The first time I got drunk, I was 16 and it was prom night. My date and I went to an after party where I slugged back Purple Passion out of a 2 liter bottle, and then Mad Dog 20/20. It was as if I had been given the most delicious sugary Kool Aid or the key to some magical city that I’d not yet visited before. I was a literal child, making and experiencing what would become the first of thousands of terrible decisions I’ve made along the way. I have two memories of that night: the first is sitting on the edge of my then-classmate’s bathtub waiting for a friend to finish peeing so I could go, and watching the room spin wildly around me. The second is arriving home and trying to climb up the stairs to my bedroom. I assume my date drove us, and I can also assume he shouldn’t have. It’s amazing, honestly, that I have survived this long in my life. I have a memory of slipping and tumbling back down the stairs onto the landing before finally making it up to bed. I laughed so much that night. I thought it was hilarious and fun. And I should have known right then and there that alcohol would become a problem for me.
The last time I got drunk, I was 48 years old. Exactly one year ago.
A year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in a life, like the song says. This year for me was measured in a million moments of intentionally not doing all the things I’d done in the past. Not the 12 steps. Though, I suppose that I began those steps in my own way. A “sans God, self-guided” 12 step program, if you will…it’s not ideal. It’s more like a million tiny steps every single moment of every single day.
I wish I had some sort of exciting story to tell you about the day I had my last drink. Or maybe I don’t, actually. I am so thankful there’s not a story, that there wasn’t a “rock bottom”, or that I never hurt anyone but myself along the way. Mostly it was a night like so many others. A drink at a friend’s house that turned into several. Then, more when I got home. Taking my glass back to the fridge multiple other times to fill it with shitty boxed wine before I finally decided I’d had enough to make sleep come easily. As if I was actually sleeping at all in those days. This was the pattern for me most nights. Nothing wild. Not really even a rock bottom. Just numbing all the things. Sadness. Anxiety. Worry about money, kids, relationships, work, bills, my elderly house, my elderly mother with dementia…you name it. So I drank. It’s what we all do, right? We build our social lives around where and when we’ll drink. For me, the where was anywhere, and the when was anytime after 5pm. I had strict rules around when I drank because surely that meant I didn’t have a problem. Which is hilarious to me now - as if putting parameters around my drinking helped a thing. It did not.
It was always very clear to me, even early on, that while the other people around me enjoyed drinking, I LOVED it. I was very good at it. Pouring alcohol into my brain was (I thought) like pouring water onto a dry sponge. The Kate who was sober was riddled with worry, convinced she was going to meet and untimely demise, overly concerned about literally everything and everyone. The Kate who was drunk was relaxed. Mellowed. Diluted. Cool. The funniest girl in the room. Or so I thought. Spoiler alert: none of this was actually true.
On the evening of January 8th, I took a shower and was planning to be in bed early. I felt off, physically. But, I almost always felt “off”, if I’m being honest. I felt worn out. Tired. Hungover. Achy. Anxious. I felt like this almost all of the time because I drank almost every single night and my body never had any recovery time. I always had things under control, or so I thought. But that night when I got out of the shower my heart started fluttering. More than the normal anxious feeling I always carried, this felt very different. I sat on the couch downstairs and told Gregg and Lucy that I wasn’t feeling right. My heart was doing some wild beating, and it started to scare me enough that when Gregg told me to put on my sweats so we could go to the ER, I didn’t fight him.
When you walk into an ER complaining of your heart, they do NOT fuck around. I was back in a bed within minutes, hooked up to a bajillion different cords and wires. After an EKG they knew immediately that my heart was in atrial fibrillation. I was told that it’s not unusual. I had a lot of different nurses that night who tried to tell me how normal it all was. As normal as having 7 glasses of wine every night, I’d guessed. As in. NOT normal. To be clear, I hadn’t had anything to drink that day, and nowhere during the next few days would anyone - doctor, nurse, not ANYONE, tell me that drinking likely caused my heart to go haywire. No one suggested - even when I admitted that I drank quite a bit - that I should cut back. Please consider this. I was WANTING someone to tell me that drinking was the cause of my health problems. I had never been honest with a doctor about my drinking prior to that hospital stay, and even when I finally told the truth, no one seemed bothered by it. People who work in healthcare: THIS is a problem.
It turns out that I’d had an undiagnosed thyroid issue that they told me was the likely culprit. I knew it was probably more than that. That my drinking had likely disrupted my sleep, and thrown me into sleep apnea, which affected my heart. No one actually told me that was the case, but I’m not stupid - I was doing my body no favors, and the AFIB was exactly the sign I needed to quit. I knew that my drinking was teetering on the edge of a bigger problem, and like I said, I had been wanting a sign that I should stop. Like, I just couldn’t imagine a life without drinking, and I certainly didn’t think I had the willpower to stop on my own. In my head, there would have to be some sort of divine intervention - though I didn’t (and still don’t) believe in that sort of thing. Apparently, the intervention was my heart, and it literally scared the fuck out of me to be in a hospital bed for two days while my kids were at our home waiting to hear what was happening to me. I never want to feel that kind of fear again. Ever.
