Three Regrets of a Decade Lost to Drinking
Moving back to move forward
Regret is a rubber band. It snaps you back to right where you don’t want to be, time and again. I spent a decade with my toxic twin lovers, Chablis and Vodka. And when I freed myself from drinking and ditched them, there they were: 10 years that could have turned out so differently, and me in front of them, like looking at a crumbling monument, imposing, built by my own choices, brick by brick.
“We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow” — Fulton Oursler
When I put down the bottles, I could have gotten drunk on the shame and guilt of drinking in the first place. Half-remembered scenes, like car lights passing by in the night, or overly bright flashes of a red carpet of Oh You Didn’t Do That, I felt like water was rising to the point of drowning. I remember regret from before, though: The regret while drinking, regretting that things weren’t, couldn’t be, different. Until they were.
Regret is a prison cell. Piecing together a life lived with high-functioning alcoholism for ten years, I was overwhelmed. I thought I’d left the prison of addiction, and still served a sentence of regret and guilt.
- Regret for lost opportunities
