The Legend of the Lost Ironing Board

There is a strange contraption that lives in my basement.  It has only been unearthed from the storage room/laundry room/ the "don't try to shift any boxes or you may be crushed in an avalanche" room/ the "oh please, let there not be any wolf spiders lurking in the dark space behind the washer" room a handful of times this year.

It's called an ironing board. It's a symbol of my former life.  A relic from a time when I used to actually iron clothes before appearing in public.  Back when I used to iron the scrubs I wear to work, rather than grabbing them out of the clean clothes pile and looking at the wrinkles and telling myself maybe no one will notice.

It creaks and squeaks and protests when I unfold it, probably because it rarely gets unfolded anymore. I dragged it out the other day to touch up the kid's back to school outfits and they all ran screaming from the hideous screech it made. They came back to investigate, only to back away in wide-eyed horror at the clouds of steam rising from the snout of the iron as it sat there puffing like an ancient dragon.  "WHAT IS THAT THING??" they cried. 

I took a moment to pause since that sound triggered a whole big swirling whirlpool of memory and shame. I hadn't ironed since I got sober.  That board and I have had a complicated history. When my drinking got really bad the last few years, I would wildly overcompensate to prove to myself how "high functioning" I was.  I would often set up the ironing board after the kids were in bed and drink while I tackled a huge amount of ironing. It was one of those misguided, wine-fueled attempts at proving that I was still a good mother. And it was something that I stopped doing at all when my drinking started taking me down to my rock bottom day.

During this summer of learning to say no to some things and a lot of new "yeses"/safeguarding my sobriety as my first priority, there was zero ironing. It was one of those things I decided really didn't matter.  I'd rather give kids my time and thoughtful words instead perfectly coordinated outfits and fake "put-togetherness".

There was something I used to notice whenever I saw pictures my husband has taken of them when I was working.. He sent snapshots of them eating a yummy dinner or at the park and yes, they may not have worn wearing perfectly matched outfits and that was some left-over ketchup on someone's face, but I would look at those cheeks, the sparkling eyes. The big scrunchy-faced smiles. They were so darn happy to be with their Dad, at the park or wherever.  They were completely un-self conscious about how they looked.  The were in the moment.  And they were gorgeous to me.  But I couldn't let go of overcompensating when I was with them, as though my kids' appearances were somehow a reflection of me. I could never relax completely, always feeling waves of guilt about being a drinking Mom washing over me. I perfected a fake cheerfulness, an over the top gritting my teeth creating perfect memories all while my brain was screaming for that next drink.

I'm still flawed and get it wrong a lot, but I don't have that desperation to prove anything anymore.  That voice telling me I'm not good enough, not a good mother, a selfish person, a weak person still tries to creep in from time to time. But my brain is no longer pickled and so it can identify when my thoughts head that way and put a stop to it.  Its an amazing thing when your voice of reason is no longer gurgling at the bottom of a bottle of wine.

The lost ironing board is perhaps a symbol of me finally coming in to my own .  Because most of the time I still have no idea what I'm doing.  I still wait for somebody to show up and say "ok, we know you are just faking this whole Responsible Mom of Three thing.  Please stand here against the wall with your hands behind your back until a real grown up shows up to take over." I think that struggle; that feeling like a fraud was one of the things that really fueled my drinking. But as in so many other areas of life in new sobriety, I'm just trying to float in it gently, and stop reacting so much. Give myself the grace I would give a friend who is struggling with motherhood.

I will never do this perfectly.  Every day brings its' challenges, triumphs and crushing moments.   Things that worked yesterday suddenly don't work today. I mull, stew, think and plot.  Some days I feel like I'm on some long, long, long version of Survivor where all I need to do is just  OUTWIT, OUTLAST, OUTPLAY.  And the stakes are high, but I'm tired of being driven by fear, worries about appearances and expectations. So I'm letting go of them.

Because ultimately, no matter what is going on, whatever mind-numbing repetitious "wash your hands, stop hitting, use your words, where are your shoes, say sorry, forgotten lunch, playground drama, phantom stomach ache three calls from the school nurse" kind of day I am faced with, sobriety is forcing me to prioritize.  I must choose what will and won't matter.  And I'm growing in confidence about those decisions as a sober, fully present mother. I honestly have no idea how I managed any of it all the years I was drinking.  And I'm so grateful to be done with it. Because life has plenty of challenges in and of itself.  The massive amounts of energy I used obsessing over drinking, recovering from drinking and feeling awful about drinking is mine again to use for living.  And life is less frantic when you aren't constantly overcompensating and hiding a huge secret.

So going forward, there may days when we look like we climbed out of the laundry basket. And that's fine by me. There may be other things that will fall by the wayside as we continue on this journey.. but maybe don't hold your breath for the Legend of the Lost Steam Mop.

Because with two big dogs who sneak slobbery tennis balls into the house, a husband who sometimes forgets he's wearing muddy boots and kids with questionable snack-wrangling skills, I really need that thing.

Dispatch from the laundry room

Summer has been busy, finding me home with my three kids and trying to balance life while working nights in the ER. I've had this blog post bobbing around in my mind the last few weeks, like an iceberg gradually adding mass underneath the calm surface. And so today is the day I'm giving it life. Or trying to.

I remember waking up, not all that long ago, sitting on the side of my bed and wondering if I was actively dying.  Chest tight, hard to catch my breath, waves of nausea. Dry mouth and bloodshot eyes. My soul hurt. All I could think about was when it was going to be time to drink again. My future only went that far. It hurt too much to think farther than that and if I could just get that first sip, the rest would fade away. Or I hoped it would.

