I quit my high school English teaching job the first week of January, 2023. I clung to the idea that the space and rest I got during winter break was what I needed to finish the school year, but I knew deep down that I needed to quit. Just take it one day at a time until June, I thought.
But after getting ready for school the morning of January 4th, I physically could not get myself out of my apartment door. I tried to figure out what I needed to do to just get myself on the subway, but my mind kept coming to one conclusion: stay home.
The same exact thing happened Thursday the 5th. That afternoon, I called my coteacher. She somehow knew what I needed to say without me saying it. “I knew this was going to happen… I just didn’t think it would be this fast,” she said. “But your health comes first, and we’ll be okay.”
My school wasn’t a safe place for me, physically and mentally. I’ll leave it at that for now. I tried my best to control what I could, and it wasn’t enough.
I called my supervisor next and tried to explain what was going on in my mind and body. After ten minutes of rambling, she stopped me. “Is it fair for me to say that you need to quit?” I said yes, and began to sob. “Okay. Next question — it sounds like you’re past the point of giving two weeks. If today is your last day, do not feel guilty; we’ve got it covered. That being said, are you coming in again?”
My shoulders loosened in a way they hadn’t in a year in a half. “No, I don’t think so,” I sniffed.
“Okay. Remember, no guilt,” she repeated over and over as I continued to cry into the phone.
When people say “listen to your body,” it’s usually implied that we have a choice not to. But I truly believe I didn’t have a choice in quitting my job that week, whether that was a result of divine intervention or a collaborative highjacking mission between my brain and body.
My body knew that quitting my job would mean quitting the poisonous cocktail of habits and survival tactics that would literally kill me if they continued. Now, five months later, I can’t possibly imagine taking a sip of that cocktail again.
I’ve always been a box-checker. It’s so satisfying having a to-do list that gives me a reliable dopamine rush at the end of each day.
This is part of what drew me to getting Reframe, an alcohol habit-changing app, in the spring of 2022. I loved that the app immediately gave me daily tasks, gentle reminders, and bouts of wisdom to center me each morning as I tried to finish a tumultous school year. But with the daily motivation came daily shame and embarassment as I logged the drinks I’d had the night before.
I averaged about 20 drinks a week up through August 2022. Each time I came to the end of a week, I made a plan for cutting back for the following week. Instead of following through, though, I created a new habit of allowing my excuses to take the reins.
I stopped tracking my drinks altogether in the fall of 2022, but I know I was averaging 25–30 drinks a week. I’d hoped for 12 drinks or less each week throughout the fall, but my excuse-following habit was amplified by taking a coaching position, being given a special education caseload, and reviving a club at school.
If I could summarize why I drank as much as I did as a teacher, it was to stop thinking.
They say teachers make approximately 1,500 decisions a day, and ask an average of 400 questions a day. So each day, when I finally got home after 8–10 hours of deciding and questioning, I wanted nothing else than to watch shows I’d already watched and drink my mind into silence.
What’s ironic is that, on paper, I was doing great in the fall. I was on top of it with my work. I had started coaching Girls’ Soccer, and they grew tremendously, from not knowing how to kick a ball to winning their last two games. I had just started becoming a more involved and prominent staff member.
I went to grab a few beers after work one day in December and spotted one of my coworkers, who was the STEM department chair. He told me, “You know, at our last department chair meeting with admin, we talked about you, and everyone agreed that you’re kicking ass.”
You know when you start playing with the idea of something—say, quitting—and a single event makes you question everything? (Or is that just how teachers are trained to think, since we’re told it’s normal to have a horrific day-to-day experience, with the occasional silver-lining moment that “makes it all worth it”? …I digress.)
My coworker’s comment made me think, Wow, maybe I am kicking ass; maybe I’ve been overthinking and just need to keep doing what I’m doing.
Right before winter break, I was in the same bar, grading papers over a beer. Two coworkers came in and I sat with them for a few minutes before I headed home. One of them complained about various events from the day, as per her usual, and concluded, “I just keep telling myself, it could be worse.”
She had been at the school for about six years. In my year and a half as her coworker, there were at least five times that I held her while she cried at that bar.
I got on the train knowing I had a choice to make over the break.
The first few months after quitting consisted of scrolling through TikTok and Instagram; drinking; smoking & eating edibles; and taking naps for the entire afternoon. I had no idea what to do with myself; numbing was the only way I knew how to operate in my free time, but now I had all the time in the world for anxiety, depression, and a lack of direction to fester.
