It was hard, hard 18 months. Mom fell ill and died. The election was mad. Job security decreased.
In response, well-meaning people urged me to destroy my marriage, abandon my children, get into car accidents, and die a decade or three prematurely.
No one actually said that, but that’s what I heard. Because I’m a recovering alcoholic.
You who can drown your sorrows in alcohol for just one night and move on with your life probably don’t mind the casual, jovial encouragement to “pour yourself a strong drink” after a difficult time.
Do not “snort a line of cocaine” or “inject heroin”; those that our society seemingly recognizes as serious dangers not worthy of a lighthearted joke. But the one drug available almost everywhere and impossible to avoid – just kidding! Added bonus: it’s the holidays, a time of joy for many (good excuse to drink) and crippling loneliness for others (even better excuse). Problem meets solution.
Never mind the sad reality that annual deaths from alcohol-related illnesses have more than doubled among American adults since 2000, according to new research.
Opiate overdoses worry people, as they should. Meanwhile, the steady hardening of our livers and weakening of our hearts from alcohol abuse – especially among adults aged 25 to 34, who have seen deaths quadruple – seem to have barely been recorded beyond the advertising warning “please drink responsibly”.
In over ten years of sobriety, I have been accustomed to quietly raising a cup of water among the colorful wine glasses to make joyful toasts (there are so, so many at this time of year ). I also laughed at jokes about drinking or advice from friends about imbibing during tough times. I am sober today and I am confident I will be sober tomorrow.
But this is certainly not the case for all recovering alcoholics. Everyone has their first days, weeks, months of sobriety. And world events and holiday seasons show no consideration for your fragile situation in life. This is why “one day at a time” guides so many of us: the task at hand is to stay sober now, in this moment.
It’s a mantra I too have to repeat sometimes, even more than 3,900 days after my last drink.
Some of us in recovery might find it harder to resist the constant invitations to relapse. So maybe find another way to express solidarity in difficult times than telling people to drink. “Call if you need to talk” works great.
As for recovering alcoholics, going through the upheavals that complicate your sobriety – politics, war, personal relationships, vacation joy or loneliness, whatever – it all comes down to is that, for what it’s worth right now , someone sees you, even if it’s just the person writing in that space.
And right now, I’ll tell you what worked for me: more than anything else, it’s the feeling that drinking is painful. Not in an intellectual sense, pros versus cons. It is an intuition, an association, deeply rooted in the lizard’s brain, between alcohol consumption and physical agony.
So when someone says “we all deserve a drink after today,” I feel hangover headaches and lethargy. I think of the unforgiving loneliness of drunkenness and the grueling, endless first day of sobriety.
And then I’m grateful that I don’t have to experience any of that right now.
I also find great comfort in talking to other alcoholics, whether at recovery meetings (which are really all over Los Angeles), at daily gatherings, or even at holiday parties. We tend to find ourselves.
The best thing about talking to recovering alcoholics? They won’t say you deserve a strong drink, because they know you deserve something much better: sobriety, no matter how bleak everything else in the world may seem.
