Patterns
1011 1012
I love patterns. I’m always finding them – in architecture, fabrics, leaves and petals, words, numbers, signals and signs placed by my spirit guides. Patterns give me pause to ponder. The pondering can be deep or superficial, meaningful or amusing. Today on my morning walk, a pattern of numbers stopped me momentarily. Today, 10-11, I celebrate 1012 days of sobriety.
I don’t keep track of the days anymore. It was important for the first ninety to mark the daily milestone. Now, at two years, nine months, and eight days, I only occasionally check the number out of curiosity and, quite honestly, amazement. And so I found myself pondering the journey.
I haven’t shared much about this part of my story in my public writings. It’s still messy for me to put my experience into words. But I’m starting to explore where the words take me because I want to remember. I want to remember so I don’t go back. And in my story, someone else might find connection and compassion.
In that space, I’ve started to read more memoirs. I just finished one by Laura McKowen, We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life. She had me at magic!
The details of our stories are very different, but many of her reflections are spot on. My favorite chapter was Hell is Other People. She brings to life my own observation about how prevalent alcohol is in our culture. Advertisements and liquor stores are everywhere. Wine and liquor-themed fundraisers are frequent. But I never noticed how much we talk about drinking because I was always in the middle of the conversation. Now, I’ve become an observer of the conversation because I have nothing to add. And that’s fine. There are plenty of topics that I can’t, don’t, or won’t contribute to (like when people talk about their weddings – not a happy topic for a divorced person). I just find it fascinating: the patterns of our social lives and the repetitiveness of our conversations.
There are a few specific instances that stick in my memory from my early days of sobriety.
At a retirement reception, a well-intentioned friend literally took my hand and lead me to the water station. I felt like a 55-year-old child.
Another well-intentioned friend texted me, I wish you were still drinking! We could share a bottle of wine and solve all our problems. She might as well have said, I wish you were still in so much pain and deep anxiety that you were drinking to numb all the emptiness inside of you. I didn’t respond for a couple of days and then changed the subject.
I’ve been in a number of situations where well-intentioned people abstain from alcohol in my presence, yet they’ve never asked or acknowledged my decision to stop drinking. It’s just weird and I actually feel invisible.
After disclosing my decision to stop drinking and my concern about going to a dinner party, a well-intentioned friend said, At this stage of life we all have a friend or two who are alcoholic. It’s no big deal. That didn’t feel very compassionate.
In an extremely awkward moment, my boss at the time and I were driving home from an out-of-town meeting. It had been a long day and he said, Too bad you can’t go have a drink. Seriously? What. The. Fuck? I wished I would not have disclosed my personal situation. I can’t really even add “well-intentioned” to this one.
Even after 1012 days of sobriety, I don’t know if the label “alcoholic” really fits. I hate the stigma of it. I certainly got to a point where I was drinking more than I wanted. Alcohol was getting in the way of my personal healing. I recognized that an obsession with alcohol was progressing. Drinking less wasn’t an option for me. I had to stop before it went beyond my control.
What I do know is that I can sing and dance without a drink. I can laugh without a drink. I can have hard conversations without a drink. I can grieve without a drink. I can relax and sleep without a drink. I can celebrate weddings, birthdays, and holidays without a drink. I can travel without a drink. I can cook without a drink and find interesting substitutions in recipes. I can stay up late or get up early without a drink. I am free of anxiety and I’m feeling and dealing with all the hard emotions so the joyful and peaceful ones are even more intense.
Hmmm. That’s an interesting new pattern.
Cheers to 1013!
Amy
Thank you for putting words to my emotions.
Yes! I LOVE laughing with you! Love your observations of patterns too.💜