I used to shame myself because how I dealt with the grief from my father’s death (5 years ago today) was different from how I managed my boyfriend’s death (3 years ago tomorrow.)
My father lived a full life. He came to the US from Cuba to pursue freedom after having cut sugar cane for two years in Cuba without pay for asking permission to leave Cuba in the late 1960s. Shortly after coming to the United States, he met my mother. Together they set up a small store in Brooklyn for people from the community to shop for their Santeria practices that they brought to the US from whatever countries they came from.
People in the community grew to love my father, and though he was strict with us, he was incredibly charming, and he was big fan of enjoying life, a trait that I have as well but took to an extreme and found myself struggling with addiction. Yikes. But back to my father, if there was ever music playing, he was the first to get up and dance, even as he became an older man with crippling knee pain, and then he would follow up that movement with a voracious appetite to eat any and all the good food.
So when he died at age 90, though I was pained to see his journey with us end, I also processed his death as a natural occurrence. My father had the privilege of aging surrounded by loved ones. He danced through his final years and traveled and saw the world. It was a natural ending to a well-lived life when he died on April 27, 2018.
My boyfriend, Ian, and his death nearly crushed me. Ian was in recovery from addiction to opiates, and as happened to so many others getting clean and sober, the pandemic ripped people from their support systems. Ian relapsed, and within days he was gone. I was devasted because I had already seen myself in Ian’s future. We talked about love, marriage, kids, and where we would live and travel to. We spent so much time making plans that the moment he passed, it was like, not only was his life cut short, but my mind had also interpreted his death as equivalent to my future being ruined and deemed hopeless.
Imagine looking down a brightly lit hallway where you can see every part of your future that you’re excited to walk toward, and as you start confidently making strides, the power goes out. You can’t see anything, and you think the lights will never come back on. That’s what life was like until I got sober and started working around my grief.
Today I understand why one death hit me differently than the other and that it’s okay that they were different experiences. I know that there is no letter of approval that the universe will send me to tell me that I have been grieving the “right” way, and if you’re missing a loved one, this is your reminder of that, too. Stop waiting for an external sign that you’re doing it “right” because that sign only comes from within.
If you need support navigating loss, don’t hesitate to reach out.
One helpful strategy to work through grief is to write about it, so I welcome you to check out my free writing workshop if you want to take a baby step toward telling your story of a lost loved one.
If you’re finding that you can’t stop drinking and you find it’s out of control…
Don’t hesitate to go to treatment.
The things you don’t want to leave behind (job/kids, etc.) are exactly what you’ll eventually lose if you don’t go.
Everyone has their personal recovery toolbox; sometimes, you need more than the tools you currently have to get you where you need to be.
I had to be hospitalized eight times, but I’ve stayed sober since November 28, 2020.
I want you to understand, however, that treatment facilities are flawed. They will NOT fix you in the time that you’re there. Many facilities can stand to make a profit every time a person struggles and has to go back.
However, what they can do, which I have yet to see being offered anywhere else on this earth, is:
1. Provide a safe shelter away from alcohol AND
2. Provide medical supervision during the detox process.
Those two things are worth going to rehab, even if everything else about the process is flawed. Those two things were enough to save my life and give me a chance at starting over, and they might help you or a loved one.
Is my job really not for me, or is it something else?
Maybe you’ve decided to change your relationship with alcohol. Whether you’re quitting or cutting back, the increased clarity of being less drunk leaves you questioning several things in your life.
In support group meetings that I facilitate, I often quote from Dr. Nicole LePera, known on social media as The Holistic Psychologist, because she always seems to be on point.
Last night in a meeting I ran, I posed the question based on this Tweet of hers where she says that we start to wake up upon entering a healing journey. She wrote:
The question I asked of the group was, “Since starting the work of changing your relationship with alcohol, what have you had to examine from this list. What do you need to examine?”
The responses varied, but later on, I had a coaching session with a client about this topic, specifically looking at our work and how it impacts us. Since getting sober, this client questions if her job is a good fit for her and has started to wonder if she’s even qualified to do it.
“I don’t know that I’m equipped for this.”
I paused, then asked, “Is it that you’re not qualified to do your job, or do we have some digging to do?” And we got to work.
If you’re having the same doubts as you start to examine your work while you’re on your recovery journey, I recommend the following:
List your job requirements. What skills does it require to be completed successfully?
Then, without any positive or negative emotions, neutrally list the facts. What are YOUR skills and qualifications? Compare what you offer to the list of job requirements. (My wild guess is that If your employer hired you, you are more than likely qualified unless you lied on your resume and interview, then that’s a whole other story.)
If you ARE qualified, but you’re still having some mixed feelings about your work, ask yourself, is this something that I really WANT to do? Does this sit right in my spirit? Just because you’re qualified to do something does not mean you have to do it.
If you find that, factually speaking, you are not qualified, is this something you want to grow toward getting better at? What supports do you need, and where can you get them? Schedule that meeting, send that email, or make that phone call.
If you decide what you’re doing for a living right now isn’t right for you, what’s next?
Being on the spectrum of alcohol misuse and abuse, then working to recover from it, can have us believing incredibly negative things about ourselves. These beliefs can sneakily seep into all areas of our lives. Stepping back and examining our beliefs around our work can bring much needed clarity as you move through your own healing journey.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a free consultation for coaching services if you want support on your own journey.
So this idea is “stolen” because I heard someone share about it in a meeting saying they had heard about it somewhere else. Rarely are ideas that original, so I’m calling it the stolen idea challenge. And because this idea is inspired by agreement one from The Four Agreements, be impeccable with your word, I’m calling it the Stolen Idea Challenge: Watch Your Mouth and Be Impeccable With Your Word. So I’m going to challenge myself to do this for seven days, and I’m officially challenging you to do so as well. This is a challenge that I got from a Book Club participant in our discussion of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, in particular, agreement one, be impeccable with your word.