Sure, I also started writing more frequently, continued training for my upcoming half-marathons, spent a lot of time with my partner, and went on various adventures throughout the city—but I didn’t know how to have a relationship with myself outside of cyclically working and numbing.
Jackie. Provided by the author.
Counting drinks and ticking boxes was never going to fix my dependence on alcohol, although I’d held on to hope for years. The turning point for me was realizing that I was numbing — and finding the courage to explore why I was numbing. We can’t help ourselves if we don’t know what we’re doing and why.
But more than anything, I can attribute my personal motivation for cutting back to being so. fucking. tired. of being a shell of a human. It’s simply gotten too old feeling shitty every morning, checking texts and posts to see if I said anything stupid, and sleeping the sunshine away. I know I’m very lucky to be burnt out on substance abuse, as many people want to drink themselves to this point but can’t.
So, if I’ve learned anything about myself in the past five months, it’s that I know I want to live well. I don’t know what thriving looks like yet, but I’ve known numbing, surviving, and pretending, and I won’t be going back.
About the author. Jackie was born & raised in Southern California and is now a Brooklyn-based writer, an ex-teacher, and a coffee shop enthusiast. You can find her in her writing journey at @jackiehubbardwrites on Instagram, or eating sushi in Prospect Park.
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
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?
Young Kenneth. Submitted by author.
Dear 12 year old me, It’s the summer before your 13th bday. You have a friend staying the night from school. Mom and Dad leaves you guys there to go hang out with friends. Pops has his liquor stash in the cabinet in the kitchen. Before you open it to take 12 shots of E&J Brandy, know this won’t be the last time you get drunk. You will experience being drunk a few more times over the next 25 years. Even though you throw up and feel like shit it won’t be your last time. But that’s what happens when you are left alone a lot to fend for yourself.
You are highly intelligent despite what any teacher will tell you in Jr high, high school and even college. Yes, that’s right college. You will be the first one in the family to get a Bachelor’s/Master’s degree. You are a great athlete but know the family will be too busy to see you play. Will it hurt, HELL YEAH! You get your heart broken a few times by girls and women. But don’t give up cause she is out there.
You will experience some shit others may only hear or read about. But that’s what makes you unique. You think you faced racism? You are barely scratching the surface. Can you believe you join the Army. Just like your Brother Anthony who is on deployment right now. And you end of getting stationed in El Paso, TX just like him. You get the chance to live any many cities. You experience pregnancies at 14, 17, 26 & 27. But no kids just yet and I’m 43 today. That time will come. Your dream of working in radio comes true. But depression sinks in once your not able to advance in the field. You pickup heavy drinking at 25 and over the next 12 years it’s hell for you. But you are strong enough that you make it out of it to become an author, podcaster, mentor and public speaker. You go to rehab 4 times but you finally got it right.
Kenneth today. Submitted by author.
I can say so much more about how life will be, but I want you to live it up to the fullest. Don’t change a thing cause when you reach my age you will say it was well worth it and probably do it the same exact way God has in store for you. Keep that million dollar smile cause many people will continue to gravitate to you. You don’t hear this enough but I love you and will be there with you every step of the way.
Follow Kenneth on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at @12facesofsober
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.
Guest Submission by Cathy Allen, veteran educator.
Audio
In my life, I have believed treat others as you would have them treat you. I spent my life loving others and treating others who I longed for to be there for me, to love me. Somewhere around 2007 2008, my coach said to ‘me, “They are not you.” I stepped back and realized I wanted my students to be those eager to please students that I was in school. I can now see that I was a little girl trying to earn my love. If I worked hard enough, did well enough, I would finally be loved the way I dreamed.
In the past almost 2 years, I have never had someone love me the way I loved because no one I loved was trying to earn my love. They just loved me or they didn’t. It was not about tote boards and or keeping count. Not about reciprocation. I could never earn the love that I was given because love is a choice, not a reward. Read that again, love is not a reward.
You mean, the people in my life love because they want to and not because I support them to a fault, that I gave my body up to have their children, that I am such a great teacher and make math so easy. I can see the narcissism as I right. I can see how egocentric love is in this atmosphere and how abandoned I felt when others did not show up for me. I can see how this adult woman kept giving till she almost died trying to be the woman that would finally be loved or treasured by her children or by her students or by the men in her life.
