Part Four

I celebrated a year of sobriety with a trip to wine country.

And other paradoxical oversights that come with letting go.

Listen, I’ve spent an arduous amount of time this last year cultivating an exhausting hyperawareness of my surroundings; helicopter parenting my broken, catatonic, withdrawing addict self into a fully functioning member of society required an admission and an acceptance of just how stunted I truly was. I took my first drink at ten*, and while the needing relief at any and all costs side of things didn’t hit until I was about 21, my sometimes-sober-mostly-relapsing-self eventually realized I needed to be radical when it came to getting clean. 90 meetings in 90 days? Deal. I was as willing to listen as only the dying can be.

Initially, “radical” meant months of meticulously curating “safe spaces,” and crafting bullet-proof “escape plans” from any situation that might cause me to slip up. And I did slip up. I slipped up a lot. April 4th 2023 was not my first go at this. Escape plans don’t work when you don’t realize you’re in danger.

Sensibly, for many alcoholics, an “unsafe space” might be a night out at a bar with friends. But I was a bartender even well into my recovery - most of my life had existed in these spaces. Most truthfully, (and less predictably), my biggest “trigger” was time left alone in my own head. My disease is a selfish, sharp wordsmith.

But maybe that’s predictable too.

I baby-proofed my life for a bit. And I did it with all precision and tenacity with which an expecting mother secures her wall outlets and bleach bottles. But helicopter-parenting yourself through your twenties, your thirties, your whole life, it isn’t sustainable.

And so I let go. One day at a time.

I stopped trying to control everything, and started doing the work I’d been making every excuse in the literal book to avoid. I was afraid to do it, and I still am sometimes. But that’s when things really began to change, and the obsession began to dwindle.

Yes, obsession.

I’d accumulated months of sobriety, but still found myself obsessed with alcohol. If I wasn’t thinking about drinking, I was thinking about not drinking. I can still go through phases like this if I’m complacent. It just means I need a meeting; even if it’s Christmas in a town I’ve never been to before. Knowing there is a solution is the greatest gift.

So, how’d I end up in wine country to celebrate my sober-versary?

The truth is, I didn’t even really think about it. I was too busy thinking about the generosity that made a night away like that possible. I was thinking about the incredible partner I got to celebrate with. I was thinking that today, I’m the kind of person who is capable of acknowledging her accomplishment and being proud of herself. I was thinking about the food. I was blinded by gratitude in the best possible way. Even to the extent that when I told a coworker about my upcoming trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake, he looked at me perplexed, and asked, "Aren't you sober?"

Then I thought about it a little bit.

Would I recommend it to anyone in recovery? No.

There’s this old saying in AA, “If you sit in a barber’s chair long enough, you’ll eventually get a haircut.” Brooke today is irritated by that phrase. And maybe that irritation is a red flag and a lack of acceptance. I don’t know.

All I know is that I had one of the best meals of my life, with one of the best people in my life, who moved the vodka served alongside our oysters off of the plate. And when our server came by and acknowledged it, I was able to tell him, “I’m actually in recovery, a year sober…But these oysters are SO good without the vodka too, thank you,” because I’m a people pleaser who talks a little too much. We’re working on that part next.

Progress, not perfection.

*It was the bottom half of a lukewarm Mike's Hard, nosy.