Now, I wake up and sit on the side of my bed in the early hours and take an inventory. Weird twinge in my back from sleeping like a rock for eight consecutive hours, slightly sore muscles from yesterday's run.  Notice my hungry belly; anticipate the first sip of dark, rich coffee. I think ahead to the next few weeks of being able to wake up lazy this way instead of to the clamoring alarm that shouts at me to get up and get going, move move move, in school-year mode.

With the end of summer looming, I have a million things I could be doing to be getting ready for back to school. Errands to run, projects around the house, weeds to pull.  Actual school supply shopping. New sneakers for feet that have undoubtedly grown but are still enjoying being barefoot and filthy. But I'm not doing any of those things.  Mostly, I'm just being a mom.  And doing a ton of laundry.

Which brings me to the haiku I composed last night at 1 am while folding another giant load as I stayed up ridiculously late watching the Olympics:

The pile grows higher
Forget, restart endlessly
Wash, fold forever.

I'm not sure if it is the fact that my kids spend a lot of time outdoors or if they are just extra grubby or can't eat a meal without half of it landing in their laps, but I have been doing a ton of laundry this summer.  And while I sit there watching it spinning in the last few minutes before I transfer it to the dryer, I appreciate the fact that I'm actually getting time to myself in the cool basement (with some kind of uncool wolf spiders but lets forget that for now) and I can take a moment to reflect on sobriety. Today marks 161 days of continuous non-drinking. Consecutive days where I have been retraining my brain to realize that just because an emotion surfaces, that's not a cue to drink.  I've done this thousands of times in the last five months.  And you know what? My slobbery brain is learning that an emotion is just that: not a ringing bell telling me to go pour a drink and numb out.  Honestly, when confronted with tough things lately, I actually think how to handle it, which is probably what people have been doing for thousands of years without having to blog about it but oh well, I'm a slow learner.  These days a drink is about 29th on my list of things that will "fix" or get me through the next few minutes, hours, days... And that is the miracle of sobriety in a nutshell. I couldn't have imagined even five seconds at the beginning where I wasn't constantly thinking about drinking.  And now some whole entire days pass where I haven't thought once about drinking. I'm busy living. And folding laundry.

But, all this laundry has me thinking about how early sobriety is a lot like a heavy duty wash cycle. You dive in, not knowing what to expect, and the water starts rising and you think "ok. I can do this. I'm a little damp but I'm floating." Then the agitating part starts; you spin and churn and can't tell what side is up and start getting water up your nose and you are being blinded by soapsuds that sting and burn and it just all feels like too much and all you can think about is just climbing the hell out of the washer and getting back to your regular dirty, smelly and worn state. It doesn't seem worth it when you keep spinning and getting pushed down over and over and you aren't sure when it will end.

Well, I can tell you that eventually it stops. The spinning dies down, the motor cools and you are lying there, wet and wrung out... but clean.  It's quiet. You made it. For me that phase was right at about 80 days without alcohol.  At that point, I thought, hmm... maybe I'm ready to try the dryer now,  (the real work of sobriety) and you begin to feel warm on the inside. You start glowing literally and metaphorically.  Your healing brain starts to smooth out the rumpled and wrinkly parts. And then, almost without realizing it, you start thinking about what it might be like to really go the distance and withstand the heat of the iron and get your soul and body in tip top shape.  And some days this seems like a lot of work and other days it comes easily. Depends on the day.

Still with me on this metaphor? Well, if you drink during the early period where you are sloshing around... It's like you open the lid on the washer mid-cycle and dump a gallon of mud in.  Add a few greasy wrenches, some musty sneakers and a bag of rocks and then close the lid and let the cycle finish.  Not only are you not clean at the end, but you are beat up and filthy and think you never want to go through that again because you feel worse than when you started. There is nothing appealing about even thinking about climbing back in for a do-over.  That was me for years.

Consecutive days.  That's the key to allowing your brain time to reset and heal.  Not three days here, eleven days there, drink and then start over.  That's just some kind of awful torture where you leave your brain more confused than when it started.  It takes full commitment to putting as much distance between the drinking and the new you. And that can be done even when you have kids climbing all over you, a job, a nutty husband and a busy life. It just means taking each decision as it comes. Being all in. Declaring deep down with complete conviction that booze just isn't an option anymore. Eventually your brain gets the message. And when it does, it's pretty great.

I had a moment at work the other week when a patient came in with a dislocated jaw.  We were kind enough to put it back and I was giving her discharge instructions and noticing how uncomfortable she was and she sadly told me she was disappointed because the next day was her birthday.  And I said "well, looks like a smoothie with a candle in it for you."  And she snorted and said through her giant ice pack: " More like a bucket of margaritas with a straw."  And BLAM. That was it, the moment I realized that I would have said the same thing five months ago and it hadn't even crossed my mind that drinking was an option in that scenario.  And I got kind of ridiculously giddy and had to share it with some sober friends.  Perhaps that's how normies feel. I will never know because I'm not one. But still, it goes to show that the brain CAN be re-wired. We can move from our obsession with booze to being at peace. And that was something I could not have even imagined when I first quit.

