Day 19
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy BIRTHDAY DEAR MEEEEEE, happy birthday to me.
Welcome to my first sober birthday. I was up at 5 am, off to the hospital and worked all day. It seemed like every single person who wished me a joyful spin around the sun told me wanted to know what I was going to drink to celebrate. Uhhhh, well, random person, my plan was to start with grapefruit Perrier and then switch to Sleepytime tea and be asleep by 9:30. Woot woot!
I really didn't feel like it, but I decided that since I had a rare evening alone in the house tonight (DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!), I probably should go to a meeting. I don't really have a usual Thursday meeting, so I used my app to find one nearby. It turned out to be a women's meeting in a small church basement 15 minutes from my house. There were about 12 women seated around the table and honestly, many of them looked pretty rough. It smelled like rotting trash and stale cigarette smoke and I had forgotten my signature can of Perrier, so expectations were LOW. (Ever the eternal optimist, of course.)
We started the meeting by reading a chapter about Step One from a women's adaptation of the Big Book. I started to drift off until I heard someone rasp out the words "...and we were doubly condemned by being alcoholics AND women." WHAT? I snapped to attention and quickly read over the paragraph. It essentially was pointing out the difference between men and women in terms of societal stigma. My initial assessment of the group felt petty, spoiled and judgmental. As each woman went around the table sharing their experiences, torrents of abuse, pain and submission flowed, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness were rampant and in some women, a resigned defeat dominated their presence. I felt shattered for these women. And yet among them, there was a kind of fierceness that I have only felt in the presence of survivors. These women spoke of breaking off engagements with abusive partners, of being single moms as the only one holding their household together with little to no time for "self-care" and of working the steps over and over again to overcome the fallout that surrounds alcoholism: eating disorders, insecurity, poverty and in one particularly heartbreaking story: "you know, doing what you have to do to survive" as she shrugged her shoulders. These women were doing the same work toward sobriety that the wealthy women in my suburban group were doing, but with far, far less resources. If thats not gritty, I don't know what is.
I love this group. They are broken yet healing, beaten down yet hopeful, despairing yet persevering. I think I will affectionately call them my "Hot Mess Group" and I will definitely keep going. I will keep going not because I think I'm any different from them, but because I am them. And I am grateful for the insight that their little circle of trust allowed me to come to tonight.
I have spent so many years drinking to numb my feelings of weakness and insecurity in an attempt to show the world how tough I am. I would boast about "drinking the boys under the table" (I didn't) or matching the biggest guy at the bar shot for shot (cringe) and thats what my overall persona became. I have slowly molded myself into this woman who claims to be a feminist but attempts to behave like a man. I claim that I'm better off single and that my life is so much easier without that pesky loser of a husband around. If that was true, why was I drinking myself into a stupor every single night to forget how hard it is to raise these kids by myself? To drown out the loneliness that comes from attending weddings and social outings as the only single person? To tamp down the feelings of jealously when my friends and acquaintances post pictures of themselves with the "love of their lives" as they "celebrate xx years of wedded bliss together, through thick and thin"?
Tonight I learned that my real power is going to come from embracing the fact that I have become powerless to control my drinking and find strength in humility, kindness, transparency and grace. Grace toward others that I meet on this journey and most of all, grace for myself. I'm certainly not there yet, but it feels good to have a tangible goal. To put these words out into the stratosphere, even if no other person ever reads them. Goodnight xo
Welcome to my first sober birthday. I was up at 5 am, off to the hospital and worked all day. It seemed like every single person who wished me a joyful spin around the sun told me wanted to know what I was going to drink to celebrate. Uhhhh, well, random person, my plan was to start with grapefruit Perrier and then switch to Sleepytime tea and be asleep by 9:30. Woot woot!
I really didn't feel like it, but I decided that since I had a rare evening alone in the house tonight (DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!), I probably should go to a meeting. I don't really have a usual Thursday meeting, so I used my app to find one nearby. It turned out to be a women's meeting in a small church basement 15 minutes from my house. There were about 12 women seated around the table and honestly, many of them looked pretty rough. It smelled like rotting trash and stale cigarette smoke and I had forgotten my signature can of Perrier, so expectations were LOW. (Ever the eternal optimist, of course.)
We started the meeting by reading a chapter about Step One from a women's adaptation of the Big Book. I started to drift off until I heard someone rasp out the words "...and we were doubly condemned by being alcoholics AND women." WHAT? I snapped to attention and quickly read over the paragraph. It essentially was pointing out the difference between men and women in terms of societal stigma. My initial assessment of the group felt petty, spoiled and judgmental. As each woman went around the table sharing their experiences, torrents of abuse, pain and submission flowed, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness were rampant and in some women, a resigned defeat dominated their presence. I felt shattered for these women. And yet among them, there was a kind of fierceness that I have only felt in the presence of survivors. These women spoke of breaking off engagements with abusive partners, of being single moms as the only one holding their household together with little to no time for "self-care" and of working the steps over and over again to overcome the fallout that surrounds alcoholism: eating disorders, insecurity, poverty and in one particularly heartbreaking story: "you know, doing what you have to do to survive" as she shrugged her shoulders. These women were doing the same work toward sobriety that the wealthy women in my suburban group were doing, but with far, far less resources. If thats not gritty, I don't know what is.
I love this group. They are broken yet healing, beaten down yet hopeful, despairing yet persevering. I think I will affectionately call them my "Hot Mess Group" and I will definitely keep going. I will keep going not because I think I'm any different from them, but because I am them. And I am grateful for the insight that their little circle of trust allowed me to come to tonight.
I have spent so many years drinking to numb my feelings of weakness and insecurity in an attempt to show the world how tough I am. I would boast about "drinking the boys under the table" (I didn't) or matching the biggest guy at the bar shot for shot (cringe) and thats what my overall persona became. I have slowly molded myself into this woman who claims to be a feminist but attempts to behave like a man. I claim that I'm better off single and that my life is so much easier without that pesky loser of a husband around. If that was true, why was I drinking myself into a stupor every single night to forget how hard it is to raise these kids by myself? To drown out the loneliness that comes from attending weddings and social outings as the only single person? To tamp down the feelings of jealously when my friends and acquaintances post pictures of themselves with the "love of their lives" as they "celebrate xx years of wedded bliss together, through thick and thin"?
Tonight I learned that my real power is going to come from embracing the fact that I have become powerless to control my drinking and find strength in humility, kindness, transparency and grace. Grace toward others that I meet on this journey and most of all, grace for myself. I'm certainly not there yet, but it feels good to have a tangible goal. To put these words out into the stratosphere, even if no other person ever reads them. Goodnight xo
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