Overexposed: Do I Want Sobriety To Be My “Thing” ?

When the email came from the Emmy-award winning TV producer, I was caught completely off-guard. “I came across some of your essays…,” began her message. What-in-the-freaking-Hell? Logically, I know that anything I put on the internet is fair game. Everything I post is being released into the highly unregulated world of digital forever-ness. But who operates on logic?

I’m just like any writer gal —subtly self-promoting through #humblebrags and refreshing my stats neurotically after a new Medium story publishes. Sure-I daydream about my “big break”. But fabricated fame feels quite harmless.

So after a frenzied Google check, I called the producer’s private line. Overthinking the situation would have landed me underneath my down comforter in the fetal position, so I simply dialed her number and took a deep breath. I’m not sure what I expected.

Did I think she’d be interested in publicizing the barely outlined book I’m writing (the one I’ve only told my cat about)? Did I think she wanted me to be the spokesperson for women who’ve forfeited their professional careers to reconnect with the world more creatively? Yes — I kind of thought those things.

But she wanted my sloppy story. You know--the one I’ve been writing about publicly for more than a year. She wanted me hiding wine bottles under pillow cases. She wanted a woman who was fun, fearless, and functional by day and full of dark vodka-fueled secrets by night. Essentially, she wanted good daytime TV and a story that might resonate with the dark underworld of mommy drinkers.

My story’s not daytime TV messy and as a result, I felt like a giant disappointment to her. My drinking was far from secret. Read my stories and you’ll know that friends and family were the first to pour me a glass. It was my internal deterioration that proved problematic. My hard-candy shell appeared bright, bullet-proof, and ready to party — it was the inside that was melted goo.

So, after giving a five minute version of a thirty-four year story to the producer — I was graciously screened out. Had I “fit the bill” for the popular show’s addiction segment, I would have bowed out gracefully — curtsied before the curtain ever rose. This was an audition I didn’t sign up for.

But this unexpected “ambush” got me thinking. Who was reading my stuff? What did it say about me? I’ve, indeed, been swept up in the seductive whirlwind of a virtually validated catharsis, but do I really want alcoholism to be my thing? At some point, doesn’t the villain get what’s coming to her so the hero can move-the-fuck-on?

Many of us dream of making it big — having the job, the family, the money, and the ability to balance it all with grace and humility. I’ve even gone so far as to imagine myself on the Ted Talk stage — regaling the rapt audience with tales of my dramatic transformation.

But the recent TV opportunity made my stomach turn. Realizing that a lifetime of lessons and years of hard-fought change could be watered down into a 5 minute soundbite made me sad. My story, without a doubt, can help other people. But it’s important to me to tell it more fully.

In hindsight, it all felt very “first-date”. That dread of having to explain who Crazy Cousin Ricky is before you can launch into a story about his latest antics. That square-one feeling versus the chili-on-a-cold-day-comfort of chatting with someone who really knows you. But writers aren’t ever guaranteed that ease. The audience is always evolving. Each new follower sizing me up skeptically and drawing conclusions based on a mere slice of who I am.

So how do I get past that need to paint a detailed landscape, when my story requires zooming in? How do I quiet that screaming voice that says, “I’m complicated! I’m more than this! I’m not just sober — I’m fucking hilarious and hate those messages on Dove dark chocolate wrappers and I didn’t kiss a boy until I was fifteen!” How do I edit down the details without editing out my essence?

You might think I’m ready to scrub my teeth clean of the remaining Pinot Noir stains. But I don’t sense that happening yet. As I stretch my pen a bit further, I have no doubt my former lover will continue to make her cameos.

But I promise to zoom in and out as necessary. I intend to accept that you’ll never know about my horrific perm in 5th grade or that thing I do with my fingers when I’m nervous. The stories that any of us tell are only ever pieces — cross-sections pressed between two glass rectangles and magnified in the reader’s eyes. And hopefully, as dials are adjusted and our words come into focus, someone out there feels a little less alone.

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Jen Anderson is currently taking a break from her therapist gig to focus on writing, coaching, motherhood, and her self-proclaimed Jendependence Movement.

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