My early attempts at re-training my brain made me feel about as competent as the Filipino Olympic diving team.  (If you are early to sobriety and suffering from insomnia like I did, I highly recommend you google this. Just because. You're welcome)  The beginning days of sobriety where you are being forced to feel your actual feelings, sit with your unfiltered, raw thoughts is excruciating.  It's like being stuck in permanent fight or flight, jangly nerves and overload when you are forced to plug in for the first time, possibly ever.  I read a research study where subjects chose to be subjected to ten minutes of electric shocks rather than sit alone with their thoughts for ten minutes.  That's our numb-out, tune-out, check out world for you.  And for alcoholics, it's probably worse since we were the masters at not feeling anything.  But adding day after day, moment after moment, where drinking isn't an option, my synapses are stretching and re-wiring. I can sit in a feeling and then it passes.  I can examine an unpleasant memory and not fall to pieces.  And that is so encouraging.  I am finally becoming one of those people I used to look up to... the ones further up the mountains who kept shouting down through the clouds: "It gets better! Keep going! The view up here is incredible." Because it really is.

So, we have two weeks left before my minions return to school.  Everywhere I go, I get "the look" (which is half bemusement and half relief it's not them) as people survey my three spirited kids and say "I bet you are really ready for them to go back."  And I kind of smile wistfully and say "not really."  Because part of me is.  It's been a long summer of sobriety and motherhood.  Ups and downs and false starts.  But I've also been fully engaged for the first time in years and so I'm not quite ready to let go of them, and go back to only seeing them in the afternoons when they've given their best to their teacher and friends and have only dregs of crankiness and homework resistance left for me. Which is ok. I am working to accept that I wasted so many years either giving them my dregs, or wildly overcompensating.  I still have a lot of guilt about that. But, I want to squeeze out every last ounce of summer time we have... Which doesn't mean that they don't drive me absolutely nuts some days with the squabbling and messes and filthy sneakers and tween drama and ludicrous battles over Minecraft and groans of "I'm borrred."  I have had plenty of moments where all the noise is just overwhelming and I want to yell " Stop being ungrateful little jerks, I'm trying to cherish you for crying out loud!!"

Last week we got a tough diagnosis for my five year old daughter.  Life as we know it is probably going to change in ways we can't even imagine.  And it's scary and unknown and I kiss my daughter's head and thank God that I'm sober and can be there for her as we navigate this new world of tests and needles and procedures. My first thought when we got the call wasn't that I needed a drink. I cried and felt honest, real sadness. Which I let flow over me, and then I got on with formulating a plan for how we would support and hold her up and walk into this new chapter.  This would have been impossible five months ago.


So, for you newbies who are in the first days of trying sobriety on for size.  You know your time drinking needs to be done. And maybe you are having some false starts. I think we all did. But  let me be yet another voice in the invisible army that is doing this with you: Be encouraged. It does in fact get better.  So much better that I won't even spoil it for you.  Because you will get to that place and you will notice one day that your heart isn't in a crumpled ball of pain, your breath comes easy, you actually feel GOOD.  And quite possibly, nothing "tangible" will have changed.  You will still have an asshole boss, money troubles, a painful marriage, maybe health problems or a lack of support.  But everything will feel different. Because you will be different.

And so, that's all for now. I'm going to keep on plugging.

Yours with love, signing out from the top of Mount Laundry.

Ugly-Beautiful

I read a post the other day about "sobriety bloggers" and how a lot of them seem to run out of gas at the 3-4 month mark, and try to return to the nightmare of moderating or just disappear altogether from the blogosphere because they have fallen back into active drinking.

Well, I haven't done any of those things. Yesterday was four months sober.  But as I suspected it would with all of my kids being home for summer, it's been rough trying to continue my laser-like focus on sobriety. Navel gazing and quiet contemplation of my co-dependent ways have taken a back seat to the urgent needs of three small children. Which is understandable. After our vacation, my two oldest kids plunged right into a week of day camps and I spent the week driving to and from opposite sides of the county and hanging out with my five year old in between picking up and dropping off the other two and dodging severe thunderstorms. I didn't realize how much energy my first sober vacation had taken from me. Or how dependent I had become on the hour or two of quiet when they were all in school when I could write or read or go for a run.  Most nights have found me running after nine pm, when it's just me and the fireflies glinting in the trees, punctuated by me suddenly flailing to wipe a spider web from my face and praying that the spider isn't crawling somewhere on me.  The other night I almost hit a deer. I came around the corner and there he was, standing gazing at the pond. I freaked him out and he ran away, with me envious of his wild speed as I continued to trudge under moonlight. I guess I'm burning off the crazy. I'm not sure it's working. I read my support group emails in the wee hours and use my smart phone as a light to read books about recovery while my husband snores and my kids have gone to bed and I steal time from sleep to do the work. It's not ideal but it's something.

Two weekends ago was our big neighborhood party that in years past has always marked the beginning of summer. Slip and slide and pool for the kids and volleyball and yard games for the adults and booze everywhere.  I woke up the day of the party feeling low energy, and having zero desire to be around a lot of people.  I expressed this to my husband and I told him that I was going to go but that I might need to leave early.  I got the kids dressed, sunblocked and pool ready and then decided to take my time getting showered and dressed and walk to the party, which is about a mile away on roads within our neighborhood. I thought having time to think and unwind might put me in a better frame of mind.  I got there and everyone was drinking. No one was really watching the kids in the pool so my paranoid ER nurse self plunked down with my bottled water and watched about 20 kids as they were swimming. It was blazingly hot, and try as might, I just didn't want to be there. My son hit his head on the slip and slide and needed to lie quietly with his head on my lap in a shady spot with some ice and recover his dignity. He finally rallied and when we rejoined the party, all the other moms were doing shots and drinking margaritas while floating in the pool in their bikinis and I just felt like the sweaty, grumpy odd girl out.  Reaching into the cooler for water and brushing past glowing ice-cold wine bottles every time just got to be tortuous. I ended up leaving early and came home and immediately started thinking that I need to just re-vamp my entire social circle or it's going to be a lifetime of miserable parties where I feel like an awkward stick in the mud who ends up watching everyone's kids. Not helpfully, my husband who had been drinking and playing volleyball and oblivious to the fact that we had three kids at the party had the balls to tell me that I am miserable now I'm sober. Gee, thanks. Because going someplace I felt uncomfortable going in the first place and trying to have a good attitude and be in the moment as much as possible wasn't hard at all.

