Big Wooden Door

This is me six months ago. I'm the one on the left. Or maybe the right. No, definitely me in the middle. 

This picture looks like what drinking felt like to me. Like I had my head stuck in the middle of a big wooden door. It was heavy, and uncomfortable. My family is in there, too. Stuck just like me. And there's my life, trapped as well. But doesn't it look fun? Woo hoo, life of the party right there! Hand me another Prosecco!

Maybe this is the picture they should put on bottles of beer. Because it represents what drinking is really like. I mean, I suppose not for those people who can have one beer or two. (What is the point? Really?) So they can have regular labels. But for those of us that drink like I used to we get these. Would it help? Help if reality was staring you in the face every time you took a sip? I dunno, I think I would have just turned the bottle around and kept right on chugging.

Every day I try to figure out why I stopped this time. Why? What happened? Why was that day different? And all the days after that? 

Now, let me clarify. This is not a study in self torture- more like a wonderment. It kind of sounds like a puzzle and a bunch of gratitude all rolled into one. 

The other day I found a video I made of myself to myself on my phone last fall. It was me, telling me not to drink. Something along the lines of..."Later you are going to want to drink. Don't do it. NO MATTER WHAT." I can look at myself in that video and see that I am lying. I was totally going to be downing sauvignon blanc later that day. And for a few more months after that.

Sobriety is such a process. I began, in earnest, in January or December two years before I actually quit drinking. I was sober-ish for almost four months (Longer than now- but I can't remember if I drank a little here and there then. I think I did.) I felt great. But I started up again. My job went south. I had a hernia and couldn't run. More stuff. Bring on the binge. Bring on the funk.

And it was funky. At the end of my drinking I was a big ol' mess. Fighting with husband. Ignoring the children. Sort of letting life wobble and steadily unravel. Wandering around with that door on my neck. Lugging it everywhere. Ugh.

I finally had to trust myself. I finally had to believe myself when I said "I don't want to drink anymore" for the five millionth time. I had to put that damn door down or resign myself to a lifetime spent carrying it instead of just the twenty years or so I had been.

Getting sober is about truth, and also lying. Except that the truth is that you cannot drink, and the lying is you telling yourself that you are quite lovely, and wonderful. That you are perfectly OK even when you are at your craziest. Pretty much the exact opposite of drinking: when you told yourself it was OK to drink, and the lying was you bashing yourself over and over telling yourself what a failure and suckball you were.

Getting sober, to me, is this: You take this person, this you, and you start to care for her.You make her trust her. You refuse to hurt her, or be mean to her. You are flat out honest with her. Even when honest is really hard. You hold her when she is fragile and scared, and laughing hug her when she gets it right- or feels comfy in her skin. You encourage her. You forgive her past, her mistakes. You make her responsible for what she does. You make her want to live beyond even her wildest dreams because there you are, holding your own hand for the scary parts. You take the door away from her. You throw her hands into the air on a bike for her. Because, you love her.