Hey Look! Me Too!

I am always so delighted when someone contacts me and says "Hey...would you do an interview for me?" (link below) So far it's happened four times, which I find pretty amazing considering I'm just a regular woman going about a regular life doing regular things. Wait, that's not really true... :)

One of my biggest things sobriety has given me is this urge to help other people who are struggling with alcoholism to know that the booze doesn't have to be the end: that ending it can be the beginning. When I was drinking I never knew that there were other people out there just like me. I knew in my heart I was an alcoholic- but because I didn't drink every day, or in the morning, or have jail time, divorce, or lost jobs I thought I was sort of ok. Drinking two bottles of wine a few times a week is not normal- duh.

I want to put myself out there so other people can see that being an alcoholic looks "normal". It 100% looks like a married mother of two holding down a job and a life. It looks like a woman who has it together- except when she's hammered on the back porch a few nights a week, and then desperately hungover on the days after. You can still get up and get dressed and do a day when you're so hungover you feel like you might die: it just really sucks. But it doesn't scarlett letter you with a definitive "A" for alcoholic like the typical image people have of us.

I'm not trying to be all grand when I say I want to help people. But I do! I want to help all the people! It's like that song about buying the world a Coke to keep it company- I want to buy the world some sobriety. I sometimes feel like I could be an infomercial- Try it! It worked for me- it can work for you too! And then there are pictures of me wasted, and then there's a picture of me sober, and then I ride gloriously off into the sunset the end.

Being sober never ends. THANK GOD. I know that sometimes when you're getting sober the thought of never drinking again is the most painful thing ever. For some reason for me it has always been the biggest relief- I never have to do the thing that caused me countless hours of suffering ever again? PHEW.

The ME TOO. It's the thing that gives us all the power to grab a hand and have some help up. It's the thing that can give me such a feeling of peace: of being understood.

Veronica Valli has a great blog called Recovery Rocks. Here's the interview I did for her HERE. I loved reading other people's sober stories and looking around her site. I got so many ME TOO's.

I never ever in my whole life ever would have thought that I would be doing interviews about being sober- or being interviewed for anything at all, really. I never thought I would make the life I've made. I pinch myself sometimes knowing that it's really true. Anything is possible for anyone y'all. Anything is possible for you. Anything is possible for me, too.