These Revelations

I sent a complaint letter.

I've never done this before, me, people pleaser extraordinaire, forget the thought of me speaking up when mistreated or handled in a clumsy way, but I did it.

I have revelations all the time- Oh! I can do this! Oh! This seems so normal! - it's disconcerting how I realize and understand so much about myself in these short bursts, like an explosion of light bulbs above my head, it's so blinding and so illuminating all at one big time. Sometimes I have to laugh because I feel so off center and wobbly that if I don't laugh I might just cry and revelate forever. I reassure myself with little victories: I'm learning to walk, how to stand while bearing weight on both legs- to be in my body. I can take deeper fuller breaths than I could a year ago, I'm not always holding my breath. My accomplishments may seem small in the grand scheme of things- I can keep my chin level now instead of a little up ready to defend, I think about sex without wanting to seethe, disappear or hide, I danced with other people in the room, I sent a complaint letter. Revelations. Grand scheme ones.

I've gone from reading about sex to reading about grief. Unexpressed grief is basically like shoving giant wads of gunk into your feelings pipes so they get mucked up, impassable, and you become anxiously paralyzed by the fears you'd meant to cry out but drank down for twenty years instead. I can connect the two so clearly, sex and grief go hand in hand for all of my life. I can see how the grief was the beginning, I can take myself back to me at five sweet years old, strawberry blond hair hanging down my back, past the ties of my favorite pinafore, sucking in my tears because I was too dramatic and so so stupid for crying, my parents teasing me for having feelings. I can feel how much it hurt when I needed tenderness and my parents had no idea what that even meant since their parents had no clue how to do things like feelings either. How that grief led me to using sex for hurting myself and being hurt, how drinking helped me unrealize who I was enough to do it, over and over until the beauty of my body was lost and I spread my legs again, bereft. Revelation.

I can feel how much I try to hide myself, too big to disappear and too unwieldy to blend in.

I sit on the couch across from my therapist and stay a good girl, unable to sob out the tears that are dying to get out because I want her to like me and have me please come back again next week. I have stuffed it all down for so long that I'm afraid to let it out because I could possibly head into a nervous breakdown, never to return- we only have one small hour, and then I have to head to work. Not a lot of time for falling apart and then back together.

I imagine a time when I don't have all this work to do, that these moments of glaring understanding, these revelations, will happen only a few times a year instead of a few a week. These things that come up, these elementary understandings that could have been lessons learned long ago had I only been bravely paying attention instead of fearful and drinking. I feel so stupid sometimes that I'm just now getting the idea that I can ask for what I need and it isn't a crime, it isn't wrong. Why wasn't I this person I am now all along? My years of work boxing up and shoving down all of the feelings and it turns out they never disappeared after all. All that work, down the drain.

The other day I was talking to my mom about being sweet when people are hurting and she said she uses humor to make people feel better. WHAT? I felt so sad and angry thinking of all the times I cried, hurting, and got humored by my own parents. They were using their humor, the very people who were supposed to love and heal me instead making it worse. Making it funny. I'm in total disbelief that she thought that teasing was what made people feel better. I want to stomp my five year old foot and scream stop laughing at me! right in her smiling face. Which would have only made her laugh harder.

No wonder I have no clue about what a normal emotional response is. No wonder I don't know how to take myself seriously, or how to speak without questioning myself, or how to be tender, or where to put all these big feelings. No wonder when I sit on the couch at therapy when the most hurty things come up I laugh. God, no wonder. No wonder my life is full of revelations, these connections that lead me from disappeared to conscious again and again.

I'm all spun up, so much happening, so many feelings that I don't know where to put them all. They're all unruly as puppies, scattered and making messes everywhere. I don't feel like myself anymore, but I don't know who I feel like either- sometimes it feels so much like me and then I hardly recognize who I am. It's like giving birth, but for years.

I feel so fortunate to be coming along in my understanding, and also so right at the beginning, like I've been running for a hundred years and somehow I'm still within sight of the starting line. It's frustrating in this gracefully annoying way, this is where I have to laugh, where it actually is funny, and lovely, sweet and amazing. Me, at forty-five years old, stumbling along, learning to walk. Learning to fly. Being exactly myself at my life. Being born, by revelations.

Hey Look! Me Too, Two!