I sat on my bed and stared at the wall for a while and had my first fleeting thought along the lines of  "might as well drink if everyone thinks I'm boring and miserable now."  And I had an actual, physical response to that thought where I felt nauseous and said out loud. "oh, there you are, just waiting for your way back in, huh?"  And there it was, the moment when SH#T JUST GOT REAL.  The first few months were all about not drinking and triumphs like I was at the high jump and they kept raising the bar and I kept surprising myself when soaring over what seemed like impossible heights.  And then I jumped and smacked right into the bar, landing on my back and knocking the wind out of myself.  Because not drinking is just the start of it. 

I know I'm not the only alcoholic in the world who struggles with excess, boundaries, extremes, always pushing, pushing, pushing.  So it's really not a surprise that I overdid it in taking on boozy scenarios in early sobriety. Like a test. Like I could breezily say "oh, it doesn't bother me if you drink. I'm fine." Except I'm not. I hate that everyone is drinking.  I hate that there was a pool full of kids with no supervision. I hate that I was left out because I wasn't doing poolside shots. I hate that I have not one single sober friend in real life. I hate that all of my good intentions and hard work are boiled down to me just being no fun and miserable now.  I hate that my disease takes all of these feelings and tries to convince me that I should just start drinking again.


Two days after the party, my parents arrived for a week-long visit.  Because they only see us once or twice a year, there is usually immense pressure to be the perfect hostess, make lasting grandparent memories, go fun places, etc.  This year, I cleaned up within reason, planned very simple non-gourmet meals and didn't go overboard and neurotic in trying to appear perfect.  Which is a huge (HUGE) step for me.  My parents have always had standards that I could never meet and in somehow not trying to meet them, and in just being myself it ended up being a relaxed, natural and meaningful visit.  The kids enjoyed just playing games and doing puzzles and swimming in the pool and going for walks.  We didn't do any giant day trips. We ate crabs on the deck. I ended up having an opportunity to tell them that I'm an alcoholic and was met with understanding and compassion. And pride.  Which shocked me.  But if we had done our normal overscheduled, cram as many happy memories into five days routine, there wouldn't have been the quiet moment when my dad asked me "are you training to be on American Ninja or something? You look great and something has changed" which segued into a long talk about the last few years and sobriety and what I'm learning.  My parents both shared times of deep loss and depression and teared up as I told them how low I had gotten. They hugged me and told me they were proud.

So, in choosing different things, in learning to go with my gut instincts, I am navigating the real hard parts of this journey.  Because it really is no joke. The pink cloud has blown away and the voice is like a jackhammer in the background of my thoughts.  For a while it was quiet. It was peaceful. And now I am heading steeply uphill with no idea what lies at the top. But I know deep down that it's still better than the nightmare that drinking had become.  I told a friend it's like the first 100 days or so it was like being at basecamp on Everest.  I'm acclimating to low oxygen, getting my body used to a new reality which in this case isn't altitude but being alcohol free.  But now I've left the safe place behind and I'm climbing uphill, uphill, uphill and my lungs are burning and my muscles are protesting and every step I hear a voice just saying "give up.  This isn't worth it. Even your kids say you aren't fun now. You don't need to go so deep into this. You can drink again now that you know why you did. You can just change those things and manage your stress better."  And with the next trudging step forward  I say "No. I want this. I'm not going back."

Step. "Just quit". Step. "No."

So that's where I am right now. I am trying to make huge changes. In the midst of the demands of motherhood and life and having all my kids home and feeling like I'm on permanent overload. My ADHD has my brain feeling like a Labrador and someone just threw two thousand tennis balls.

But I know what I want.  I want the vista at the top of this mountain. And I'm not stopping until I get there.

What is making this possible is the new friends that I've found in this journey.  They may live hundreds of miles away, but they are in pocket, just an email or a text away.  They get it.  We can talk about all the FEEELINGS. And how we struggle with how to handle the feelings that are hard to face. The anger, the pissiness, the lack of "me" time as a mom of small kids, the straight up blah parts of this.  Giving ourselves permission to not just be shiny happy sober people all the time.  Some days totally suck.  We see things in ourselves and our children and our partners that we feel responsible for. Things we want to run from. Unweaving all of this is exhausting.  And some days we are just mad and it's not pretty and we have to reach out or drown.  But while I float up to my eyeballs in sadness and regret some days, I have other voices that are louder than the one in the background.  They tell me it's ok.  It's ok not to love every part of this.  It's ok to be mad, disappointed, petty, selfish, overwhelmed.  And it's ok to be stupidly happy over a sunset or something cute that my kids did. It's ok to be annoyed when my kids steal my La Croix water and then leave it sitting around unfinished. It's ok in that moment to be a little like Gollum hissing "my pressshusss." 

