutshell:  Avoidance and Romanticism.  My degrees, my career, my friendships, my relationships, my interests.  Who am I without my alcoholic lens?  What will my life look like?  Ah, what a journey 2012 will be…

Sober Holidays - Argh!!!

Omg, I had not idea the holidays were so stressful!  Why has no one ever told me about this?

I always thought Christmas was the most blissful and amazing time of year ~ full of sparkly lights and glittery presents and stylish clothes.  I couldn't believe it whenever I heard anyone complain.  What a bunch of grinches, I thought.  I was having a great time, thankyouverymuch, because it was "the most wonderful time of year" and... oh wait... because I was drinking lots and lots of wine.  Ha!  Right, it was wonderful because I was rocking a buzz all day, every day.  Oh god.

After three years of sobriety (and three years of uber-stressful holidays. Coincidence?  I think not.) I just realized that I never felt holiday anxiety because I was ALWAYS DRINKING!!!  Why didn't any one warn me about the whole overwelming-sober-holiday experience?  Wow.  Quite a trip.  Still, like many other aspects of my life, it's such a relief to realize that it's not just me.  That I'm not crazy or incapeable or alone ~ this is part of getting sober.  This is what it feels like to... well, to feel things.  And I just need to let it wash over me - the stress, guilt, doubt, whatever - and find new tools to confront it all without falling apart.  Oh, thank god for meetings.  Thank god for a community of recovering alcoholics.  And thank god I'm giving myself permission to NOT be an uber-chipper-holiday-cheerleader anymore.  I'm allowed to have a mini-meltdown in whole foods, leave my overpriced organic groceries in line, and hop on the subway for home.  (That was actually pretty liberating - I highly recommend it).  I'm allowed to slightly fall apart when I haven't pulled together a gift for my amazingly tolerant and supportive husband (I'm getting there on this one).  I'm also allowed to take sick days from work when desperately need some quiet down-time (three cheers for working in the flexible world of higher education).

Okay, that's all for now.  If anyone has tips for getting through the holidays with some kind of calm joy, please share!  Have a great night, all...

Lousy Sober Moments

What could be more appropriate than following my "Blissful Sober Moments", posted ages ago, with "Lousy Sober Moments"?  Isn't that totally the nature of recovery?   That wondeful rush of "Omg I am really getting my act together!"  to "Okay now ~ time to stick my head in the oven!" 

Don't worry, I'm not really near the head-in-the-oven scenario (especially since I'm having a great hair day) but I am having one of my I-Am-Overwhelmed days.  I read something recently about how it's so challanging for recovering alcoholics to learn normal functioning because we "feel so much".  I don't know about you, but this rings totally true for me.  I have always been aware of my emotional depths and extremes as being a bit beyond the emotional realm of those around me.  This used to make me feel superior, of course.  "Look at me ~ I am so alive!  I FEEL so much!" while I judged everyone with a calm, even  temperment and drama-free life as a total bore.  Spiritually dead.  Creatively numb.  An idiot, I was.  Now I wish I could just remove about half of my emotional capactiy and mail it off to someone who needs it. 

I just wish I weren't so reactive with any kind of emotional extreme.  Overjoyed, furious, blissed-out, devestated.  This is exhausting!  Why can't I just be happy, perturbed, calm, sad?  Perhaps I will always retain my emotional extremes but will get better at managing them?  After three years of sobriety via just going to meetings and having NO sponsor and NO step work, I am very much aware that I inhabit the dreaded world of dry-drunks.  I see so so so so clearly that alcoholism is a disease of thinking, of perception, of behavior and that it remains (and gets worse) even after putting down the glass (I mean bottle/s) of wine.  I see that AA is treatment not just for the craving and addiction to alcohol (so evil, it is) but for the actual disease itself which I believe pre-exists the drink.  This disposition is what lead me to drink.  It's facinating, the combination of physical dependance and mental... oh, I'll just say it... mental illness.  That's what I believe it is.

Okay, so the good news is I did get a sponsor two days ago.  This time, I am willing.  Whatever she wants me to do/write/say/think, I'm going to follow along.  With 28 years of sobriety ~ and a super-wonderful disposition ~ I think I'm safe in suspecting she knows things I could benefit from.

Exhausting, this is.  Exhausted, I am.  Off to turn down my emotional volume with silly tv and a nap on the couch.  Hope you are all having a healthy, calm, sober night...

blissful sober moments

Ah, I've neglected my new and lovely blog for too long.  Why suddenly resume posting?  I was riding the D train over the Manhattan bridge and saw the most spectacular sunset...EVER!  Really, it was breathtaking. It was another of those moments that I would have not been able to fully experience, fully enjoy, had I still been living as an active alcoholic.  Then I wondered, "What else have I recently experienced or accomplished that I would have missed in my pinot-noir-colored days?"  So here's a list for this year so far:  

Ran three half-marathons (two in sub-zero temperatures), taken a flower-box design class, created two blogs, tried out four different therapists, learned to cook with bok choi, finally had a movie date with my husband since we had our son… who is now five, received a great job offer (but declined), helped my husband go back to school for an amazing degree, walked over the brooklyn bridge with a friend, discovered a passion for botanical photography, grieved the loss of my very beloved grandmother, helped a friend with a barnes and noble reading event for her new book, discovered purple basil,  launched a fund-raiser via a marathon for my little cousin who is sick, lost eight pounds, bailed on a meditation teacher training workshop without guilt, filled dozens of journals, ended an unhealthy friendship, took care of an injury (threw out my hip doing a crazy ballet move while home on a sick day), ran 22 miles from brooklyn to central park, spent a day in the city with my three oldest friends and 8 of our kids, decided not to give up sugar, read zillions of books.