Seven days.
Watch your mouth before you speak, and if you catch yourself about to say something unkind either about someone else or, more importantly, yourself, stop it, say nothing, or find something different to say.
I’m curious how much it will force me to slow down in my own speech and thinking. Don Miguel Ruiz states in The Four Agreements, “The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you.”
Example One – Gossip:
You may find yourself wanting to talk about other people’s situations that have NOTHING to do with you. Here’s an example, if you’re in recovery and you notice someone is having a hard time, if you catch yourself talking about this person you know is struggling. Still, they aren’t there to be a part of this conversation. Is anything that is about to come out of your mouth going to empower this person to do better, or is it just feeling good to gossip and talk about someone else’s problems? Don Miguel Ruiz cites the frequently used saying, “Misery loves company,” in his discussion of agreement one because emotionally, it can feel easier to spiral into a charged conversation about someone else rather than practice discipline and refraining from toxic conversations.
I’ve been guilty of gossip many, many times, and I am going to make an effort for seven days to stop.
Example Two – How We Talk About Ourselves:
In the text, the author also highlights how individuals are very quick to use “the word” against themselves and gives examples of how we say things. He writes, “Oh, I look fat, I look ugly. I’m getting old, I’m losing my hair. I’m stupid, I never understand anything. I will never be good enough, and I’m never going to be perfect.”
With that being said, watch your mouth. Watch it closely. Any time you start to say anything about yourself that you likely wouldn’t be comfortable saying to someone else you love and adore, stop it. Either reframe it positively or don’t say anything at all.
I’ll try this myself for seven days to see where it takes me.
I was 42 when I got sober. No one tells you that you can do that. That you can party and binge drink for half of your life, make it through way too many moments that should have killed you, and then finally hit a point where you see that this…this so-called life…was not living at all.
Kelly, provided by author.
While living this lifestyle, I told myself that I was having a great time. I loved going out to the bar, hanging out with people I never would have if I had been sober, but who I called my PEOPLE, living dangerously, putting myself and others at risk…oh yeah, this was FUN (insert eye roll here). Waking up not knowing where I was, where my car was, this happened more often than I would like to admit. But since my life revolved around the party and being the center of attention, people envied this life, right? It was just who I was. My personality and my reputation were the girl turned woman who would just never fully grow up. I lived by the code “go hard or go home”.
I don’t ever remember committing to a Dry January in my life. I only remember committing to just enough time for the last hangover to wear off before it was time to get ready and head back out. Taking breaks wasn’t something I considered. I barely remember taking a break even after my first DUI, despite all signs pointing to there being a huge problem. By then, drugs were also integral to my story, and everything was impacted by my addictions. Relationships, my job, friendships all suffered, but I had the bar, the booze, and the blow. I didn’t need anything else. I was still operating as if all was well in my world, and somehow, I still had many folx fooled, including myself.
Time passed and I had a child when I was almost 38. My pregnancy was very healthy, and I felt better than I had in a long time. Imagine that, not partying made me feel better! I just knew that I didn’t have a “real” problem since it was so simple for me to stop drinking and using right away. This was the false narrative I sold to myself. My daughter was born, beautiful and healthy, and it was only a couple of months into her life that I had some wine at a Christmas party. This set things back in motion in terms of my drinking habits. As I expected would happen, her father and I eventually parted ways when my daughter was just over a year old, and we assumed roles as coparents, which gave me more “me” time to wreck my life again. Mid-wreckage, I got married (another futile attempt at normalcy), got depressed, started drinking more, but told myself at least the drugs were no longer a thing. But by this time, alcohol was ravaging my life. If I wasn’t partying when my daughter was with her dad, I was recovering from it or thinking about it. I started to care about myself less and less. I felt as though I didn’t deserve the people in my life. I didn’t want the life I had…or I did want it, but I didn’t know how to have it without the booze. But soon, another DUI and some serious consequences sunk me to MY rock bottom and that was when I had enough. My first day sober was July 28, 2019.
After more than two decades of addiction, I simply stopped because I knew I would die if I didn’t. I also knew that a slow suicide was not how I was going down. I had a responsibility to my beautiful little girl to be the example of the strong woman of whom I always raved about. The woman who could do it all, be anything she wanted, and most importantly, could be happy. I wanted her to see me happy. I wanted to live a long time and see her grow up. I immediately went to substance abuse counseling and worked at it this time. I tried AA, but I determined it wasn’t for me. I threw myself into journaling, running, lifting weights, and crying when no one was at home. I was healing. I was getting stronger. The shame was starting to dissolve .I was becoming who I had been all along, but the shadows were lifting. Finally, after a divorce, a move, and some more healing, I felt like a non-drinker was just who I was. This was part of my new normal. I just didn’t drink. But I also didn’t really socialize or make new friends in real life. I established a huge community on Instagram and loved it to bits, but it was, and has been, my main source of sober support. Now, at around three- and one-half years sober, things are shifting for me. What I feel like I need now looks very different than what I needed in early sobriety.
Kelly and her daughter. Photo provided by Kelly.