So many of us are black and white thinkers. Things are either good or bad. Sober life; life unbuffered by the numbing effects of alcohol feels wrong at first.  The rawness of opposing emotions can be overwhelming when we have spent our whole lives labeling them as "acceptable" or "not acceptable". We spend so much time trying to wrap it up in perfection that we miss the beauty in the ugliness. In not running from the ugly parts of ourselves, in just acknowledging them as just a part and not the whole, those things lose power. Yes, I have moments where I am not patient, I am monstrously selfish, I am hot-tempered and short-sighted.  But I also have moments where I am wise, loving, self-sacrificing, long-viewed.  The trick is to stop running from the moments when I'm the former.  Just allow myself to be angry or whatever.

So, that's where I am. My house is a mess. My kids are either adorable or squabbling. I run every night in the company of bats.  My marriage is still teetering on the edge of something.  My 11 year old was invited to a sleepover by her 5 year old sister with all of their American Girl dolls and I have no idea how many more years are left of that sweet connection. My son has made his first real friend and he's seven. I'm terrified that he's going to get crushed or his quirkiness will be too much.  I have a snake living in my garden that I've named Winifred.  My minivan needs new brakes and I think I need a new job. My coffee intake has risen to an alarming level.

There are seismic shifts going on under my surface that no one can see. 

And in all of it, I'm trying to embrace the German idea of " hasslich schon". Ugly beautiful.  Because that sums up life perfectly right now.

Shucking a million oysters ain't gonna do it

Things are a little tangled in my head today.  I'm tired after a long shift in the ER last night, and I'm recognizing that being sleep deprived really is a trigger for bad thinking on my part. So, I see this funk as a sign that it's time to write some of it out.  To be honest, there are some days when I wish I didn't have to fight so hard or make myself do the work.  I want to relax and just take the day off.  But, there are no days off.  Which seems unfair, but actually, with the right perspective it is really awesome.  I don't skip days where I make my health, my life a priority. It sounds better when I reframe it that way. It becomes a privilege and not a burden.

There will always be that voice in my head that wants to think "you're better now. You can stop struggling so hard. You could probably moderate now"  The same voice that wants me to revert to isolating, being headstrong and obstinate. Doing things the old way instead of the new.

So, with that in mind, allow me to introduce the frog that I met the other morning in my pool:

He looks innocent enough.

But, this, ladies and gentleman is the most "I do what I want" amphibian I have ever come across.  He was gleefully swimming all over, diving down and skirting away from attempts to catch him in my net and I swear if he could have given me the finger, he would have (actually, in the picture above I think he may be). He simply had no idea that if he kept on swimming in the chlorinated water that eventually, he would drown.  There was no way to climb out without help.  He couldn't see it.

After about ten minutes, I finally got him out. Exhausted from his attempts to elude me, he sat for a minute on the warm concrete where I had gently deposited him.  And then, he HOPPED RIGHT BACK IN to the pool.  Where we then had another game of chase and he did everything he could to avoid my attempts to catch him and save him from himself.  I finally got him and carried him out to my garden, far from the pool and gave him a stern lecture about not even thinking about hopping his obstinate butt back into danger.

Folks, this is what we do when we are in denial.  We have this idea that somehow we will be the exception. Sure, other people who drink as much as I was end up dying way too early. But I'm special. I'll be that exception. I'll be like that 100 year old person who smokes unfiltered cigarettes and eats bacon and drinks Jack Daniels all day every day and somehow defies the odds. We stay cocky and stubborn, even when we start to suspect that we are totally screwed if we don't stop. 

When the truth is, I'll end up a dead frog floating if I don't stop swimming in a pool of alcohol and disordered thinking.  So many people are stuck in endless day ones, afraid to accept the help of others who are holding out the net, and instead keep diving down deep away from what looks scary but is actually salvation.  Humility. Admitting the need for help. It's tough. But it's necessary.

So I have to remind myself daily: Don't be this frog.

Which in a round about way brings me to oysters.

Stay with me.

So, this past week I watched a movie called "Burnt."  It probably got lambasted by the critics for being a little one-note. But the addict in me really resonated with the main character, played by Bradley Cooper (a real life alkie in recovery). He's a dry drunk, a chef who fell from grace and lost his restaurant due to his addictions to drugs and alcohol.  It is written as a redemption story; how he attempts to rebuild his reputation and his life (without actually truly making reparations for the things he did when drinking or embracing specific principles). At the beginning of the movie, he's in New Orleans "doing penance" by completing his goal of shucking a million oysters.  He's not working a program, is still woefully shortsighted and unaware of how his actions have hurt others. He's a human wrecking ball, and while he announces that he's been sober for two years, 2 weeks and six days at the beginning of his quest to return to greatness as a chef, he's an untreated alcoholic through and through. He's a self absorbed loner, a bully, volatile, and short-sighted. He just doesn't drink or do drugs.

Ultimately, through loss and failure, and from relapsing (which comes as no surprise) he gradually learns to accept community, help and belonging as key to healing and moving on. Which made it satisfying to me as a newbie in recovery (and lots of beautiful food which just makes me happy). But I think the thing that sticks with me is how this movie made me ponder what it means to not just stop drinking but create a meaningful life. Or as my friend in my online sobriety group put it:"Staying meaningfully sober is different than just quitting drinking.. Just shucking a million oysters ain't gonna do it."  Outward actions without inward changes ultimately are meaningless. We can not drink and white knuckle and be miserable.  Or we can not drink, grow, reach out for help and give it in return.