Ouch- this is such a painful truth to realize. And exhausting! I drank to keep up with the demands of earning love. I drank to manage the anxiety and overwhelm. I drank to deal with the stress of 18 hours days filled with teaching, mothering and girl friending. I didn’t eat to maintain my physical beauty because if I didn’t watch my weight, then I would get fat. And if I got fat, I would not be loved. You mean I had to be a size 10 while I was saving the children of the future and rear my children to be more loved than I was ever loved as a child?
The inescapable truth is that I was always disappointed. My students were pre teen and teenage jerks trying to live their clumsy life and respecting me was not their priority. Doing math – not their priority. I made that about me as their teacher not acknowledging they are in charge of their own choices and they are going to do what they will without thinking about what I want even once. My children were clumsily trying to figure out their own lives and loving me was not their top priority. Read that again, my children’s number one priority is not loving me. It is loving themselves.
That one truth right there – their number one priority is loving themselves. No one ever taught me to do that. Or that loving myself was even a thing. The truth is – if I don’t love myself, I will always be looking to someone else to love me and it was never going to be enough.
My favorite part about my daughter is that she unapologetically will not do anything for others because she is supposed to. She decides each day what her priority is and who she chooses to love. She says no when she can’t show up and be herself and she often leaves places that are not ready to celebrate all of her, even it is my family of origin. She follows through on her commitments, but if you are not someone for whom she greatly loves, it probably won’t happen. And I absolutely love that about her. Yes, it stung as I was healing and there were many times I felt alone. But, I needed to heal myself in the last two years. I was going to heal my heart, not anyone else in my life. That was painful and incredibly lonely. The lonely parts were filled with tears, but I am no longer looking to others to meet my needs. I ask for help when I need it, but I climb into bed knowing I was there to take care of myself today and I will do it for myself tomorrow. I have climbed into bed so many nights wanting someone there to hold me. That is me now. I now treat myself the way I wanted others to. Turns out it was me all along. Sure as hell was never alcohol.
I am a veteran teacher of 23 years and mother of two kids. One is grown and 24 years old, and the other is 14 years old. I got sober on August 11, 2020, after experiencing some scary blackout drunk moments during the pandemic. My anxiety at that point was through the roof, and increased anxiety medication was not helping. Out of desperation, I cut out alcohol. I did this seven days before school started and in August 2020. My first 100 days of sobriety were still filled with anxiety and insomnia. At that point, my body depended on alcohol to do either. It took till about Day 100 for that to begin to resolve. During, that time I got an addiction coach, I started therapy, and I joined the online sobriety community called The Luckiest Club started by Laura McKowen, author of We Are the Luckiest. I began my journey into acknowledging and healing the impact of my childhood trauma and my problematic drinking throughout adulthood. I began understanding the impact of generational trauma and began working to break the cycle. I started an online Facebook group supporting sober teachers because of the prevalence of alcohol offered as the only coping strategy to teachers. I started writing my recovery blog, The Teacher Mom Alcohol Lie in September 2020, and it became a vital tool in my recovery, processing all of my learning and healing. Through this work, I came to understand alcohol use disorder is a trauma response. I came to understand alcohol is an addictive substance and that using alcohol to cope is not a defect. It is a public health crisis in the United States and in the world. Many of the people I support in sobriety have a mother wound, and I’m still healing from mine. I am passionate about helping people shed the stigma of addiction and begin to understand their story of triumph in no longer using alcohol to manage their trauma and anxiety. As trauma and substance use disorder survivors, we are truly the bravest and strongest people I will ever know. I hope to become certified as a peer support person and shift to supporting people in recovery.
My name is Bethany. I am a heroin addict. I have been clean for almost four years now. I can’t say that I will ever not be an addict because when it comes to opiates, I cannot stop. Before I found opiates, I was an angsty teen who loved trouble. As a kid, I moved around, so I never went to a school for two years in a row. My mom and dad were poor and had no idea what they were doing. My stepdad adopted me because my biological father was an alcoholic and addicted to cocaine. My birth father was abusive, and my mom did everything she could to get me away from him. So I had this new family and moved to Oregon. It was good for a little while. Mom and dad were always fighting, so my home was like a war zone. So many of these things shaped me into the woman I am today.
Bethany shares about her four year anniversary on TikTok.