You see, getting sober in your forties (or beyond) adds some interesting challenges to the journey. These weren’t obvious to me until around year three and this was mainly because of changes I started to see in myself as a woman entering midlife. If you are here with me, or have been here already, you know what I am talking about without me even sharing. The physical changes that come are fast and furious and they have taken a huge mental toll on me. My self-esteem that I worked so hard to rebuild in sobriety has suddenly plummeted because of these changes. Party girls like me, when we are in our twenties or thirties, we are used to getting what we want. We know how to use our sexuality and typically flaunt it. Now, sober and 46, I may as well consider myself celibate and do not feel sexual. Sexuality and sobriety are something else entirely, but when I consider my saggy parts, my unwelcomed shape, and how I feel about myself now, I just don’t have the capacity to consider dating or what comes with it.
Additionally, my mental health, which was really soaring by year three sober has taken a tumble because of the hormonal peaks and valleys that come along with peri- and/or menopause. My emotions are everywhere, and this can make me feel like I am simply losing it. I have not felt like I want to drink over it, but I could see how one might have a slip in these f*ck it moments.
The fact that no one is out here talking about sobriety for women in midlife is not surprising given how society tells us we are useless once we reach a certain age. We are in the age of invisibility, and it feels like no one cares. This is a demographic that is hidden on Instagram…and, as someone who shares predominantly about sobriety there, I feel lost at times amidst my younger influencer counterparts who are choosing to get sober earlier in life. I finally hit a moment where I chose to start meshing my midlife struggles with my sobriety and I’ve gotten very vulnerable with my posts. The feedback and the comments I have seen there make it abundantly clear that we need to talk more about this. I am working on a blog to start sharing more about my journey and hope that I can somehow create community there as well as IG. As I have learned through my sobriety, we can achieve so much more when we are surrounded by others who understand. I hope if you are reading this piece and any of it resonates, that you will feel invited to reach out to me. I would love to grow alongside of you.
Kelly. Provided by author.
Kelly Belew is a single mom living in Virginia who also works as a portfolio manager as her “real job”, but her passions are writing, creating content and community on her Instagram platform @kelz_living_well and her blog of the same name. When she got sober on July 28, 2019 at 42, she had no idea just how much her life was about to shift. With sobriety came self love, but not before working through the mounds of shame and guilt associated with decades of partying. Kelly went on to create a platform on Instagram that brought sober women together, and ultimately created an online community for women both in the US and Canada. Her focus has now shifted into working towards connecting women who are working through a midlife shift in addition to all of the trials and twists that come with navigating a sober life as a middle aged human. In her free time, she loves to practice yoga, hike and walk with her daughter & dog, and read.
Audio of the text for people who prefer to listen.
November 2, 2022 marked 11 years since I last drank alcohol.
I celebrated by posting myself on Instagram holding a sign that read, “I am 11 years sober today!”
Discussing my past relationship with alcohol is a task I struggle to do because I am still coming to terms with my experiences.
Nonetheless, I’m committed to adding a face to mental illness and encouraging others to prioritize healing.
So, I hit the “share” button on Instagram, stepped out of my comfort zone, and virtually stood in my power as a woman in recovery.
Several sobriety-centered accounts kindly reposted my picture. Many of their followers congratulated me and shared their sobriety anniversaries.
Amidst the support, several followers in the comment section downplayed my sobriety, suggested I pick up drinking again and accused me of not being sober.
My age came up as a topic by supporters and skeptics alike.
Depending on who you ask, I present as a teenager or someone in their early twenties. My teenage years and early twenties are far behind me.
Let’s be clear, I appreciate aging like Benjamin Button and am thankful for my Ecuadorean and Nicaraguan genetics.
I welcome compliments about my youthful appearance. I do not welcome comments weaponizing my presumed age to undermine my sobriety.
“Sooo you stopped drinking when you were 10 years old? Not impressed,” said one Instagram user while another wrote, “I don’t know what 11 years means coming from someone probably in their mid 20’s…..” said another.
In reality, I stopped drinking during my junior year of college after several years of binge drinking that started in high school.
Priscilla over 11 years ago, before recovery.
I tried hard to convince myself that my relationship with alcohol was normal during those three years.
In hindsight, holding my drinking to a normalcy standard was too subjective.
Self-destruction would have been a more objective and helpful standard.
Objectively, repeatedly blacking out, vomiting, and jeopardizing my education, health, and safety were self-destructive behaviors.
But, for many, those are considered normal drunk behaviors for a college student. I was less motivated back then to challenge stereotypes surrounding alcohol abuse because I hid behind these generalizations and social norms.
I rationalized and deliberately avoided “red flags” that mental health providers look for to diagnose patients with alcohol dependency.
For example, I would go partying by myself and drink because I knew mental health professionals considered drinking alone a warning sign for alcoholism.
No, I was not alone but I was lonely inside a club full of strangers.
Who decides how someone with an alcohol use disorder looks or even acts? The truth is no two people with a drinking problem look or behave the same way.
Actress Drew Barrymore underwent treatment for alcohol and drug addiction at the age of 13.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell is in recovery from alcohol abuse and does not resemble the fictional alcoholic Frank Gallagher from Shameless.
Yet, Drew, Naomi, Frank, and I are all legitimate representations of alcohol use disorder because we fell on the spectrum of alcohol abuse.
According to licensed mental health counselor and author Sarah Allen Benton, alcohol use disorder is “a condition that ranges from mild to moderate to severe.
And it’s all still problem drinking, even if you think it’s ‘mild.’”
An alcohol use disorder diagnosis is rarely a straightforward process and involves self-reporting answers from the alleged alcoholic.
Reacting to someone’s disclosure about the intensity, frequency, and consequences of their drinking with disbelief or ridicule could obstruct their diagnosis and treatment.
Respond with compassion when someone discusses their relationship with alcohol instead of comparison.
It is very likely that the person sharing struggled to realize their problem let alone share their experiences with others.
I am unsure whether those that downplay my sobriety are trying to make me or themselves feel better.