So far, so good. 

Awesome Sober Moment

I cannot stop smiling at what happened tonight! 

So, I was in my lovely kitchen, chopping all the vegetables I planned to cook for dinner while my five year old son regaled me with stories of the firemen that showed up at summer camp today.  The food looked gorgeous, the night is beautiful (not hot, yay!) and all was well.  Until.... I reached for the olive oil and found that it was ALL GONE.  In that split second, I not only realized it was empty but that I also had zero money to go get more at the store (payday is tomorrow and I overspent, again).  I stood there looking at all my lovely veggies, my perfect evening, and my complete lack of anything to cook them with and realized... I was calm.  My only thought was "Oh, well.  Maybe I'll just cook this tomorrow".  There was no anger... and anger, rage, fury is exactly where I would have gone.  I suddenly thought - ohmygod, if I were drinking I would be in an absolute tirade about this. 

But then I thought more about it and realized - no way.  If I were drinking, I wouldn't be in a rage because there never would have been a home cooked dinner!  My son knew what to order from a Thai menu by age two.  I used to hold incredible, belligerent pride in being a Woman Who Does Not Cook.  I've always been devoted to healthy food (yeah, except the whole two-bottles-of-wine-a-night issue), but it's easy to get endless variations of this anywhere in nyc without ever even knowing if your stove works.  I actually had one apartment where I used the oven for winter/summer shoe storage, since it wasn't getting used in any sensible manner.

Sobriety has given me so many surprises, and one of them is that I loooooove to cook.  We even have a fairly big garden now (rare in brooklyn, so it is much loved), so I often find myself in the middle of cooking and stepping in the backyard to get a few more tomatoes, or purple basil, oregano, orange mint, thyme.  Incredible.  But here’s the most important thing ~ I realized that the rage would have come… in untreated sobriety.  I spent over two years trying to get sober without consistent AA meetings, without a sponsor, without working on any of the tools so many of you swear by.   If you have never been a “dry drunk” let me tell you now – it sucks.  In non-drinking sobriety, I would have flown into the WORST rage.  Dragged my poor son to the store and used a credit card to get the “goddamn oil” along with 50$ of other things that I don’t really need but I think will make me feel better, damnit.  Dragged my poor son home with the stupid olive oil, raging at anyone walking too slow (everyone) or driving badly (everyone) and gotten home to rage that now it was too damn late to cook, damnit, so let’s just have some toast, okay?

That didn’t happen.  Not even close.  Instead, I opened the fridge and found vegetable stock.  Hmmm, I thought, why not just use this?  I asked my son what he thought and he decided it was a great idea, so we cooked together and talked about fireman until the sun went down and moon shone in the garden.  Bliss, I tell you.  Bliss.

Alcoholism: a disease of "overwhelmedness"

Overwhelmed by the simplest things.  Actually, overwhelmed by no particular thing at all.  My alcoholism is a disease of overwhelmedness.  (Among other things).

As I've gotten to know myself in sobriety, as I've paid attention to my moods, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, it's become glaringly obvious that I can't handle much.  I'm actually okay with that.  If that's who and what I am, it's good to know and I can just make adjustments to my expectations and goals to avoid meltdowns (like, ummm, no doctorate for me, thankyouverymuch). 

But I really want to figure this out.  Is this part of alcoholism ~ a  very weak ability to handle things?  Or did I just not get enough practice at managing frustrations and road-blocks, since I was self-medicating for so long? Either way, I can say that this "overwhelmedness" seems to exist separately from any particular thing.  It's like free-floating anxiety or fear - it just appears one day and lurks around looking for something to attach itself to. Then, it feeds, grows, and has me at my wits end pretty quickly.

I'm grateful, though, for my amazing husband who catches me every time I fall... for the endless amount of meetings around me (god bless new york city - recovery paradise, really) and for the acceptance of this disease and willingness to learn about it so I can ultimately get better.  I don't want to be something extraordinary anymore - I just want to be my best self.  Ah, that would definitely be enough. My best self.

What's up with this anger?

Forever, I have identified myself as the wildly happy, optimistic cheerleader-type in just about every setting.  Most people who know me would completely agree.  In fact, most of my jobs and career moves have been grounded in this personality trait.   Funny how I seemed to be this pollyanna-type woman at the same time I was downing 2 bottles of red wine a night, every night, for over 15 years (and drinking very abusively for ten years prior to that). 