Some days we are the frog, and other days we are the net. But we don't go it alone.

There and back again

So, my first sober beach vacation is done.

This is the first year in a lot of years that we haven't packed up kit and caboodle for the journey south to the Outer Banks. We usually rent a big old house, and there a lot of days spent on the beach with very little talking (I'm actually not very talkative, though admittedly verbose in writing), delightfully thick books, surf fishing, kite flying, naps in hammocks and, for me, there used to be a LOT of wine. Vacation used to be the time that no one questioned drinking before noon: We are on vacation! And when the kids were really little and still napped, I could often be found heading over the dune with my beach chair, my book and a travel cup filled to the brim with wine.  The solitude, open vistas, sparsely populated beach, booming surf all appeals deeply to my introverted nature. This year, we just couldn't swing it money-wise.  So, in January, when my drinking was at its' worst, and our friends suggested a Fathers' Day beach getaway at a super fun party hotel I was all "Yeah!" The fact that I only vaguely remember booking the hotel should have been a warning sign.

So, needless to say, heading to a beach with a bustling boardwalk, public transportation, and some of our hardest partying friends was going to be a change of pace in and of itself. Add in the fact that I was going to be doing noise, crowds, bars, restaurants and all of the above all while newly sober, welp. Cue anxiety.

First afternoon we arrived, we checked in and ventured down to check out the beach. Three of the families we were meeting were there and the adults had obviously been drinking since early in the day. I was immediately pressed to get a drink from the beachside bar and finally told my friend, "sure- tell them to give me their best virgin drink." So, I sat there amongst my very relaxed, incredibly buzzed friends, feeling tightly wound, sipping a virgin mango daiquiri and watching round after round being ordered and thought "There's no way they can maintain that pace. And who is watching the kids?"

My husband, who for the most part hasn't been drinking at all these last few months, (he has refused to have any booze in the house as a show of support to me) suddenly found himself being bought drinks and before we knew it he was three deep with very high alcohol content craft IPAs.  When they bought him a fourth, he kind of threw up his hands and I told him "you know you can just say No when they try to bring you another" he gave me a look.  It was the "you are becoming one of those people" look.

I had a moment where I considered, "Am I becoming one of those people?"

I love our friends, and used to really love drinking with them, though I never allowed myself to get "drunk" when out. That was always reserved for the safety of my own home. Or "supposed"
safety, since near the end I was hurting myself during blackouts and it was spilling out into the rest of my life..driving, missing work, etc.  But for the most part, I kept my drinking under control when at other people's homes or out for dinner because I guess the perfectionist part of me never wanted to look like a bad mom or the cheap drunk (though, I was certainly free enough to be both behind closed doors after my family had gone to bed.)

I woke up early Saturday morning and decided to go running before hitting the beach. I was heading down the beachfront street, enjoying the relative quiet of the morning. I was jogging in place, waiting at a crosswalk, listening to some good tunes and thought "Yep, I am becoming one of those people."

I've seen them. The ones who are out running or biking along the trails at the beach. I would usually see them when I had finally emerged after a night of drinking, usually after 10 am and would look at them like they were crazy. How are they out exercising when I have a headache and want to vomit? How can they stand the bright sun? When can I drink again so I feel better? What is wrong with them?

Turns out, nothing. They value their health and exercise is a pleasure, not a punishment and it helps them feel good. They have time to do it because they ARE on vacation and nothing else is vying for their time and attention.  Am I the only one who never saw this before?

I swear I'm becoming one of those crazy optimistic people who sees meaning in everything. You know the ones. They post inspirational crap on their Facebook pages. I used to scroll past with a cynical eyeroll and now I look at their quotes (even the painfully misspelled ones) and nod internally. I feel it resonate deep in my soul and think "Yep, I'm one of those people now."

"Those people" used to seem like aliens. Like who goes to a movie and doesn't bring two or three airplane size bottles of vodka in their purse to add to their soda? Who doesn't start drinking on vacation right around 10 am and continue until midnight, juggling the perfect buzz? Who doesn't pregame before going out for dinner and drinks the respectable one glass of whine but then post-games until they fall asleep (pass out)? Well, me for one, these days.

I was the only non-drinking adult the entire weekend.  And you know what? It was fine.

One of my friends actually told me "whatever you are doing, it's working. I'm jealous of your fitness, you are positively glowing and you look so pretty." And I'm sure I was gape-jawed for a solid minute. Because all I ever used to hear when I saw her was how tired I looked. Funny, how not killing yourself makes you look dewy and, well, alive.   I know there are external changes. So many. But the internal ones are the ones that are harder to catalogue. There are hundreds of new choices, small shifts that add up to big changes.

For Father's Day, we all went to breakfast at a very rustic and cool converted- barn restaurant and instead of the usual greasy eggs, bacon, homefries toast post hangover breakfast I would have ordered, I had fresh fruit and a portabello, egg and avocado version of eggs benedict which was delicious and didn't leave me in a food coma. I felt light, happy, satisfied. And while everyone else had their Bloody Mary's, I actually really enjoyed my dark roast coffee. I didn't feel deprived or like I was missing out on anything.  And I think that's the biggest surprise of sobriety. The things I am doing, and experience sober are so much better BECAUSE I am sober. Things I would have cynically sneered at are actually really great. I simply couldn't appreciate them because my perspective was all twisted by despair and shame.  My old attempts to conjure a "be in the moment, find the joy in everything" outlook were always sour, and off in some way. Now, it's authentic. So much so that it's a little nauseating, even to me.  I'm sure I will find the balance but for now, my soul that is so scarred but awakening again finally appreciates sentiments that used to feel like bullets. Now they are balm.