I am sure that invalidating someone’s relationship with alcohol does not provide relief or empower those in recovery.
Priscilla in 2022. Provided by author.
Our community is healthier and stronger when we do not buy into misconceptions about alcohol use.
Stereotypes fuel secrecy, stigma, and ignorance around alcohol recovery.
My name is Priscilla and I am what somebody in recovery from alcohol abuse looks like.
About the author: Priscilla is a certified trauma recovery coach and mental health speaker. Contact her directly at www.priscillamaria.com
Hi, my name is Jessica Dueñas. I’m a recovering alcoholic/person with alcohol use disorder/you can insert any other label in there. I care little about the title and more about my story, especially if you, as the reader, can relate and find some hope in it. I decided to answer a few questions I get asked a lot with the hopes that this is helpful for you or someone you love.
I was a teacher and was such a successful teacher that I was named Kentucky’s State Teacher of the Year in 2019. At the same time that I won that award for all of my work at the school and community level, I struggled profoundly with alcohol use. I drank a fifth of alcohol a day in secret to the point where I was diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease. At 34, I was told I would develop cirrhosis if I didn’t stop. I quit drinking for a brief time until the tragic death by overdose of my then-boyfriend Ian on April 28th, 2020.
After seeing his body for the last time as it was carried away from his apartment by the coroner, I set off on a months-long bender that almost killed me. My heart had been shattered into a million pieces that I believed never would have found their way back to each other. Between April and November, I was in a dangerous car wreck, almost bought a gun to kill myself with, blew nearly a .5 blood alcohol level a few times, and stayed in rehab facilities and hospitals eight times before I finally stopped drinking on November 28th, 2020.
By November, I had gotten so tired of fighting. I felt like I was dying but could not die, and I knew I could no longer continue living how I was living, so I gave up fighting and accepted help. I’ve been alcohol-free since November 28th, 2020, which at the time of writing this, is a full two years.
Why did it take me so long to accept help from others?
As a first-generation American and first-generation college student, it was instilled in me to push through all difficulties because the generations before me over came their challenges, too. To admit to having a problem with alcohol or having mental health needs was equated with being weak, and that was a part of the stigma I did not want to be associated with. Throughout my life, I had, in fact, been successful at anything I tried to achieve (school, college, professional success) so I assumed that getting sober would be just as easy. I was wrong. I knew early on that there was something disordered about how I drank, but I was ashamed and thought if I ignored my problems that they would go away. They didn’t.
How could I keep my drinking a secret when I drank so much?
I didn’t drink a fifth of liquor overnight. My drinking started with wine. Then when one bottle of wine wasn’t enough, I began to drink smaller liquor bottles. As my tolerance went up, I drank more. To someone without the tolerance that I had developed, a whole fifth would likely be incredibly dangerous, if not deadly, I was used to it, and my body had adapted to allow me to function. I didn’t drink until I had taken care of all of my responsibilities, and since I lived alone, once I finished checking in over the phone with my loved ones, I drank myself into a nightly blackout. Heavy alcohol consumption disrupts sleep, so I would wake up by 2 or 3 AM which gave me time to recover and get myself ready for the next day and repeat the vicious cycle.
How did you actually stop after so much back and forth?
I believe it was a combination of factors that aligned perfectly for me. I will share them in no particular order of importance. First, I will say that I used psychiatric medication after years of being totally resistant to them. Though I no longer take medication and have not for some time, I used the medicine for the first 1.5 years of my recovery to help stabilize me because my body chemistry had been drastically affected by alcohol consumption. Now that I am two years in and have been doing a lot of healing work on myself, I feel more comfortable fully facing the sensations I used to need to escape. Second, as much as I loved teaching, I quit. Teaching was incredibly stressful, and I knew I could not both dedicate time to healing myself and teaching children well. Third, I decided to rip the band-aid off and come out openly to the public about the struggles I had been having. I decided to recover out loud because so many struggling individuals need folks like me to speak up. Hell, I needed me to speak up and be my own self-advocate for all the years I silently suffered. Fourth, I built a support group of people both in and out of recovery who either knew exactly what I was dealing with or could empathize and be supportive even if they didn’t get it. Fifth, I moved cities to get a fresh start. Oh, and sixth, I go to therapy, workout, watch my nutrition, and generally try to practice an overall healthy lifestyle.
Do you participate in a program?
I don’t. In the beginning, I was a part of a twelve-step program, but by about the six-month point, I became more active in connecting with others online and being a part of online communities and working closely with a therapist and coach. Everyone has to really examine what works for them. If it brings you joy and peace, stick with it. If you aren’t growing, go where you’ll grow.
What do you do now?
After I quit teaching, I started working for a private tutoring company. Earlier this year, I became a certified coach and have been working with people on their own life goals and facilitating support group meetings for alcohol reduction and alcohol abstinence. It’s been great!
What happened to your liver?
The human body’s ability to heal is phenomenal, and I’m grateful to share that my liver is perfectly healthy again.
Last thoughts?
“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” – Paulo Coelho
I love this quote because it’s a reminder that giving up drinking can be terrifying. It can set off its own grieving process, but if you can say goodbye to alcohol, the new hellos waiting for you, personally, professionally, romantically, mentally, and health-wise, are unimaginable.
Audio for people who prefer to listen. Read by author.
January 4th, 2020.
“What happened to you last night?”
The winter sunlight blared through my barely opened eyes. I snapped them tightly shut. I can’t entirely blame the brightness. The truth was I didn’t want to face David’s inquiry. I couldn’t bear to look at my husband, much less face my three daughters. I could hear their chatter over the Mickey Mouse show they had on in the living room. And even if I could’ve mustered it, I didn’t have a clear answer to his question.
