The Power of One.

Close to six years ago, I was at this crossroad in my life. I had been begged, asked and demanded by many people around me to get sober. At the time, I didn't believe I had the strength to do it. I opted for the easy road of continuing my life of unhappiness and irresponsibility. I mulled over getting sober, but it was so much easier to make excuses as to why being sober wouldn't work for me. "My friends will ditch me" "I will be boring" "I don't want to know who I am sober" were some of the thoughts that ran through my head.

Aside from the obvious benefits of being sober, I reached very deeply within myself and made the decision to change my life. I bounded into the unknown and suddenly, I was facing a woman I knew very little about.

And over the last six years, since the beginning of my sobriety, I have had to face many similar decisions where I knew my life would completely change as a result of these decisions. And every time this comes up, I remember the one day I decided to get sober.

For the last two years, I knew I had to make another monumental change. I was scared. I was comfortable in the monotony of life. Comfortable being exactly where I was. And then, again, I reached into my heart and changed the circumstances of my life.

And here I am, still standing. Still strong. Still me. I very often take this power I have for granted. In reality, the power of our heart, the power of our will, is truly amazing. When we stand up for what we believe, what will make us the person we so want to be, we are allowing ourselves to open up to new opportunities in life.

Right now, I am so thankful I had the power in myself to move on. To be sober, be me and live exactly the life I want to.

Dreams

The other night, I had one of the most vivid dreams about drinking. It was intense. I could taste the alcohol in my semi-conscious state and actually woke up thinking that I was intoxicated.

It was so very strange, considering I don't necessarily remember what it feels like to be drunk. There were people around me and I was acting very much like I did as a drinking person.

So, I have been attempting to analyze WHY I was having such a vivid recollection of a time long gone and I came up with some key points.

When we are sober and we undergo any kind of life change, such as I did this weekend, moving and ending a long relationship, there are times when our dreams serve as a kind of subconscious therapist. I feared the move, I feared the break-up and was honestly scared of being alone again. In my dream, I was with my ex and acting out desperately to try and fix our relationship. Of course, in my dream, he was having no part of this due to my behavior. In reality, it was me who made the decision to leave. But, I still feel very responsible for a lot of the demise and I think this guilt may have manifested itself into such vivid images.

When we are sober, dreaming about drinking or being intoxicated is quite common. You've made the decision to stop drinking but the fact that being sober or alcohol is on the brain 24/7 may be a contributing factor.

We're human. Most of us dream. If I drink coffee before I go to bed, I am sure to have tumultuous dream. Perhaps its something chemical in the brain.

I was really spooked when I woke up. For a brief moment, my stress culminated into my past and it scared me awake. Plus, I was in a new house...new surroundings, new bed, new smells.

I've decided to write out the dream in my journal to keep a record of when events like this happen, it intrigues me. It's one of those things we can't control but can use to have yet another perspective on being sober.

The Company Party.

Last night was our holiday party (we are an ad agency that likes to do things differently and have our party AFTER the holiday) and for the first time in many, many years I decided to go.

To be honest, I was dreading it all week. I am moving, I am in the process of ending a long, drawn out relationship that has been taxing for years and I generally feel more comfortable in a pair of jeans than heels. I've been feeling overwhelmed and going to a big party at a NYC hotspot sounded less enticing than sitting in front of the television moping.

BUT, it was work. AND, I decided I needed to do something to celebrate my newly single status.

I have to say, for the first time in many years, I had a fantastic time. At first, I was in my usual sober panic mode. I grabbed my diet coke in a martini glass and finished it before it left the bar. I returned for a highball glass with more caffeine. The only ones who really noticed were the bartenders who thought I was one of those quirky people who order things just to be a pain or pregnant with a penchant for high maintenance. However, I went through all my usual machinations about being sober in a place filled with people drinking and standing out like a sore thumb.

I think people were more struck by the fact that I was actually wearing a dress and full make-up more so than they were about the fact that I was not drinking. So, I had nothing to fall back on. My panic was unfounded. I was not alone in my sobriety, I was just uncomfortable for a hour or so.

And then I found the dance floor. I danced. I started a conga line. I shook and shimmied and did my finest roger rabbit from the '80s. It was pure elation.

From there, it got better. I decided to stop focusing on my comfort level and just enjoyed myself. A strange concept for one who looks for all reasons to skip out the door. I chatted and socialized with everyone, drinking or not drinking.

Towards the end of the party, I began to see the line blurring. Suddenly, the love between everyone grew like wildfire. Inhibitions were being lost. I was hysterical. I laughed so hard, I felt vicariously drunk. But, not a sappy "You are my best friend even though I've never seen you in office" came out of my mouth. I enjoyed everyone and even their transformations were slightly amusing.

I felt so happy and so proud. I maintained a sober dignity that had been hours lost by most. I was composed enough to slip out, get a cab and watch the last of Project Runway by 10pm.

Today, I am slightly enjoying the fact that I was here at 8am with no hangover and vivid, clear memories of one of the best nights out I've had in a long time.

Quote of the day.

"A break up is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than hurt yourself trying to fix it."
-Author unknown

Change

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~Author Unknown

This week, I am changing the course of my life...Again. The roller coaster I feel is unbelievable. I am leaving

Phew....

I think every year when the holidays end, I breathe a large exasperated sigh of relief. Don't get me wrong, I was off for almost two weeks. I cooked, I cleaned, I wrapped gifts with as much zeal as one could muster when the holidays remind them of days gone by. I watched all the TV I need for the year and tried to remind myself that 2008 was quickly approaching.