There were so many moments when I knew it didn't make sense that I spent my days helping others develop and become improved versions of themselves (not an exaggeration - I've been a high school english teacher, a yoga/pilates teacher, college academic/career counselor, and director of college student success programs), but at night I was self-destructing to the point of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual deterioration.  When I think of how bad my drinking was, how sick I was, and how well I hid it from the world... well, it takes my breath away.

So here I am, sober 2 1/2 years, and discovering that though I still do have a very positive spirit, I also have this INCREDIBLE anger coming up.  I absolutely rage at the most insignificant things.  It actually feels like the anger wells up before anything in particular sets me off - it just rises and attaches itself to whaterver unfortunate situation/person happens to be around.  I hate it.  I hate this anger.  Thinking it may come from an endless amount of resentment (bad word, yes?) at my parents for their untreated alcoholism.  And all that I lost during my own life of active alcoholism.  Ugh - I SO don't want to be the Chick Who Is Still Angry at Her Parents! 

Anyway, it could be that along with a hundred other things.  From what I am hearing in meetings, I'm getting the impression it will be much more helpful to just keep showing up in meetings (going on two weeks of regular meeting attendance, as opposed to over two years of very very sporadic showing up), get myself a sponsor (no, I still don't have one) and do the steps (yes, I am dangerously slow).  I love when someone points out that it doesn't say "Figure it out" in any of the steps.  That is exactly what I want to do!  It will get me nowhere, I know.  At least not now.  Right now it just feels good to admit I have a huge anger problem, it's very unhealthy for my sobriety, it's awful for my family, and yes - it conflicts with my precious self-image as Have-A-Nice-Day girl. 

Ah, but still I can't resist to wish anyone reading this a blissful sober day!

Okay, meetings work.

After 2 1/2 years of semi-solitary sobriety, I went to a meeting Every Day This Week.  How is it?  Wondeful, exhausing, a relief, painful, calming, heartbreaking.  In other words, I am in recovery. 

It is wonderful to see that so many people understand how it feels to try sobriety solo.   And how it fails spectacularly.  Though I have technically never "gone out" since I first embraced sobriety, I honestly feel like I am just starting the process of getting sober.  And I love it.  The tears, the fatigue, the insecurity and uncertaintly - I love all of it because just like I was on my knees begging for help from some still-undefined-greater-being, I am on my knees again begging for guidance and support in trying to recover from this still-very-present disease.  I love that I am honest enough and grounded enought to ask for help when I desperately need it.

Though intellectually I have always understood and accepted the fact that alcoholism is a brain disease, a chemical imbalance, a neurological disorder, it's really just sinking in now. Just because I haven't had a drink... well, that's saved me a lot of further pain and physical decline, but it hasn't even begun to help the disease lessen it's grip on me.  I now understand the "thinking disease" phrases.  My alcoholism manifests iteslf in so many ways - incredible indecisiveness, unpredictable outbursts of anger, unmanageable frustration, and obsessions with replacements - exercise (I have run 7 half-marathons in sobriety), my career (I am wildly obsessed with additional graduate degrees... though I already have two), and of course my nightly indulgence in chocolate (hey, at least it's not wine or, as it was for a year, a pint of ben and jerrys).  I so deeply, so sincerely, so humbly want to be free of all this.  I want to get better.  I want to be my best self.

Ah well, enough for now.  I am just happy today to have begun creating meaningful daily recovery rituals - meetings, meditations, readings (so many wonderful blogs!) and writing.  Have a blissful night, all....

A new kind of surrender

Wow, I thought I was done with the whole falling-to-my-knees-and-crying-for-help scenario.  I did that 2 1/2 years ago when I just could Not Continue Drinking anymore.  Could not lie to myself that it was romantic to sit up every night with two bottles of pinor noir, tossing around the same old illusions and fantasies about what I would do with my life...maybe...someday.  The reality of barely holding on to a mildly functional life (very mildly) was impossible to ignore.  So I stopped.  Wonderful, right? 

Well, maybe if I had been able to commit to regular meetings, designate a home group, get a sponsor, do the steps... maybe I wouldn't be on my knees again, feeling just as heartbroken as I did back when I drained that last wine glass.  Though I loathe the expression "dry drunk", (how unromantic!  how unsexy!), that is clearly what I am.  So, despite the time I've accumulated in not drinking, I really feel like counting days from Sunday, four days ago, when I walked into a meeting (first time in - wait for it - SIX months) and made a committment  to get my ass into a chair as often as humanly possible.  I make myself speak, sit in the middle, and stay long enough afterwards to get a few phone numbers (yet to call, but progress not perfection right?). 

So, this blog - which I have longed to do for ages - is a necessity for me.  I need to write, track my effors, and communicate with others in recovery any way I can.  As devestated as I feel, I am so so hopeful and very blissed to embark on this journey, finally...