Good Advice

I've been feeling super cocky in my sobriety lately. (Being in a magazine didn't hurt.) Like I am a sober badass, and will be forever. Nothing will stop me. After a summer/early fall of feeling pretty wavery and sad and just down in the dumps something changed and I took another step up- another leap away from boozy me and towards this awesome new person I am slowly becoming, that I already am.

It still feels very uncomfortable to think of myself in positive terms, but I'm practicing. A lot.

Which makes me realize that at some point in my life I felt really good about me, and then I felt toooo good about me. And then I got knocked down several times and finally stayed down.

I can be quite firm in my beliefs. Almost unbending. I can also be "If I can, you can. So just do it." Not super fair.

I want so much for anyone struggling with alcoholism to find their way to sobriety- consistent, lasting sobriety. And I'm at this point where I have almost a year, and I feel good about it, but I cannot forget where I came from. That bossing people into being sober (which is where I was heading) is not the way to help people to be sober.

Alcoholics aren't really the type you can boss into anything. Alcoholism is really an act of defiance. You can't really manhandle people like that (me) into anything, much less saving their own lives. Lord knows no one could have told me to stop drinking. It just would have made me drink more. And it did! The more I told myself I needed to quit the more I wanted to drink. You can't tell me what to do.

I'm struggling some with guidance and excuses. How to hear someone's struggle and it be expansive, and then how to draw lines in the sand that define boundaries that cannot be crossed. How to hear explanations, but not excuses. How to have forgiveness, and have expectations. How to hear people in their sobriety, not mine.

My universe friend Amy and I had a really good good conversation yesterday and I could tell I was feeling so smart and wise and superhuman. My advice is so good. My thoughts are wonderful and the best. I was basking in my glory.

And then she said some things in her universe Amy way that brought me back to earth.

One of them thundered through my head: "When you start feeling invincible is when it gets really dangerous. Then you could be way more likely to drink."

It reminded me to be humble in my sobriety. It reminded me to listen to those who have years on me, that my wisdom is far from complete. It reminded me that I am me, and you are you. And that to be the strong person I am and want to be I have to be able to use what works for me, but then I also have to use what works for you, too.  It reminded me that I have a lot to give, and a long long way to go.

Getting There

Part of what I find the most glorious about being sober is when I find my way there. You know: there. Where you knew you needed to be all this time, but then there was that wrong turn at Albuquerque ugh! And who folded the map this way? Somehow your inner GPS sends you in the right direction in spite of all the "Are we there yet?" and stops for the bathroom. Oprah calls it "light bulb moment". I call it "there". About compromise? I'm there.

My life has children. And other people. Which means my life is full of compromises. And plan changes. And this way. And that way.

I realized something: stop that. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Stop. That.

When I was drinking my life was full of compromises too. Every day I drank, or was hungover, or tried not to drink and then drank anyway: compromise. Bending. Making concessions to make it work out.

I notice that my compromises usually end up with me clutching the short end of the stick and wondering what just happened. That I tend to make sure other people's or easier needs are met. That in interest of peace I retreat, although sometimes I don't go gracefully, I go.

I think I'm confusing "compromise" with "giving in".

I'm a peace-maker. And a care-taker. I want there to be happy. But I do this for other people. So, I'm taking care of someone else, or meddling mending fences for another person. But I don't do these things for me.

I realized suddenly: wait a minute here! WHY AM I DOING THIS? Why am I yammering on and on for ten minutes about this rule and why that thing? Why do I not stand up for myself? Why can I not have my rules, my way, and stick to it? Why do I waffle and waver? Why am I making my own life so hard?

Why am I making my own life so hard.

I have to laugh a little since that sounds totally dramatic.

But totally true! Gah! Why do we make things so hard on ourselves? Why do we give in even when we know it will totally suck? Why are we so afraid of hard, fast rules? And why will I put myself out for someone else, but I won't make things easier for me? Is it easier when I make things harder because that's what I'm used to?