Like this little gem:

Yes, I had a few moments where I was overloaded with too many people, noise, input.  But instead of drinking, I texted my sober group and took a moment to regulate. Breathed. Used my tools: Paid attention to my own breath and chose to come back into myself when I wanted to check out.  I paused and named three things I could hear: waves, laughter, distant steel drums, two things I could feel: hot, grainy sand under my feet, cool air brushing past my warm skin, one thing I could see: perfect puffy white clouds in an azure sky... and then the moment of discomfort passed and I refocused on where I was.  And went and got some ice cream. Twice on Saturday.

I have always loved the ocean and how it made me feel like my problems were insignificant in comparison to how vast it is. (Plus, whales.)  I love the wind in my face, the salt in my hair and in my nose. The light is even different. The wild air, the rhythm and flow of the cold waves, watching pebbles and shells turned over and over.  The mysterious depths feel ancient.  My own emotions are swallowed by the sheer vastness of it.  But I didn't feel insignificant this time around.  I felt like I was where I wanted to be: in the waves, with my kids, fully present (albeit with sand in my ears from getting pounded!) My overarching emotions: hope, joy. The real kind.

And while I have a lot to consider about future vacations: where and with who, I'm trying to not stress it for now.  Instead, I'm aware of how many things are shifting, settling, like sand moved by the tide, within my own heart and mind. I'm not sure yet how my new inner beachscape will look in the end. So for now, I'm learning to just float in and out with the waves, not fighting, not panicking.. just trying to relax into it.

There and back again.

Don't blow up the whale

(This was originally a post I wrote on my online support group site. Putting it here as a reminder to myself that this is all still true! And because this line of thinking has a great deal to do with the name of this particular sober blog)

Well, today was day 70.  This week has been rough. My peace has been rumpled and I'm finding that my inability to moderate applies to a lot of things. I've been going hard, pedal to the metal since day one and all of a sudden it hit me last night: I'm exhausted!

Sleeping has been a real struggle and somewhere in all those wakeful hours as I'm lying there in the dark, I begin with thoughts along the lines of " I really need to stop eating so much chocolate. I should probably get some more exercise too. I love the idea of sobriety tattoos. I should get another good sober memoir to read". Then my brain starts going a little bigger:  "I need to de-clutter this whole house, I should train for a half marathon. I should tell my other friends and family that I quit drinking..." etc. etc. and then my brain starts to really lose it's sense of proportion until I'm thinking: " I need to quit nursing and find a less stressful career. I should just grow a pair and post about my sobriety on Facebook. I should become a lighthouse keeper on some remote island. I should write a book. I think it's time to end this marriage." Future tripping, escalating, mind racing nonsense. It's real conducive to sleeping.

Perhaps this is part and parcel of hitting this phase of sobriety where it's still so new, but some of the novelty is wearing off and now it's really starting to hit me how much work there is.  I have a million issues to deal with. The drinking is done, but the journey is starting to head steeply uphill.  And the lack of moderation part of me (which drove the bus for too long and look how that turned out!) has this idea that in order to do that,  I need to just burn everything down and start over. There's this little part of my brain that sneaks in when my guard is down and declares "now you've identified the problem, I think you should just fix absolulety everything right. freaking. now." Perhaps that's the old alcoholic/ can't moderate brain in its' death throes but it's a giant pain in the ass. And real bad for my eye bags.

There's this panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach that goes against everything I'm learning. All the wise, prudent "sitting in the moment and feeling all the feelings, just because you feel it doesn't mean it's real or that you have to act on it right away" type stuff. I have to tell myself to slow down a thousand times a day. Remind myself this is new, one thing at a time. (I'm assured by folks with more sobriety who tell me if this is just another phase that passes.. and that your brain learns to chill out a little *please sooner rather than later)

Last night, at 2 am, I found myself reading an odd article about how to get rid of a dead whale that has washed up on the beach. ( Link here, if you find yourself with insomnia and curious about deceased whale removal):   http://www.wired.com/2016/05/get-rid-dead-rotting-whale-beach-hint-dont-blow/

The problem: 80, 000 pounds of rotting whale on your pristine beach. How do you get rid of it so the tourists and the surfers can frolic in the sun without a giant carcass blocking the view, the scavengers, the God-awful stench?

And it struck me: that's a perfect metaphor for how I feel about alcoholism and this journey into sobriety. It used to seem like an insurmountable problem. I mean, where do you even begin?

The article talked about how the whale can be towed back out to sea, or painstakingly cut into pieces and hauled away to a landfill... or, in the case of an ill-fated town in Oregon, back in 1970, they decided to blow it up with dynamite. Really.

There's even a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/xBgThvB_IDQ

Let's just say that it did not go well, and everyone who came to watch ended up covered in particles of rotting whale blubber; the biggest chunks actually damaged vehicles in the area and the whole thing ended up a million times worse.

The article concluded that the best thing in the long run is to allow the whale carcass to decompose naturally, which takes time and sunlight and salt air... and time.  Lots of time.  But eventually, the smell fades, the scavengers leave and all that is left is a set of bleached bones that were once a giant whale. And the bones are intact, a memory of something that once was.

