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!