I can hear the answers to those questions: It doesn't have to be hard. I don't have to give in. I like rules. I will take care of me. Yes! I make things harder because it feels comfortable. And I'll work on that.

Suddenly: I'm THERE.

Ready for this next part. Able to start practicing being a negotiator, not a doormat. Having some guidelines. Guidelines: rules I have and hold that guide me, that flashlight-in-the-night show me the way.

With my children: there are rules. Some are not bendable, or earn-back-able. Some things just are.

With people in my life: there are rules. Some are not flexible. Some just are. I'm still learning to stand up for myself and say what I mean and not try to fix it all. Making other people's problems their problems. Not compromising my sanity for your stuff. Asking myself "Who's job is it to fix it?" or "Is this the right decision for me?" and my new favorite "Can I really handle that?" And then listening to the answer.

With me: there are rules. Some are not stretchable. Some just are. Remember to follow them even when these new ones feel weird and not at all like the old days.

Being sober gives me this sense of pride that I never had before. Pride in the cherished way, not pride in the puffed up way. That pride makes it easier to see when I need to bend, and when bending makes me break.

Little Victories

So, I'm sitting here eating an apple. 

WOOT WOOT!!!!!

I'm also loving this book by Brene Brown I'm reading that might actually create a self revolution since it makes so much sense. I want to grab B.B. by the shoulders, look her in the eye, and be all gushy and show off a little since her words are changing my life. 

But about that apple.

It's not eight oatmeal cookies. (I only had two) It's this big realization I had in the kitchen about fifteen minutes ago: 

I have no idea what to do with myself.

Before, when I drank like a fish in denial, I knew what to do. Hang out for a bit. Figure out an excuse to get the kiddos into the car and off to the store. ("Hey you guys, do you want to have a coke with dinner? Let's go get one.") Then home with my supplies, plant kiddos in front of TV and sneak out for a smoke with my first big ass glass of wine. What else to do? Nothing else. Get drunk. Ta da! The night is taken care of.

But now. 

Well.

I was talking to Belle and she asked me if I'd figured out my passion. Does flailing around on the computer between email and Facebook fourteen times a night count as a passion? Can eating too much be a passion? 

Dang. I didn't think so.

She did say "passion" not "time suck". 

One of the things I loved the most about drinking was that time just sort of.....disappeared. Voila! Five o'clock to bedtime and I didn't even notice! Then after the kiddos went to bed the wine and time floated right away. Then at the end I would just black out and then who knows what the fuck time it is.

Now, some days, I watch the seconds crawl. 4:37. 4:38. 4:42. What to do what to do what to do. 

Today is the first day of our after five tech blackout. Which means that I'll post this and then not be able to see if anyone read it until tomorrow morning. I might go crazy! 

Today is the first day we will hang out together before dinner. We'll eat on time. People will have baths, and stories on time. I won't be hurriedly slapping something on the table and skipping bath and rushing through stories. We can play Crazy 8's after bath time like we did this spring. The children can hit the sack clean and loved, not rushed and covered in sunscreen. 

Boundaries and rules. Changing what makes me annoyed with me, and then reminding myself that I can do it. Eating two cookies, thinking, and then grabbing an apple. Giving myself an atta girl for that little victory. 

On the Line

I had so much time to think, so much time to stew and fret and dream while I was sick. I thought of about fifty different posts I wanted to write, and managed to at least title a few so I wouldn't forget. I save those as drafts to come back to later. If you knew me- like you're getting too but probably not that well yet since this blog is only a little bit old, and not really. This blog is really young. I feel really young sometimes too- not in that vibrant toss me a bikini way, but more of a tender baby bird way, and mostly just with my feelings. My skin has started to do the crepe-y thing when I gently bunch it together, god knows that is not young. Or young feeling. When I bunch my feelings together they do something new and different too. And it's a very breakable feeling.