“You smell awful.”
I did. Cotton mouth sour breath. The garbage scent that arises from flesh when you sweat out the alcohol.
“You called me six times, saying you were lost. And when you walked through the door, you fell down in the hallway.”
I didn’t remember calling. I didn’t remember falling. I tried to piece it together, and I couldn’t.
I clamped my eyelids together even tighter. Tears swelled beneath them and poured down my cheeks through the cracks. Pathetic, the way I felt the two single teardrops make their way straight down to the edge of my chin and then drip onto my bare chest.
David had seen this all before – the afterness of a big night, evidenced by the crying, the crumpled fetal position hidden under layers of blankets, the all-day in-bed television-blaring Pedialyte-chugging shameover. Shameover. A hangover gives the body a beating, but shameover coats the physical aftermath with waves of intense embarrassment, humiliating you like a bad bully. Yet, you can only blame yourself because its a bully that you welcomed, a bully that you invited in to sit down for dinner, a bully that you knew would give you what you deserved anyway. You had it coming.
My big night began long before getting out the plastic seashell-printed goblet from the cabinet, before the pouring and the sipping and the chugging and the secrecy. It started from the moment I woke up on January 3rd, with the two facts playing in my in my mind like an infinite newsreels ticker tape.
Number One: You Failed Your Father.
Number Two: You Failed Your Children.
My father’s slow suicide caused by alcohol and opiods lasted two decades before he drew his last breath just days before Christmas 2019.
I flew from Boston to Baltimore and hid out at my grandmother’s house while he spent his last days in the hospital. I didn’t want to visit him alive. My mother, who had left my father two decades earlier, wanted me to come and help her get ready for the holidays an hour south in Washington D.C. I wanted nothing to do with it.
At my grandmother’s house, I read a stack of book, watched Turner Classic Movies, and popped Trazodone. At my grandmother’s house, I didn’t drink. At my grandmother’s, I felt free to freeze, to do whatever I wanted to do because my mother’s mother didn’t judge me the way my mother did. My grandmother expected nothing more than my existence.
My mother expected nothing less than I continue on like normal. I couldn’t do it.
“What do you care if your father dies? You didn’t talk to him for twenty years.”
But it’s still my father. How could that not affect me? But my mother was saying: I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t feel. I should be able to just get ready for the holidays. My mother was saying: Why can’t you just do the impossible? Why can’t you just handle it? Why can’t you just deal with it? My mother was saying: I’m so superior that I can just keep things moving to get ready for your children’s holidays. Her two sentences said all those things to me.
And she had never bothered to ask why my father and I hadn’t spoken. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Christmas was upon us, and she was getting things ready for my children. She didn’t know that I would’ve rather stayed home and drank in peace.
I can see now that maybe my mother had a right to her anger. She did a million things to get ready: decorated and childproofed her entire house, bought and wrapped gifts for the kids, purchased and prepared food. I took her hours. And I didn’t appreciate it at all. I could think only about the history between myself and my father, the memories I wanted to obliterate.
I barely remember Christmas Eve. All I know is that I drank a lot and my mother and brother and husband put the children to bed and placed t their Christmas gifts under the tree. The three of us watched some movie after the kids went to bed, maybe Home Alone or Scrooged, something that came out long before my children came into the world, back when my brother and I had been the children. We didn’t talk about our parents’ problems back then. Two decades later, we still couldn’t talk about them. My brother, my mother, and my husband played a psychological long game of “Everything’s Just Fine”, but I couldn’t bring myself to join this facade of normalcy.
The game continued for days, and I eventually joined in at my father’s funeral on December 29th. The guests chatted with myself, my brother, and my mother as if we had been in some Leave It to Beaver family that lost its dear patriarch. Forget my parents’ divorce. Forget the time my father ripped the side mirror off my mom’s car in a fit of rage. Forget the man’s inability to leave the house for years. Forget when he called me a little bitch, that last straw, that catalyst for cutting off our relationship. Of course, the guests didn’t know all that. We played it perfectly, but the whole thing was bullshit, and I wanted to drink it all away.
On New Year’s Eve, David, the kids, and I returned home, and I could again drink in the privacy of my own home. 2019 had sucked. Six months before my father’s death, my husband’s dad as well. Rob’s neighbor found him in his trailer in July 2019, his body reeking after a week of decay. They both died at 67, both living alone, not working, hardly talking to anyone, stringing together bleak lonesome days, perhaps inviting their own demises. On any given day, Rob smoked a ton of weed, listened to the Dead, and walked his mangy golden retriever. My father boozed, popped pills, and watched reruns of F Troop and The Waltons on TV Land. At least I had my husband, my kids, my teaching career, a few things to keep me tethered.
On Friday, January 3rd, my husband went to his office for the day, and I tried to spend a day as the mother I wanted to be. I took the girls to an indoor playground. I read them stories. I helped them glue pom-poms and foam geometric shapes on construction paper. I even got the lavash bread, tomato sauce, and shredded mozzarella and parmesan I need to make a recipe for healthy homemade pizza.
While I made the pizza, I poured myself a glass of wine. You know, just a little glass of wine to sip while I made that pizza. I took a sip after every little step of making that pizza. After opening the fridge. After pressing the buttons to preheat the oven. After spraying cooking spray on a baking tray. And so on and so forth. And by the time that pizza went in the oven, I had drank a bottle of wine. While the pizza cooked, I hid the wine in the trash and brushed my teeth and my husband came home just as I was getting the pizza out of the oven.
Look at Me. I’m Normal. I Made a Pizza.
You Failed Your Father.
You Failed Your Kids.
