On Sobriety.

Twenty years. One day at a time.

Twenty years ago, two days before the New Year, I walked up Fairmount Boulevard in Cleveland Heights to Jane’s house. A month earlier, my friend Tina had informed me that Jane — a luminous light of a human — was sober. We had stood in Tina’s cold garage smoking, me with wine glass in hand, when I tearfully explained to her that I knew I had to quit drinking. She cried too as she had been prepping to give me her private intervention speech.

I had been a daily drinker since I was in my early 20s. By my mid 30s, I was struggling to hide my unwellness. I took medication for panic in the morning just to be able to leave the house. I would then drink coffee and smoke cigarettes until I had to take another pill, my adrenal system hijacking my fuel supply. Each night, I would drink. Some nights I w0uld black out. I still have dreams I have done something terrible only I can’t remember what it is.

Every single day I wanted it to be different. And every single day, I repeated the same actions. At some point, I became “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I began to feel the embarrassment of public drunkenness, forgetting a nighttime conversation with a fellow parent, being the polar opposite of who I wanted to be. Somehow, I found the courage to take a step into a room I never, ever wanted to visit.

On a cold winter’s morning, before my first meeting twelve-step meeting, Jane brought me in to her solarium sanctuary and told me a bunch of brilliant and hopeful things but the one I remember was this, delivered in a way that made me understand the words “beseeching” and “grace.”

There is so much love.

Then she took me to a meeting in a church basement, the second oldest women’s meeting in the world. Miraculously, I kept showing up. I cried for about a year of meetings and clenched my teeth the rest of the time. I started taking Pilates. I moved, I breathed, I did what I intended to do. For an addict, these are miraculous achievements.

I have so many tools now that I use to stay as healthy as I can. Movement, meditation, service work … these are all in the kit of parts I have put together for myself to stay relatively not-crazy. But it is so important to me that I don’t forget the addict part of myself … my inner slick trickster who made me believe that the best thing I could do any given day was to have another Jack Daniels or glass of wine.

I am one of the lucky ones. Michael was not. Jen was not. So many others who are sick and suffering are not.

So with immense gratitude, I offer myself to any of you who may need a hand. Every single good thing I have today is the direct result of this moment, twenty years ago. If I can help you in any way, please reach out.

I have added to Jane’s promise.

There is so much love.
There is so much fun.
There is so much laughter.
There is so much to do.

Ready?