I think we've all seen those "Take it Easy" bumper stickers a million times. I know it's another one of those seemingly cliché' phrases that end up actually being wise when you get past the seeming schlock. I know it's a big concept with the AA crew and for good reason.

I simply have to take it a day at a time. I can't future trip, think in extremes, or rush this process.  I have to just let things take their course, and allow what I am learning to sink in, take root. Like light and air working slowly on that whale, the truths I am learning will eventually also do their work. And time can't be rushed.

(Now, if someone could just tell my brain)

That's all I've got. So hang in there, friends, and don't blow up the whale.

100

Day 100.

I've been thinking about numbers this morning.

Zero used to be a number I wanted to avoid. It seemed empty and sad. But when I think about zero blackouts, zero hangovers, zero times driving buzzed, zero times I slurred my words, zero milligrams of Tylenol for splitting headaches, zero dollars spent on booze, (when in a very conservative estimate I would have consumed at least 200 bottles of wine in 100 days when I was drinking and even if that came from the cheapie wine bin, I'd say a thousand dollars? Mind boggling) then the idea of zero has weight to it. It represents freedom. Zero shame. Zero regrets. Zero moments that I wish I could get back and do over.

And then I think about "good" numbers. 539 miles run/walked in 100 days. 250,000 liters of water I've drank instead of booze. 100 wine-breath free bedtime prayers with my kids, 1 blog started, 100 journal entries written, 2500 hours spent doing yoga, 15 books read... None of those numbers would exist if I hadn't strung together consecutive hours, and days of just not drinking.  Not drinking was just the beginning. It was like opening the cover on a mysterious book and finding wonders inside, turning page after page as the story sucks you in. I'm hooked.

I was stuck so long in the revolving door of addiction. I'd spin around inside, heaving my weight against the push bar to keep the door endlessly moving, occasionally catching glimpses of the world and light outside, think about jumping through that crack as it spun past, but ultimately I was afraid I'd get pinched in the door and so I just kept circling and circling. Until the day I was so desperate, I just flung myself at the opening and found myself blinking on the sidewalk with an entire colorful world opening around and up and up over my head. These last one hundred days, I have been walking (well, running) away from that spinning cycle of shame, promises, lies and despair and finding an entirely new world.  I wish I had just taken that leap twenty years ago when I first knew I had a problem with alcohol. What would my life look like if I had done that?  And how do you capture that moment, that moment of surrender, that moment of "enough, now" for others who are still trapped in that endless cycle and desperately want out but don't know how? I wish I knew.

Unraveling all the strings and connections of why I drank and surveying the patterns and damage it has done over the years is stretching my mind, making me question and explore my motives and behaviors. I feel like I'm an anthropologist going through my own wrecked civilization and piecing it all together. Now I go to parties or out to dinner and watch friends and family with an almost clinical detachment, observing them cracking their 8th beer or struggling to find a wine opener for the 6th bottle of the night. Realizing how wobbly the conversation path gets when you are talking to someone who has been drinking for hours, how angry and incapable drunk people really are. How incredibly rare and radical it is in a way to be the only sober person in the room. And my inner rebel, the one who used to drink burly Army dudes under the table in my heyday is now shifting in perspective to think that the truly rebellious act in a room full of numbed out people is to be completely myself. My sober, non-impaired, capable, fully present self. It's a sad testimony to our society that sober is rare.

Maybe my radar is just extremely sensitive, but I can't help but notice the complete saturation of every aspect of our culture with alcohol.  Now, I drive past my old favorite liquor store, and I really read their sign, and notice the messages:

"Drinking rum before 10 am makes you a pirate."
"Rain, rain go away... Beer."
" If you are at a party and there's no booze, you're at the wrong party."
"Make your liver quiver."

My perspective is shifting, my eyes are different. I hear and see and live differently now that I, and not my addiction am calling the shots again. I think so much of the horror of alcoholism, at least for me, was living with cognitive dissonance: "contradictory or clashing thoughts that cause discomfort." (that's putting it mildly. It wasn't discomfort, it was PAIN.) People have an innate need for consistency in our thoughts, perceptions and images of ourselves. Alcohol made me act in ways that were wholly inconsistent with my self image.  I wanted to think I was a good mother, a loving wife. And I am, when I don't drink. I'm witty, and reliable, creative and kind. But when I drink, I'm a liar. I'm selfish, petty, self-serving, short-sighted, maudlin, careless, unfiltered.  Trying to reconcile those behaviours with who I imagined I was on the inside was impossible. The only way I can be who I truly am, is to remove alcohol from the equation.

I have a long road ahead. There's a lot of popular wisdom about how long it takes to form new habits or break old ones. There's a debate about whether it's 28 days or 66 days. I'm not sure if those numbers matter, even when I'm writing a post celebrating numbers today. Each morning I just have ONE in mind. The day I'm in is the only one I can control, really. I can't undo my past, can only try to make peace with it and learn from it. I can only impact my future by living in this day. This ONE day.

What I do know, deep down is that sobriety is delivering miracles to me on a daily basis. Small coincidences, signs.... all point me towards the truth that I am SEEN in this journey. I go running and see a tiny plant growing in an improbable place and I see it as a sign instead of a weed.  I would never have even noticed it before.

What am I really doing without? The one thing that was standing in the way of me reaching my full potential, my peak abilities.  The only thing preventing me from living with my insides on the outside.

Nothing has been lost. But I'm gaining everything.