Look at Me. I’m Normal. I Made a Pizza.
You Failed Your Father.
You Failed Your Kids.
The words swished around in my brain. I had to get out of there, as if I could outrun them. I searched the internet for events nearby. Square Root, a little coffeeshop and bar in our neighborhood had some multi-band Beatles tribute.
“I’m going to head down to Square Root for a bit,” I announced, trying to assume a casual tone,” I just need to get out of the house.”
“Okay,” my husband consented, even though his eyebrows raised a bit.
I never went out at night. I usually drank at home. I didn’t care about the Beatles. But our apartment was suffocating me, so I went anyway.
After slapping on some lipstick and bundling up in the royal blue winter coat I’d received from my mother for Christmas, I couldn’t run out of that house fast enough and down the hills of Roslindale. Festive lights hung along the window panes outside the Square Root Cafe, adorning its enormous plate glass windows, all fogged up from the chill outside and the breath of the people inside.
From that point on, the night blurs together. Drinks. Beatles. Talking with the doorman. Chatting up the owner. A vague memory of angling for some sort of afterparty. The room filled with ladies my mothers age and their cringey dancing. Each band played the Beatles pop hits. But every time one tune ended, I hoped to next hear the whirring metallic harmonics of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. Its lyrics suited my state of mind: All play the game Existence to the end.
That’s the last thought I recall before waking up on January 4th.
In the immediate aftermath, a brief stringing together three or four sober days I interrogated myself:
Where did I go?
How did I get home?
Who saw me?
Who do I know that saw me?
Did someone help me get home?
I got a Facebook message from the owner of the Square Root Cafe: I hope you made it home safely.Sorry. My father died. I didn’t really know what I had apologized for or if even had any need for apology. Looking back, I wonder if this apology, directed at a virtual stranger, somehow substituted for the dialogue I should have with my mother, my husband, my brother, and my daughters. This small apology someone eased an ounce or two out of the pounds of guilt I had, a small good deed to make up for the enormous ones I should do for my family to atone for my horrible behavior.
Other people’s fathers die all the time, and not everyone uses it as a reason to get loaded. But I did.
I lectured myself:
You could’ve been raped.
You could’ve been murdered.
You could’ve woken up in the gutter.
But perhaps I’d wanted something awful to happen. Something terrible enough to land me in the hospital, to hole away in some inpatient unit for awhile, to hide out from the entire world. If I didn’t drink drink, I would become overexposed, my emotions dangling around me for everyone to see.
But as the drinking picked back up, the warnings I gave myself faded into the background, the process helped along by my nightly wine rituals in the safety of my own home. January 3rd should have been my warning, but the only lesson I learned in the days that followed:
Drink at Home. (You know, so you won’t get lost in the streets. So no one will know.)
The real change I made after that night: I avoided the Square Root Cafe by any means necessary. That rule has stuck like super glue. I follow it to this very day.
A shame because I used to go and write there on weeknights. And meet a teacher friend there on Saturday mornings to chat over cappuccino while my daughters munched on cookies and played on their tablets. And go with my husband to Sunday night karaoke.
The music they pumped into the speakers matched the track of the playlists I made on my phone: Joy Division, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Iggy, Siouxsie, Sonic Youth. A I’d smile to myself when they played one of my more obscure favorites like Le Orme’s “Ad Gloriam” and Brian Eno’s “Music For Airports”. I recognized every tune on the Square Root hipster soundtrack.
I blew it with the one cool place in my sleepy little Boston neighborhood of Roslindale. The one place I had a chance to fit in.
I still go to the pharmacy across the street all the time, but I wear a baseball cap and walk with my body at an awkward angle. I don’t want to see my reflection in those plate glass. I don’t want to look at myself framed in those plate glass windows. I would see the portrait of a loser, a shameless bottomless failure of a daughter, failure of a mother, a women who couldn’t exude the holiday love and familial duty that women and especially mothers should.
But my biggest question about this whole experience still mystifies me: Why wasn’t this my bottom? What wasn’t it enough of a wake-up call for me to stop?
I’d had other should’ve-been-bottoms over the years The time in the early aughts that I drove drunk the wrong way on a one way street in Downtown Baltimore. The time a couple years later when I woke up next to a guy in an unfamiliar room and couldn’t remember his name or how I’d gotten there. The time I attended a workparty in 2017, intending to have one drink and drive home, but ended up having a dozen drinks and ended up being put in an Uber by a coworker that he generously paid for with his app because I’d been too drunk to remember my cell phone password. All the times I’d blacked out and fell in the shower or the countless times so fearful that I’d called ambulances to bring me to the emergency room, where all they ever did was give me an IV drip and send me on my way.
My bottom came on May 6th, 2021, after just another shaky day at work after an up all night binge, where I taught my students just fine while my insides shook like gelatin, my face flushed hot, and my numbed fingers struggled to grip the whiteboard markers. Nothing remarkable happened that day. I didn’t crash a car or get arrested or spectacularly break my fist in a barroom brawl. For some mysterious reason, this seemingly insignificant day marked the end of two decades of drinking.
What I do remember is thinking about how much I wanted to use my hands and how I couldn’t continue writing if I couldn’t use my hands. What if I couldn’t hold a fork or flip through the pages of a magazine? There wasn’t much joy in my life, but writing, eating, and reading ranked at the top of tolerable activities, acts that made life worth living.
By early 2021, my extremities tingled and numbed whenever I had a big night, and those big nights had happened more and more frequently since my father’s death. I suspected that the problem with my hands had something to do with the alcohol. Although I had no medical test to prove this causation, I have to say I haven’t felt those physical sensations since I quit.
Jennifer with her husband. Provided by author.