Woo wee! Over the weekend I got the news that my "How I Got Sober" was posting today on AfterParty Magazine. Check out their site if you haven't yet- another great resource for reading, Me Too's, and staying sober. They sent me this awesome tank top just for doing an interview. At first I felt a little funny wearing it, but then I thought about it and my sobriety is one of the things I'm the most proud of. Plus it's interesting to watch people try to figure out what it means. :)

I know non-anonymous isn't for everyone, but it works for me. I am so grateful for the opportunity to tell my story, and hopeful it helps. I'm always available for being a pen pal so don't feel shy or like it's a burden. Thanks for reading! :)

Here's the link:How I Got Sober

Bigger Life

I had my first writing class last night.

When I signed up I was all "hell yeah!" then I thought it was going to complicate my schedule too much and I got fearful and almost cancelled doing it. Then I had the time wrong and it turned out I realized that I wanted to not go out of fear rather than actual complication.

So I went.

AHHHHHH!!!!!

It was grand. I sang and yodeled and lalala'd all the way home. There were about ten of us in the library at the Center for Documentary Studies which was as lovely as it sounds. A room full of other writers??? Shut the fuck up. The woman teaching the class is thoughtful and funny and genuine. We did some short writing and I made myself read what I wrote because that's why I'm there: to put myself out there, to share my way with words. I did NOT want to read out loud even one tiny littlest bit, but my go ahead voice urged me on so I did it. It was so cool to hear other people's words and thoughts, to think about other people feeling the necessity of writing too.

I am in this constant state of wonder these days: the bigness and ease of my life stretches my imagination to no end. I'm always writing back and forth with at least one person who is at the very beginning or not even started getting sober yet and it's always this feeling that I want to convey- the feeling of wonder. It's so interesting to be able to remember clearly the frustration and suckiness of living that alcoholic's life and then mash that up to living this alcoholic's life: the only true difference is that I don't drink anymore.

Me minus booze equals magic.

It takes so long to get to this place: I want to share that but then I want to keep it secret because I'm afraid if anyone knows that they won't even stay or get started. But here's the thing- it just keeps getting better and better and better. So you start out and your victories are all big even if in retrospect they seem small. When I first got sober one of my biggest victories was all the crying. Then it was being able to show up for stuff like parent teacher conferences and work without raging hangovers. Now my biggest victories are pushing my boundaries into what I know my life was meant to be. Singing out audibly in yoga class when we chant. Reading what I wrote out loud in front of people. Every time I stretch I take my time because I know I need to, but sometimes I just push myself out of the boat. Sometimes my life is bigger than the boat anyway.

The thing about it taking a long time is this: time is for the taking. I can take time to build my life, or I can take time to drink it away. It's the same 24 hours every day. It will all pass regardless, marching on no matter if you're blackout drunk or on your way to writing class.

Rainy Days

It's raining so hard here today. I'm on the lookout for a few animals to go floating by or maybe a man called Noah to knock at the door and ask if I'm interested in either tree trimming or arks. I've been caramelizing onions for what seems like almost an eternity, listening to Death Cab for Cutie radio on Pandora AND shaking my ass in the kitchen. It's awesome.

A song by Coldplay came on and I had this sudden flashback to when my husband and I had gone from pals to living together in a slow but fast decision that we did, in fact, like each other "that" way. We used to get off work around 11 PM and head down to the corner bar to get started getting wasted the way early twenty somethings do except we were in our early thirties. Then we'd head home (lord, that we drove, really???) to drink more and I would put on that Coldplay CD and headphones and sing at the top of my lungs. I don't remember any of it, of course, I've been a blacker-outer from waaaaayyy back. I would drive him nuts with my drunken off key bellowing. Can you imagine? I was in such pain and such glory all at once.

Only later did we talk about how much he hated it. But what to do? Piss of a drunk person? God. Who the fuck even was I?

I was thinking this morning about how I am almost three years without a drink, without a drunk, or a blackout. How when I sing at the top of my lungs I know I'm doing it, how I'm becoming a better dancer because yoga and also letting go y'all. How I'm alive and living and I know all the things I do all the time. ALL THE TIME.

I was also thinking about the way that being a sober person is just part of my fabric now: that it would seem so weird to drink instead of vice versa. It seems so natural, like I was faking it that whole years of time I drank and now I'm who I really am finally finally finally. It gives me such a burst of joy and relief that I never have to drink again, that I never have to be that me ever again.

I put glittery golden hearts from fall festival prize making on my computer to remind me of how beloved I am by me- by the universe. I dance and sing in the kitchen while I make caramelized onions for half my life (those mugs take forever!). I sign up for writing classes and yoga trainings and I still yell at my children and pout when I don't get my way. I am not the same person I used to be- I am here with faith and learning to comfort my fears. Every time life seems to be as bright as it can be I am mesmerized again by what else is possible. This is not to say there is no sorrow, there is, but I suppose it's all the way I look at it.