Like I was saying...if you knew me you'd know that patience is not my best act. It's actually one of my worst routines. Ever. I'm sitting here now wanting to get to the end of this post so I can see how it turns out. I always rush the end. Saving drafts of posts is like torture. I get frustrated doing housework because it's taking too long. Sometimes the childrens' pace makes me want to burst Hulk-like from my skin, and then turn around and smack myself for being such an asshole. Sometimes I'm so mad at my husband but I'm really just mad at my own self. I want to cause a fight entirely to get to the end.

I suspect all this comes from a few places: childhood dramas, hiding from my alcoholic self trying to make it look like everything is fine look here if we rush by in this blur you can't see how hungover I am! or if I speed everything along then bedtime comes faster and I can sleep and not deal with anything. Anything at all.

It's funny how God, or the universe, or mother nature- whoever or whatever you pray to or talk to- aligns things just right so even when you're rushing by you can't help but pause. A spiritual speed bump. A soul ka-thump.

I have felt very proud, and very in control being sober all these days in a row. I feel far away from that heartsick woman who healed herself with too much wine and denial. But I'm not quite sure how to make this sober me wait. To take my time. To shut the fuck up before I put my foot in my mouth again. (Since I tend to process out loud all over people instead of in my own head.) To not expect everyone (like husband) to have a great healing just because I'm getting my shit together. To understand that years of hurts don't just disappear because I put down my wine glass and said "I'm sorry".

Agh. That's what's hard. It's hard to make up for being drunk. For the things said and done when booze ran the world. It's hard to sincerely apologize for something you don't really remember saying or doing. Especially when you pretended so well that you did remember when you were actually in the middle of a blackout. Again, and again.

It's hard to feel "well"  and then feel that shame. Oh, the shame. What a beast. What a burden.

It's hard to be patient and let the beauty unfold when you've finally put it all on the line.

I'm Telling Mom

My parents both had parents with varying degrees of alcohol problems. They varied from awful to terrible. My dad's father was an embarrassing alcoholic. He committed suicide when my dad was in his late teens/early 20's. My mom got the best of both worlds- two alcoholic parents. Her father was a drunk and a cheater, her mother was a drunk, she popped pills, had some issues with agoraphobia, and died of an on purpose overdose of pills and booze. Her father died from brain cancer in his 50's-ish. I try to imagine my parents as children- handling home life and still going to school, playing with friends, being children with all this craziness swirling around them. I want to punch my grandparents in the face for hurting them (and all their siblings) the way they did. The way they still do.

My parents rarely drank when I was little. My mom tells a story about my dad coming home and mixing up drinks for a few nights (weeks? I don't remember) and she put her foot down and said, "No way are you drinking every night. You'd better stop that right now." So he did. I remember both of them being relatively open about their parents and the way their alcoholism affected their lives. They instilled in me a fear and a curiosity about alcohol.

I told my mom yesterday that I quit drinking. I told her why. I told her I was afraid, I was honest about what was going on with me. That was hard. It was hard to watch her cry, knowing that the thing she'd feared most for me had come true. It was such a balm to my soul to hear her say through her tears, "I AM SO PROUD OF YOU."

So much of our suffering goes on alone. Alone in the dark, filling one more glass, just one more. Alone in the stark light of day making promises to try to quit again, to do better. To drink less, only one or two. To only drink on the weekends, or just on Friday. So much of my suffering was from hiding. From glossing over the truth to look like things were fine when they weren't. And they weren't and they weren't until finally I needed them to be fine. To stay alive, present in this life I needed my voice to be heard. I needed to feel real. Authentic. I needed to say out loud, "I am an alcoholic. I need help" and "I can never drink again."

That's why I told my mom. And that's why I'm telling you, every day. Because every day I have to remember my truth, my story. And I have to be proud of that. And I am.