I started using drugs when I was 14. I had been smoking weed and drinking with my friends, went to juvenile hall twice before the age of 16, and started running away from home. I never fit in, and I was always different. I had always had a fascination with drugs since I was a kid. I didn’t like how I felt and wanted to change it. I didn’t do much before I found heroin. I never did pills. I did ecstasy a couple of times. Mushrooms were horrific for me, and I dropped acid once. Then one night, I was in Portland, Oregon. I was hanging out with men in their thirties, and I was seventeen. They asked if I wanted to get high; I thought they meant weed. I followed them, and suddenly they had needles and cookers out. They were putting belts on their arms, and I asked, “what are you doing?” They said, “heroin.” I shook and said, “I had never done it before.” They said they would show me. So, I let some guy inject me with heroin with a dirty needle at seventeen. I didn’t even know that you could do heroin any other way. They teach you in drug prevention classes in school that you use needles to do heroin. I remember I kept asking him if it was going to kill me over and over. He finally looked at me and said in a very gnarly voice, “Do you want to do it, or do you want to be a pussy?” So I let him do it.
I had never felt a feeling like it in my life. It’s what I had been searching for all these years. It was my one true love. From that moment forward, all I ever wanted to do was heroin. For the next nine years, I went to treatment fourteen times. I knew how to be sober, and I also knew how to stay clean; I just chose not to. I went to my first AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting at seventeen. My biological dad took me. He told me it would save my life someday, and he was right. It eventually did.
I’ll save time by saying I moved around a lot. The faces were different, and the places were different. But the situation was always the same, I was the same, and the drugs were the same. The turning point was a whole year later. I found out I was pregnant in July or August of 2017. I was living in a recovery house, and I was working. I was honestly doing the damn thing and was getting my life together. Still, I made the dumb decision to hang out with that guy at the meetings people warned me about, and I ended up pregnant.
At first, I took Plan B and prayed, but I saw God had other plans when the test was positive. My soon-to-be daughter was my miracle. I had lost a previous pregnancy to my drug use, and I used again while pregnant this time. I was scared, and I wished I wouldn’t have the baby. I never wanted kids, to be honest. I called my mom, told her the situation, and she told me to live with her in Kentucky. I was in Oregon, struggling to get off heroin, ten weeks pregnant, and homeless with no one to help me. So I came back to Kentucky and got clean. I stayed clean the rest of my pregnancy and gave birth to a beautiful, HEALTHY, perfect little girl. Despite my turnaround, I decided to get high again when I was nine weeks postpartum.
Narcan. Naloxone is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. Photo by NEXT Distro on Unsplash
I used a $20 bag of what I thought was heroin. It turned out to be fentanyl. I overdosed in my car with my then-boyfriend, and my 9-week-old daughter was in the back seat. The first people to get to me used Narcan, which saved my life. Eventually, I came to with an air mask on my face and the cops holding my baby. Terror doesn’t begin to explain how I felt. I remember the cops asking me questions and believing that for sure I was going to jail. They kept telling me they weren’t arresting me; instead, I would get a fine and a court date. I asked the EMT who helped get ready to go in the back of the ambulance, “Could I kiss my baby goodbye?” He said, “If she mattered to you, you wouldn’t have done this.” My heart shattered, partially because he was right.
From the hospital, I went straight to The Healing Place, a long-term recovery facility in Louisville. While there, I found out some guy recorded my entire overdose, and it was a Facebook live post. It went viral. My whole family in Oregon saw it. The local news did a story on me, and I was disgusted with myself. I used that as motivation to stay in treatment and made it through the entire program. After all was said and done, I went to court and wasn’t a felon—no jail time. I gave custody of my daughter to my aunt while I worked on myself. I completed the program at The Healing Place in nine months, got a job, and moved into a halfway house. I met my husband and continued to work my ass off. I got an apartment and a newer car. At two years sober, I got custody of my daughter back. It was a long road, but it was so worth it though.
The reason why Narcan is so important because I am someone to someone. My mother would have buried her daughter. My dad would have buried his daughter. Most importantly, my daughter would have never known the wonderful person I am. She only would have known that I was a heroin addict and died a heroin addict. Today she knows me as a human being who is deserving of life an love just like anyone else. Had I died that day, the world would have lost a beautiful and talented soul.
Bethany’s Father and Daughter
My overdose was on June 13th, 2018, and my first day of sobriety was on June 14th, 2018. I have four years of sobriety.
My children have never seen me high or drunk. My kids have a good and loving mother. I have a job that values me. Now I’m back in college, chasing a degree in social work. I help others as much as possible and have a beautiful life today. I thank all those people who were there the day I almost died. I even thank that man who took that video because I couldn’t be at the top without hitting my rock bottom. If you think you can’t do it, you can. If you think you can figure out a different way to stop doing drugs or drinking, keep trying. I did, and eventually, I ended up in meetings with like-minded people, and it saved my life—one day at a time.