I used to think that a bottom meant a gigantic wake up call from the universe, some spiritual epiphany, some significant moment. Maybe that’s what it’s like for some people. Only now do I see that my failings and the shame that surrounded them did nothing but push my drinking further along. The realization of my bodily breakdown from alcohol frightened me enough to get me to quit. I feel I’m a fairly smart person, but I couldn’t think my way out of drinking. I had to really be broken in order to realize I’d been suffering. It took my body itself, not an emotional experience or external event, to impress upon me the danger I put myself in.
For years, I’d heard people say listen to your body. But I preferred to ignore everything about myself. My body didn’t look the way I wanted it to, so I avoided mirrors. My mind didn’t work the way I wanted it to, so I drank. If I couldn’t look sexy, if I couldn’t make myself happy, why couldn’t I just disappear? It wasn’t until I faced the true loss of myself, my hands, in this small way, that I came to believe I had something worth saving, the use of a part of my body that I really wanted to keep using. In the end, my body itself provided the bottom that my mind and the outside world couldn’t. I live inside such a remarkable machine.
Jennifer with her family. Submitted by author. 2022.
I used to think my body trapped me. I used to wonder why I had to live when it felt so painful. But, sober, I inhabit my body with ease. Now months have passed without the sensation of imprisonment. As a matter of fact, since that day when I listened to my body’s warning, I have never felt so genuinely free.
Jennifer Dines is a Boston-based writer, bilingual teacher, and mother of three. She has published essays in Current Affairs, Rooted In Rights, WBUR Cognoscenti, and Motherwell. Her writing portfolio can be found here: https://literacychange.org/writing-portfolio/ twitter: @DinesJennifer instagram: @jenniferdineswrites.
Writing Prompt: If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would you say?
Dear Matt @10 years old,
I want to tell you about what life is like now, but actually to let you know it’s ok to just be you.
Be open with yourself about how you are feeling. It’s ok to admit things are not right for you in your life. When you get to the age I am now, you will have some regrets about not being able to speak to people. You will also not have as many people who want to speak to you, but one day you will find those trusted souls who are there for you and you will talk. If you do get just the smallest windows of opportunity to tell people how you are doing, take that chance.
Young Matt, submitted by author.
You will find an amazing teacher in your life who will be your inspiration and someone you think back to often when you finally end up being a teacher. You are super funny and kind, but also can be quite stern and expect a lot of the children you teach. You keep them safe and nurture them, but you are fair and disciplined when you have to be.
Know that it was ok to lie to people about not having a dad. That it was ok to make stuff up, because that was your way of dealing with the difficult life you came to have, because of your dad dying. Be kind and forgiving of yourself. You knew your dad, you absolutely did. Understand that he was there for you more than you realised. He shaped you for 2 and a half years.
Know that it’s ok to not have to be like everyone else, that you are ok just the way you are. That it’s ok to not to have to be “one of the lads.” That you don’t have to force yourself to like alcohol and to have to go out.
Matt today. Submitted by the author.
Right now, you are very much in me. You are a 46 year old man at heart, but you have a zest for life and for fun, which shines out of you. You are a child still who does what people would say are crazy. For instance right now you are dying your hair blonde and you’ve got your ears pierced! Imagine what your grandad would say about that! So funny! You like surfing and músic and play bass guitar and ukulele. You are determined and desire for everyone to be happy.
Tell your family you love them. Please ask about your dad and don’t feel you are upsetting people talking about it. They will want to talk to you. You may think you didn’t know your dad, but you are him and he is in you.
I’m Ally, a London-based recovery and life coach. Is it uncharitable to say that I feel really conflicted about the popularity of thirty-day sober challenges like this one?
Is this the sober coach equivalent of kicking a puppy?
Who, after all, would come out against a charitable initiative designed to raise funds for McMillan Cancer Support?
Because jumping into a sober challenge might make you feel worse, not better, and I’m about to tell you why.
But perhaps first, to prove to you that I’m not a monster, let’s start with some of the undoubted positives of taking part.
Sober October is indeed a fantastic charity endeavour
The month-long challenge/fundraising campaign was started in 2014 by the UK-based charity, Macmillan Cancer Support, providing support to millions of people living with cancer. At the time of writing, this year’s Sober October has raised £468 949, and all you’ve got to do is forgo Friday Happy hour for a few weeks. For many, that seems like a small trade-off to help fight cancer.
What better way to support a cancer fundraiser than by reducing your own chances of developing it?
Alcohol is carcinogenic. Drinking it increases your risk of developing multiple types of cancer, including breast, bowel, mouth, and throat cancers. Any reduction in alcohol consumption would positively impact your chances of developing cancer.
As a recovery coach working in the field of addiction recovery, I have been trained to always move a client towards harm reduction. It isn’t only abstinence that is the measure of a successful client outcome. Any steps that an individual is prepared to take towards reducing their alcohol intake, including the use of challenges like Sober October, is classed as a win in my book.
#soberoctober is a trendy catch-all.
The hashtag is fun, punchy, and easy to understand…that’s what makes it powerful.
Trends are easy to jump onto. They create a buzz and an excitement around an issue. And being sober is not traditionally known as something fun or exciting! As a sober advocate, I’m thrilled to have more people flirting with sobriety and doing it in a way that feels fun, inclusive, and (for some) easy to do.
You’re getting sober by stealth
Another huge benefit of jumping on a sober challenge is that it could spark someone’s interest in sober living. Thirty days is certainly long enough for the fog of alcohol to lift from the system and to start to feel the benefits that often come with living hangover free.