No Deal

There are these deals you make with yourself when you want to quit drinking. There are the promises, the white knuckling through just one more minute. Then the fast trip to the store for wine etc. all the while telling yourself, "Turn the car around. Go home. Go home. Go home. If you don't buy it you can't drink it." But all you can hear is the need. The need to check out, to turn off, to get out of here while you are sitting right here.

My deals would always go something like this: On a hangover day I would decide that I was not going to drink anymore, or if I did I would limit myself to two or three at the most. That would soothe for a few sober days and then it would just feel like time to have some wine. At the store I would buy two bottles and a six or twelve pack of beer. I would have to share with my husband after all, and we wouldn't want to be irresponsible and have to drive to get more if we ran out. (ah, booze logic) I would tell myself it was OK, lots of people drink, lots of people drink too much, and lots of people drink waaaayyyyy more than me. And I wasn't drinking before 5 o'clock or so, and I didn't drink every day. It was fine.

So I would break my deal with myself. I would have not just two or three but seven or eight by the end of the night. And in the morning, hungover and tired and broken again I would make more deals. But it didn't matter what I promised, I was always back at the store.

I've been waking up desperately early excited to start my day. I've been writing this blog and doing yoga every morning. Maybe that's all it takes, maybe it's as simple as finding something else to do that fills you up instead of filling up your cup. It's having a purpose, lifting yourself up to something with tangible soul-full meaning. Being able to face each day proud of the day before instead of cringing when you wake up trying to remember if you made an ass out of yourself last night.

I can't say for sure why this time is different. I know I just got to a point and something clicked inside my soul and I can't undo that now. I know I'm through making deals, I'm ready to walk the walk, talk the talk, do anything it takes to keep this new fragile peace with myself.

House of Straw, House of Sticks, House of Bricks, House of Bone

I am so grateful to be here on day six of being sober. I had an awful time sleeping last night, and the title of this post (almost made the typo "past" hmmmm) came to me. 

For years I have sworn to myself I was going to stop drinking. Always scared to stop for good. I thought I could never give up the promise of a glass (ok, really bottle or two) with my husband on our nights off together. Or the reward of a hard week's work. Or what do I do at New Year's? How do I eat out? Good intentions, terrible results. That's my house of straw. Built out of and around empty promises to myself. It wouldn't stand, wouldn't last. I built the same one in my heart for years thinking it, faking it, lying to myself that I was sincere. I meant it. I wanted to quit. But when a powerful urge comes along, straw is no contest for the will to get drunk. In an arm wrestling match between straw and wine the straw loses every fucking time. I should know, I put money on that silly bastard for years. At least 20 of them. 

Every once in a while I would change my blueprint and find some sticks.Shore those intentions up right! I wasn't lying to myself, that straw just wasn't what I was needing all along. Here was what I needed! This house of sticks. Now I can hide in here, cringing and wailing my way through almost a week beating the intentions away until I beat too hard and broke the stick and I was hungover again. And again. And again. 

Lately I started making houses from bricks. From big ideas and big intentions. Tentatively reaching out and saying to my husband and myself out loud "I think I might be an alcoholic. I have a drinking problem. I need to stop." I felt it too, felt those bricks crushing my heart when my good intentions again got flooded by too much wine, too much guilt. I felt myself drawing that soft part of me back, back behind the bricks where there were no mirrors to show my aging face, my tired eyes, my defeated heart and soul. 

Last Friday I built a house of bone. A house strong and pure. A house where I can open my heart and lay it all on the line and not care if it hurts or embarrasses me because being honest means I don't have to feel like a liar anymore. I don't have to be ashamed of who I really am anymore because I don't have to hide the way I drink, and I don't have to act like I feel fine when I'm really dying inside from being hungover and a loser. A house where I can be just me, and be safe, and not worry about being judged or forgetting conversations, or blacking out. In this house there is always enough even when there isn't any, there is always plenty, plenty, plenty. This house is made of bone: sturdy, strong, bona fide, honorable, unburdened backbone. In this house the door is wide open, and I always know the way to get there.