Last Monday, on February 25, 2019, marked 17 years since I quit drinking. I want to say I celebrated, and I did, quietly, by making art at home with my buddy Kittie. And the next day I went to New Choices Recovery Center and ran my two morning groups (Recovery Writing and Expressive Arts) with people who are in addiction recovery. That felt like a celebration. I love my part time job, because it allows me to do the work I came here to do, with people I can relate to 100%. As with every individual or group I have ever “worked with”, the people at New Choices teach me at least as much as I teach them.
Here’s the Cliff Notes version of my journey away from alcohol:
By the time my mom was dying, I had already fallen off the wagon from my first attempt at getting sober. While I was taking care of my mom in her final months, I “dragged the wagon into the bushes and set fire to it”. Although I never drank when I was on duty, I stayed as numb as I could the rest of the time. And to this day I could tell you the location of every liquor store in a 15-mile radius of Jenner’s Pond Retirement Community, where Grace moved in 1999 and where I spent most of the last five months of it with her.
I quit drinking on February 25, 2002, a little more than a month before my mom died. When Grace left the planet on the night of March 30, 2002, I was there. Alan and Jon were there. A group of old friends, hers and mine, circled the bed. Lois was telling a funny story and was almost to the punch line. We were all laughing at the story when someone noticed that Grace not drawn another breath. She went out on a wave of laughter.
Later, after the others left, Lois, a retired nurse, helped me wash and dress my mother before the funeral home guy came. When the undertaker arrived, I helped him zip her into the body bag and walked the gurney out the front door. I watched as the stretcher went into the van. The doors slammed shut and the van took off. It was around midnight. As the death wagon drove away, I heard spring peepers. I did not drink.
I have a long memoir piece in two parts, where I describe getting sober (both times)–in excruciating detail, 4 part harmony, full bore–because I do not want to forget what it was like. I will spare my blog-readers that, but I am including a couple paragraphs.
Here is one from the first attempt at sobriety, which lasted, I think, about 18 months:
“The first weeks were clenched and sweaty times. I often felt like I was crawling naked over broken glass in a rundown parking lot under a hot sun. I told no one at first because of all the other times I had resolved publicly and privately to “get it under control”. It was my private challenge. I felt raw, I felt skinless and vulnerable. I was terrified. I survived. It has been worth it.”
The first time was a blessing, but I lacked one crucial awareness. When I started drinking again, it was because I forgot I can’t drink like a “normal person”. I decided I could have a rum and coke with dinner on vacation in Puerto Rico. It went well for a while but eventually, just like all the recovery books say, I ended up at the same dismal place with my drinking that I had been when I quit the first time.
Here is what I wrote ten years ago in my memoir piece about my relationship with alcohol about my current bout of sobriety:
“By the grace of the universe, I have been able to hold on with complete certainty to the knowledge that I cannot drink. I have been able to remain sober for close to seven years. What will always be true of my relationship with alcohol is that when I drink, I lose self-respect, I am unable to trust myself and this makes everything shaky. Knowing this, I feel so grateful that I am sober this day, today, the only day I have.”
There’s a link between addiction and trauma. I began reading about trauma the first time I got sober. And I have studied that link ever since. I am no scientist but the more I looked at addiction and trauma, the more I was convinced that a huge percentage of people who are incarcerated, in addiction treatment, in the streets, in mental health programs are trauma survivors. A few years ago, I went to a clinical training on Trauma Informed Care, and I am right–“The research” confirms what I see it in my own life and in the lives of my clients, my family and my friends.
In this 17-year slice of my life, this time completely sober, there have been gifts and challenges. I trust myself again. Usually I am able to admit when I screw up and attempt to make amends. I NEVER have to wake up wondering if I acted like an asshole AGAIN, or with a head splitting, gut ripping hangover. I survived unplanned retirement (more of a gift than a challenge), watched my son grow up and out of our home. I have published 3 books, become a photographer and mixed media artist. I survived cancer, had some painful lessons in setting boundaries with those I love most dearly, and unwittingly uncovered family secrets I was never supposed to know. It continues to be a wild ride, but I am grateful for all of it.