30 days seems attainable and non-threatening. While not drinking forever stretches out ahead of us like an endlessly tall mountain, a month seems like a molehill in comparison. Forever is unattainable. A month is more manageable and reduces overwhelm.
And once you’ve done thirty days…well you might as well do another. And another and another…and before you know it you’ve tricked your brain into getting sober by stealth.
Not drinking for a month sounds easy…surely everyone can do that?
But the thing is, what if you can’t do that?
And here’s where I kick the #soberoctober puppy. Because what if you can’t stay stopped?
For many, abstaining from alcohol isn’t as easy-breezy as a catchy hashtag suggests. Perhaps you’re five days in, three days in, or one day in and you can’t do it. You’ve pushed the ‘F**k it! Button’ and have resumed your drinking behaviours. Perhaps you’re now feeling the guilt, shame and hopelessness rush in. Perhaps you feel like you’ve failed, further compounding the isolation and hopelessness that you already felt before you took part in the challenge.
This is where a hashtag can’t convey the kind of nuance and the large spectrum of individual needs associated with alcohol use disorder and the levels of difficulty involved in stopping drinking.
Anyone who engages with alcohol sits somewhere on a spectrum between use, misuse, abuse, and dependence. An individual who intermittently uses alcohol might find it relatively easy to forgo it for a month. At the other end of the spectrum, an individual who has become dependent on alcohol would experience a high level of difficulty in any attempt to quit. It would, in fact, be downright unwise for them to go ‘cold turkey’ without medical supervision.
You’re not in the club
Getting sober is hard, especially in the first few days, weeks, and months. It’s normal to feel emotionally raw, vulnerable, exhausted, and pretty s**t. But this reality often isn’t presented on social media’s highlight reel.
If you follow the #soberoctober hashtag, you might find your feed brimming with happy, shiny sober people telling you about how great they feel. And you don’t feel that way. It’s like you’re out in the cold with your face pressed up against the glass of a warm, cozy sober party that you’re not invited to.
Let’s normalise the reality that getting used to life without alcohol can be tough and emotionally confronting. Many of us were using alcohol to cope with life and these don’t go away when we stop drinking. There’s bound to be a lot of work to do on ourselves as we recalibrate to living life sober.
The process of healing from physical and emotional dependence on alcohol takes more than a month and a hashtag, so please don’t feel bad if you’re finding this hard. If alcohol has played a big part of your life for a long time, it’s normal to feel emotionally raw and exhausted when you remove it. You are not alone. And if following the #soberoctober hashtag makes you feel that way, then don’t follow it.
Cutting out alcohol isn’t the same as doing a juice cleanse
Alcohol is an addictive, compulsive substance, and the fact that its use has become so normalised in our world doesn’t change that. I feel like this ‘challenge’ mentality lumps sobriety in with the world of wellness fads and detox diets. There’s a whole diet industry built on quick fixes and instant results that don’t consider long-term impact.
To me, challenges feel very surface-level and encourage cyclical restrict-then-rebound patterns that keep many people stuck. If we are not going deeper and questioning our habits and behaviours, then we can’t expect meaningful change or a sustainable recovery.
If you’re a gray-area drinker, a sober challenge could perpetuate the problem.
A gray area drinker is characterised as someone whose relationship to alcohol is problematic but who does not have severe alcohol use disorder. Individuals in this gray area may find themselves using alcohol in excess or in emotional ways but are still able to function in their lives. They may be able to go for long periods without drinking, but when they do engage with alcohol, their relationship with it is disordered.
For this type of individual, the ability to stop for periods like Sober October may further cement self-justification of damaging drinking behaviour. ‘I can stay off booze for a month therefore I don’t have problem.’ The abstinence challenge ends up perpetuating problem drinking because it is used it to prove to yourself and others that your drinking isn’t that bad.
My other issue with ‘challenge mentality’ is that I think I’m a bit of a rebel
I tend to have an aversion to ‘group think’ or jumping on bandwagons, and it’s not something I want to encourage.
As a coach, I often see clients who have lost trust and confidence in themselves and their own abilities. They look outwards for answers to their problems and are sometimes vulnerable to falling for quick-fix schemes or learn to look for solutions from experts rather than themselves.
It’s my job to encourage clients to develop their own inner resources rather than look to me or anyone else for answers. Empowering clients to trust their own intuition and make their own best decisions is an important part of my coaching process.
If you were working with me and wanted to take part in a challenge, my advice would always to be to approach these things with a critical eye before jumping in and ask yourself: why? As a participant in #soberoctober, what’s your motivation? What are you hoping to gain? Do you enjoy being part of groups and challenges as a whole, or do you find it overwhelming? Will participating in a challenge serve you and move you toward your goals? Are you doing it because you see everyone else is doing it and you feel like you should?
For me, the concept of challenges often has that whiff of something gimmicky or sales-y, and it makes me wrinkle up my nose and walk the other way.
So what’s the answer here?
Do I really think we shouldn’t be using sober challenges as a tool to support sobriety? Am I really a miserable curmudgeon who doesn’t want to raise money for charity?
Photo provided by Ally.
In typical coaching fashion, I’m going to end this by saying that I don’t have the answers, only questions I would want to ask you if we were having this conversation face-to-face. I’m hoping that this post sparks a conversation with you about the positives and potential pitfalls of taking part in sober challenges like Sober October and draws attention to some of the downsides that aren’t really talked about.
If you are someone who struggles with sober challenges, then my sincere desire for you is that you explore other avenues of support. There are multiple paths available to you to help you get sober and stay sober. I offer one on one recovery coaching, where I will walk with you on the path toward a sustainable recovery.
If you’ve got any experiences to share about sober challenges and their impact on you, then let’s talk! I’d love to hear from you.