Ah, rainy days. :)

The Daily Struggle

There is progress.

Here is what happens when you force yourself to get up and try not to be heartbroken every day: you heal. You eventually get to not feel heartbroken, or even heart impaired. I sometimes forget how hard I work every day to get to where I automatically feel like my self. Where I don't question it, I know it. That place where I forget where I am for a few minutes because I'm lost in what I'm doing. That place where I am not constantly every second steadily berating myself for the simple crime of being. Oh, the being.

I get an email or two a week (not hundreds like someone suggested which made me feel so good and gave me a good laugh) from people who are just starting out. They reach out and say help me. They say I am like you. I want to be sober.

Sometimes I think we give the surface issue all the attention and forget what we're really running from. I gave myself permission to drink too much, and then blamed the drinking for my sad sack life. And so I drank too much. I feel like if I had said "I hate myself" rather than "I hate my drinking" I would have been being more truthful. Drinking was the symptom of a much bigger problem. It's like having a headache while you bang yourself in the head with a hammer. You have to stop hitting yourself and treat the headache. It doesn't really work unless you do both.

The daily struggle began for me when I was five. I can remember feeling forgotten. I can remember trying to be noticed, trying to feel important. I can never clearly remember feeling like I was the person someone was delighted to see. I was an afterthought. For everyone- my parents, my friends. I was an outline of a girl and I was on the sidelines.This may not have been the intention of anyone, but it is a consistent truth in my life. Because of this I cradle my children close every single day and look them in the eyes so they know that they are the lights of my life. I tell them: you are a joy to me. I tell them: you make me happy. That without them my world would be less than. That they are tall as to space important in this world. I tell myself these things too. There is nothing like the comfort of being loved just because you are just you.

One December day in 2012 I decided I was finished. And it turns out that that day I actually was. Looking back the quitting drinking was the easy part- for me. The hard part has been facing myself, dealing with the years of guilt, shame, anger, and pain. Not wanting to face myself was why I drank in the first place. Do you see what I mean?

I've been trying to think of what the secret is for me. Like, what was the magical thing that changed my mind? What made it NOT ok for me to guzzle another couple bottles of white wine that night? How did I decide that was it? And what made it stick then when I was writing in journals about "I had too much to drink again. I know I need to stop" for all my life? I made morning promises several times a week, and broke them on the same night. It used to only take me a few hours to change my mind about being sober, how did I make it this far?

It was this: I wanted to love myself more than I wanted to kill myself. My heart and soul were tired of the daily struggle to drown myself. It was this: I listened when the me part of me said "I love you. It's going to be OK." It was this: I believed I could do it. And I didn't look for reasons to drink again. I look for every reason to stay sober, and never reasons to drink.

I drank because I thought it made me better. And not better as in better than but better as in healed. It blocked the hurt I could not muster the courage to face because it hurt. And so I would get drunk. And then sometimes black out drunk. At the end it was black outs all around.

But I have been facing things. Facing things that are true. Facing things that aren't. Learning what the truth is (I'm OK) and what the truth isn't (I'm not OK). My daily struggles are ones that see progression. Like learning a language or an instrument I am finding myself more in tune. Instead of the same daily struggle (to drink or not to drink) I am having lessons in life. Which actually sounds sort of lovely but can really suck except for when it is really lovely.

For the first time in as long as I can tell I feel peace of mind. Actual peace. In my mind. I feel like it's because I started stopping all the mind stuff and addressed some physical issues. That I am getting into my body and out of my fucking mind. For me it isn't all about what I'm thinking, but what I'm feeling in my body. You know, paying attention to real feelings rather than ones my mind has manufactured for me. It helps so much to see how I'm physically feeling. It's easier to not dismiss the concrete evidence.

The daily struggle is still here: it will stay forever. It's how I handle it that's different. I can handle my self.

There is progress. I can see it. I can feel it. I can trust it. And I am thankful.

Ready

Lord. Where have I been? Every morning I wake up and think, shit. I have a blog post to write. Then I think it again the next day, and then there's so much to say that I sort of got overwhelmed and just put it off for a better time, another day I'll be able to sit down, to concentrate for real. Then I can do it.