I’ve had a LOT of time in the last 365 days to reflect on what being a drinker meant. And also what being sober means. Sobriety for me isn’t just a healthier version of the old shit, though for sure it’s that. Sobriety has quite literally changed the fibers of my being. I don’t think I’ve yet given enough thought to or credit for that. Drinking, for me, often felt like being wrapped in a sleeping bag. It was warm and cozy (for a while) and it allowed me to tune out or turn down everything that was happening around me. On the contrary, being sober feels a little like removing my skin and hanging out with all of my organs on the outside of my body. Recently, I burned my forearm on the oven, and it bubbled up almost immediately. It feels like that. Only, instead of a little bubble of burned skin, it’s every emotion I’ve felt for years just sitting right there on the surface. No longer hiding. A little sore and red so I can feel it when things brush against it in just the right way.
What I’ve learned is that humans really aren’t equipped to feel all the things. For literal centuries we’ve numbed our feelings with drugs or alcohol or worse. If a woman felt too many things? We’d give her laudanum. How about a lobotomy? But if someone chooses sobriety? God forbid. People will ask, why? What happened? What is wrong with you?! People feel as though they need an answer to this. Which, I realize now is way more about them than it is about me. And I’m happy to share why I quit drinking, but, if you’re curious about someone’s sobriety, maybe just ask them instead of making assumptions. I’m happy to share how good I was at drinking for so long. I was also a bartender once upon a time. I am still happy to share the best way to make a drink, or the best places in the city to get a drink. But please don’t treat me as if I am the one who has done something wrong by choosing to not put poison into my body anymore.
During this year, I’ve been forced to navigate some stuff with my kids and their other parent that I not only didn’t see coming, (well, maybe I did, if I’m being honest) but that I wouldn’t wish on anyone’s children. Not even on the most horrible children. This is a story for another day. Perhaps I’ll write a book about it. And, ultimately, I can only tell you how it felt to me: awful. My kids will have their own stories to tell about this. I guess I just mention this to say that maintaining sobriety through the rage I have felt this year has felt insurmountable sometimes. Overwhelming. Nearly impossible on some days. All the other synonyms you can think of. I’ve felt all of the feelings. ALL OF THEM. I’m certain it’s made me a terrible partner. I’m certain it’s affected my parenting. Old me would have been angry or resentful until that 3rd glass of wine hit me, and then I’d just laugh about it.
There’s not a lot of laughing now about things that are simply terrible: shitty co-parents, the election, the state of the world, in general. On the other hand, sobriety has also allowed me to be fully present for those hard conversations with my kids in a way that I’ve never really been previously. The three of us are a really good team. I am so thankful for my children, and I have been honest with them about my decision to stop drinking. We have a strong relationship that fills me with gratitude and joy. But I believe they know that I wasn’t fully present with them until now. I’m proud that they’re watching this journey, and I will keep doing the work so that they continue to see me making decisions that are for the benefit of my health and happiness. And theirs.
One thing I’ve learned this year, and especially in the last few weeks over the holidays, is that parties are really just a reason for people to get together and drink. I thought they would be no big deal, that I’d gotten beyond the place where that would bother me. I was wrong. Just a few weeks ago at lunch, a dear friend who is also sober was asking me how I handled this. I told him, very honestly, that most recently on the drive home from a party, I sat in the car and cried. I was just so sad. For me, that I can’t be the kind of person to have a few drinks and stop. For friendships that have changed because of my choice. For being so hyper aware of every fucking thing at a social event, when I used to be numb and happy, and fun. I don't feel very fun anymore, and that part might suck more than anything. And so, I deeply understand now why people need the support and the community they find in those 12 step programs. Being my own support system this year has been really hard. Just ask Gregg. Sweet, patient Gregg, who has buckled into this shitty ride and has stayed on, despite all of the bumps. Who has almost completely quit drinking himself, not because he needed to, but out of solidarity and support. When I think about the selflessness it has taken for him to not only do that, but to continue to be right by my side throughout this year, I am at a loss for words. I simply can’t imagine what I have done to deserve a person who loves and respects me so deeply.
I still have more mornings than not when I wake up and think, man, it sure is nice not to feel like shit. Not to feel hazy. Not to be hungover. Not to wonder if I said anything that might have upset someone. I don’t ever want to feel that way again. Has sobriety solved all of my problems, as I once imagined it would? Nope. Probably it created more problems, if I’m being honest. But at least I’m aware enough to know what they are. Do I miss drinking? I do. Not as much now as I did in the beginning, but I do still wish I could be the kind of drinker who could have one glass of wine at dinner, or at a party. I’m not that kind of drinker. It’s clear to me now that I never was. Sobriety right now feels like the greatest gift I’ve ever given myself, and I don’t want to do anything to fuck it up. My thyroid is under control, I was released from my cardiologist for another year. I am only on two fairly simple medications to get my body right, not the handful of shit that I was taking initially. I feel better today than I have in decades.
One million tiny steps and one long day at a time.