Bethany with her mother and children.
I’m so grateful I didn’t die an alcoholic death as my biological grandpa and dad did. That I didn’t die alone, it doesn’t have to be your story or mine. Narcan saved my life. Narcan saved my daughter’s mommy. Narcan saved my mom and dad’s daughter. Narcan saved my husband’s wife. Narcan saved my friend’s friend. Carry it. Use it. Who cares if they’ve been Narcanned a million times. One of those times could be the last, and they could stay sober. A life is always worth fighting for, no matter how horrifying it looks. My daughter’s guardian al litem, an attorney assigned to children, told me I was a monster. She hoped I never got custody of my daughter. Today I have had my daughter back for two years, and I have a baby, and neither of them knows me as a monster and never will.
Transgender. Recovering alcoholic. Both labels carry stigmas. Coming out as each would change the way people viewed me. Both developments were positive, even cause to celebrate, in their own ways. There were also key differences, like the fact that I understand alcoholism as a disease, which transness definitely isn’t. But reflecting on the similarities between these parts of my narrative has helped me better understand why I stayed in the closet—in both senses—for as long as I did.
The first stage of coming out—as anything—is coming out to yourself. For many people, this stage is the hardest, because it means facing your internalized biases, your denial, and grieving the loss of a life you thought you’d have, or the person you believed yourself to be. For me, one major obstacle I faced in coming out to myself as trans—namely my tendency to avoid dealing with my own problems by comparing myself to others—was also a major obstacle on my path to sobriety.
I have a journal that dates back to six years ago, when I was first trying to get my drinking under control. Every other entry contained a new resolution. For example:
I will only drink x number of drinks per day
I will not start drinking before x o’clock
I will not drink alone
I will not drink more than x days per week
Two or three times a week I’d invent a new rule, because I’d break the previous rule by day two or three. The fascinating thing about these journal entries, is how blatantly obvious it is, looking at them now, that I was incapable of drinking in moderation.
But even though my alcoholism was right under my nose—and I was the one documenting it—I couldn’t see it. Hence, I just kept writing new resolutions, none of which involved getting sober. That was something only alcoholics did, and I wasn’t an alcoholic. I mean yes, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to moderate my drinking for years. Yes, I became a monster when I drank, who did and said awful things, then blacked out and woke up sick with remorse, only to do it all over again. But I knew real alcoholics, who’d gone to jail and rehab multiple times, and whose organs were literally shutting down. I wasn’t like them. They had a problem. They needed help. I just needed to learn better self-control.
That same notebook also documents the period of time when I was first trying to make sense of my “gender issues”: the feelings of discomfort I experienced when I looked in the mirror and saw a woman’s face. Or when I took off my clothes and saw a woman’s body. Or when someone would refer to me as “ma’am” or “miss.” Or when anyone tried to touch my chest or genitals during sex. It didn’t occur to me in any of these journal entries that I might be a trans man—after all, the trans men I had read about had always known they were trans. My story was not like theirs. It was not as linear, or as stereotypical. Those were trans people, people who actually had a reason to transition. I was just troubled, weird about gender, and would have to find some way to live with that weirdness.
So rather than allowing myself to name my true desires—i.e., the desire to transition and to claim a male identity—I drowned them in booze and sought external validation by sleeping with straight women, adopting toxically masculine traits, and hurting myself and a number of other people along the way. Looking back I wonder how much of this damage would have been prevented had someone told me that you could be trans without having a textbook trans narrative, that transness, like alcoholism, looks different on everyone.
There are so many obstacles that stand in the way of our growth, self-acceptance, and healing as queer and trans people: fear, stigma, guilt, shame, and social pressure just to name a few. The same goes for us addicts, alcoholics, and folks who struggle with substance abuse. The last thing we need is to make the journey any harder, or prolong our suffering by comparing ourselves to others. There are infinite possible trans narratives, gay narratives, and recovery narratives. None is better or truer than another. They all just are. And the sooner we can claim ours, the sooner we can heal, and share our light and hope with others.
Originally published at QueerKentucky
Adrian Silbernagel (he/him) is a queer transgender man who lives in Louisville, KY. He will have 5 years of continuous sobriety on September 28, 2022. Adrian is a writer, speaker, activist, and founding co-op member at Old Louisville Coffee Co-op: a late-night sober coffee shop that is opening soon in Louisville, KY.