Ha ha ha. We all know how that kind of planning goes. But then! The children went to see their grandparents for Mother's Day. My husband is at work. I'm having a huge Saturday night vegetable roasting party and I'm the only one invited so I can do whatever I want. Which means I can cook and write and go to sleep when I get tired. Word.

I finally funked right on out of my funk. Something that helped was this rock my therapist gave me in group the other week. Here it is:

I was talking about how I can't get things to go the way I want or think they should and then we all nodded since I have "issues" with being a little...."controlling"? And then she gave me this rock, some slips of paper, and a rubber band. She said something like: "Write the things you're worried/trying to control on the slips of paper. Rubberband them to the rock. Carry it everywhere. When you're ready to let something go take it off of the rock until there's just the rock. Then maybe be able to let that go too."

I wrote my things: my mom. My dad. My weight. Money. Finding balance. Work frustration. Eating too much. I rubberbanded them to my rock and went to sleep with my rock next to me on the table by my bed.

I got up the next morning and went for a run: me and my rock and my worries. In my head I was bitching at myself for holding on to things, for being worried and not faith full. Chiding myself for not being able to do the rock thing right. Worrying about failing. In my in my head desperate voice I wailed to myself "But what if I fall???"

And then a voice, my own, but from way down deep inside of me said,

"What if I catch you?"

I sobbed in relief. Instant, overwhelming, blanketing full on full out relief.

I looked at the rock in wonder.

Then I remembered that I was in public, and running. And so I said a fervent prayer of thanks out loud straight up to the sky. Then I wiped my eyes and kept on going.

When I got back to the car I took the rubberband off of the rock and put the slips of paper in the door compartment of the car. I drove home with the rock in my lap.

I haven't really carried the rock around since. My parents and I have made a gentle peace with each other- kind of like we were all wearing tight coats and then someone suggested we unbutton them. It still feels weird, but more comfortable. I am still too thinking about my weight, but I'm running, and rolling around on the floor doing yoga. I'm not eating too much on purpose. I gave up money worries because it's May, or Saturday, or a bird chirped.

I'm reading this book. It's changing my life. It came along when I was ready. Ready, just like I was ready for the rock. Ready for my voice.

Ready, after all these years, to trust myself again.

8 Days Until Christmas: Countdown of Good Reasons to be Sober Day 8

Day 8

The value of the help I get and give cannot be measured even with the big ruler. I would never, ever ever have gotten to feel the cradle of a helping hand- whether it be a pen pal, or a friend, or a group, or my own backbone without first asking for help.

8th Good Reason to be Sober

Helping hands

When I was drinking I could never ever ever ask for help. Ever. I just drank and remained helpless. Helpless.

When I quit drinking the one big big biggest thing that made me not jump in the car and buy ninety four bottles of wine to chug while I made dinner was this: I wrote an email to a woman I'd never ever met or heard of and said, "Hey, I'm trying to quit. I'm scared." And then Belle wrote me back and said, "I'd be glad to be your pen pal." And she help save me.

Because I asked.

As I got more sober time I learned something: I could ask myself for help. And then I would show up. Every time. Reliably. I became my own help. I help save myself.

Because I ask.

Then I prayed to the universe for a face-to-face friend and Universe Amy showed up. I call her when I need to say "Gah, life is a plane crash today and my heart is breaking into pieces." and she reminds me that I'm OK. Makes me laugh. Values me. She is help.

Because I ask.

And then I joined a women's recovery group. I cry and laugh it out loud over and over: "Help me. Help me. Help me." All these hearts and hands reach out and save me.

Because I ask.

Some say you gotta sin to get saved. But I think you have to ask to get helped, and when you get helped you get saved more that you ever imagined could be real for your one living life.

You reach out your scared hand and heart and say "Help me. Heal me. Save ME. SAVE ME. HELP ME."

Just ask.

Getting A Miracle

The Good Housekeeping article! Thanks to everyone for your support and kind words. I've gotten a few emails from people who say things like "divine intervention" and "just in time" and that has been really really cool. Y'all know I deep down believe that when you pray the universe will answer, but you have to listen, and if someone reading about me getting sober helps them get sober.....the totally amazingness of that is big to contemplate.

That article coming out led to this:

• 
  

  
  

  Hey, Hope all is well. I wanted to give you a heads up about something that has happened/been happening for awhile now. Amy has quit drinking alcohol as is was a problem for her and our family. She will be 1 year sober this Dec 7th. I am very proud of her and her ongoing accomplishment. This has been a strugle that she has taken on full steam. Bravo on many levels my sweet. As a part of her healing process, she started a blog about her struggle. The name of the blog is Soberbia. It is a journal so to speak, of her struggles. As it turns out, many people read and comment on this blog as it speaks true and in line with other peoples problems with alcohol. This blog is out there for everyone to read and we are happy that so many do! Warning, there is colorful language, plain and simple. A few months ago, Amy was contacted by Good Housekeeping asking about her blog. As it turns out they have a column that is all about self-help/betterment, and they wanted to feature her in the magazine. She said OK. We were hoping to get an opportunity to speak about this in person and figured the wedding wasn't right, so here I am not in person letting you know. The article is scheduled to be in the December issue of Good Housekeeping. As it turns out, December is released the first of November. We were unaware that it was going to be on the newsstands this soon, or we would have talked sooner. We wanted you to be aware in case that someone approached you about the article. I am very proud of Amy and hope that you will support her as I and the children have over this last year. Sorry this is coming to you via email, but it is the most effective way for me to articulate our feelings to everyone.

  Please tell Gram and anyone else that you feel necessary.

  Love to all!

  Jonathan

  December 2013 Page 69 in the "Feel Good" section

  Amy you are a rock star, keep up the great work, Jack Hampton and I are so Proud!

This letter took my breath away. So much love coming from my husband to me that I felt about 27 million feet tall. My heart feels so full. Then I called his grandmother (who is 88 and an old school southern lady) and had to tell her I was an alcoholic, and that pretty much everyone might know about it since I was in a magazine.

"Oh Amy! I am so proud of you!" she said, not missing a beat. Not one second of disapproval. NOT ONE. "Good for you!" she said. More love. More taller.

Then the email from Jonathan's mom came:

I am so thankful that you have shared this with us! I only wish I had known earlier. I would have been praying for Amy....for all of you...and would have been one of her biggest cheerleaders this past year. I have plenty of love and support to give. I have started reading the blog.....from the beginning.....but since I do have to get some work done, I have to save the rest until I'm home. I am SO PROUD of you Amy! My heart is about to pop! Love you so much! Mimi/Mom

Now I am hugely tall. Taller than ever. My heart swelled to as big as it could get, and then stretched out to make room for the support coming from my family and people out in the world who don't even know me but believe in me.

Whoa. Thank you universe. I needed that. Ask and ye shall receive. But you have to ask. And also receive.

It seems like that when you put yourself out there you can get what you give. So I put myself way on out there (way way on out there) and the universe made sure I was safe, and loved, and OK. That since I did something brave I could feel the love that was coming from everywhere: but I had to open my heart to get it. When I said to the world "Here I am: but for real though" the world said "Cool. Here's this love. You are OK."

Sometimes when you spend all your time hiding love just can't find you, no matter how hard you wish for it to show up. But then you stop hiding and love shows up. When you say things like "Help" and "Here I am" and you squinch your eyes closed and hope for the best and then open your eyes and the best shows up too. And then you realize that even a little best is so much better than your old idea of best, and this new big big biggest best is amazing and like a miracle.

That you are loved and that a lot of that love comes from within you yourself is a miracle too.

Getting close to my year anniversary and getting emails from people just starting out makes me think about all the things I was just a year ago. Scared. Drunk. Hidden. Worried. Sad. Unable. Suffocating. Drowning. Full of undone wishing. Under my pretty regular life I was a pretty big mess holding it together with linty old tape and fraying dirty string- liable to break at any moment.

A year ago today I was probably hungover. Then I woke up that one day and decided I wanted my miracle. That I could have it. That things like "love" and "best" were actually for naked mole rat people like me too. That I could put down the thing that made me unable to see the gifts the universe had been holding out to me all along. That I was worthy. And strong. Capable. That I was a live-r and not a life-r.

And so maybe here you are: hungover. What if at this time next year you've been sober for almost a year now? What if you look around and decide it's time for your miracle too? What if you think it will be too hard, and that you can't can't can't but then you do it anyway?

If you are reading this you can have your miracle too. I give you permission from me and the universe because the universe once gave me permission and told me it was OK to offer it to anyone else who needed it. It's hard and sad and glorious and you won't even believe that it's you anymore until that day when you've been sober for a while and you suddenly realize you're the you-est you you've ever been. Then you will drop to your knees in you heart and give out thanks for strength and for yourself. You will be soul naked and scared but you will be you and you will love yourself so much for it. And you will cry this deep heartfelt cry, and as the tears of joy and blessing roll down your face you will know.

You are a miracle too.