I even went to the Emergency room for a busted ankle and rode the halls up and down in a wheelchair, letting everyone know that this was an accident not caused by alcohol (the looks I got were indeed strange). This lay up is the reason I was so remiss about posting.

And I was able to meet the great folks at 97.7 (thanks guys) and run them ragged with my chatter at 715am. I had a great time speaking before New Years and the interview is actually at http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?Dato=20071231&Kategori=VIDEO01&Lopenr=312310002&Ref=AR if you'd like to hear what was discussed.

So, as always at the beginning of the year, I set my goals for the next twelve months. This started when I decided that I had a better shot at attaining goals that I set than sticking to any resolution I may have made. This year, I have set my goals for sobriety, my health and well being and where I think I should be emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Each time I set a goal I write two actionable statements below the goal. For instance, my first goal is to be sober in 2008 (a fulfilled goal for the last six years). Two actions that will help me achieve this were: 1. Maintain blog and write book 2. Remind yourself everyday that you deserve to be sober.

I will post an article I wrote years ago on goal setting in early sobriety this evening when I am home. I have finally transferred all of my writings from an old Dell to a new Mac.

Happy New Year to everyone. Thank you for being here in 2008.

Kim

97.7 FM Interview Friday, December 28th

I am being interviewed for my sobriety work tomorrow morning at 735am on Adult Contemporary station 97.7 FM in the Hudson Valley. I will be speaking about tips for New Years as well.

Click here to go to their home page and listen live tomorrow morning:

http://www.mix97fm.com/

See you then!

A gift.

In the midst of trying to trying to deal with the immense end of the year crunch at work, dealing with parties I keep lugging my diet soda to, painting pictures for friends & family and the general hoopla that surrounds the holiday season, I realized that I forgot to give one gift.

It's not anything to wear or keep your head warm. It's not candy or food or some fine tea that I have given. It's not a gift card or purchase from a major department store.

This year, I have decided to wrap up an extra box and put it under my tree. Inside, a piece of paper with one word: SOBRIETY.

So often, we forget that being in recovery, being sober is a choice and it is indeed one of the greatest gifts we are able to give ourselves. There are times during the year where I am ready to throw in the towel, where frustration at being sober overrides the choice I made so many years ago.

In reality, being sober is what keeps me here. Being sober is what has shaped my life and allowed me to pursue the many aspriations I have. And being sober has given me so many other gifts; the people I meet, the e-mails, the support from so many and the knowledge that I wake up each morning again choosing to live my life in its true capacity.

Thank you all for sharing this gift with me. Thank you for allowing me to share my gift. And I truly hope that this year, you may open the same box as I.

This is what the holidays really mean to me. A box with the best present ever. Happy Holidays.

See you next week!

"The Conflict" Intellect v. Emotion

Intellect is defined as many things; knowledge, the capacity to understand, reason.

How does intellect differ from emotion? Do we think about feeling? Or do we simply think and feel as separate entities. This has always been a source on such conflict for me in my relationships with others.

Which rules? Intellect or emotion?

In my own intellect, I can rationalize so many elements and they all work. We fit. We are friends. Our goals are relatively simple within confounds of our connection. And I think about the relationship in logistics and the elements are all there.

e·mo·tion

–noun

1.	an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

2.	any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, etc.

3.	any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.

4.	an instance of this.

5.	something that causes such a reaction: the powerful emotion of a great symphony.

---

In my emotion, I feel such power I run. I am unable to process emotion with an intellectual stronghold. I am able to think about the feeling, but I am unable to live within that emotion free of irrationality.

And thus the complication.

I think with such intensity. Thoughts about life run rampant through an already overzealous brain. I ponder. I analyze. Intellect is ingrained into the core of my body. But what about the feelings? Where do they play into an overactive mind? Are emotions compromised because of the intensity with which one thinks? Who wins within my heart, intellect or emotion? There is no compromise. No gray in a heart shaded in severity. Each battles and stands on firm ground with an army of reasons to win.

My relationships are a mess of all of these aforementioned proverbially posed questions. I believe that being in recovery sometimes blur the lines between the emotion and intellectual battle war waging in my head. Each interaction in my various relationships have posed this question. Am I allowing the right people in my life that these should not be questions but balances?

Hmm, I wonder at times. Emotions take the alpha position in my life and I accept that. The questions I now struggle with are how to have a successful relationship, on any level, by allowing intellect to play a larger role in my decisions.

The Journey

Another article that I have pulled out of the vault. I find it hard to believe that this was over three years ago when I wrote this. And how much the journey remains in tact.

Journeys
Over two and a half years ago, I started my journey into a new life.The beginning was the easiest leg of my journey. Results were tangible. Everyday I didn't drink, I was one step ahead of my life for the previous fifteen years. I went through physical changes; losing weight, my body detoxing, and patterns in my sleep changed significantly. The first few months I was able to see that my choice was a good one. Not drinking was the ONLY road I traveled on at that point.

After a few months, drinking was no longer the focus of my journey. The reality of my journey began to set in. I started walking through the weeds and bumbles of my life. I felt uprooted. Pieces of my past sprouted up along the way. I had to hack at them with all my strength to continue walking down the path I wanted to create. I was learning how to be sober.Being sober entails a bit more than not drinking. It means changing all things that are comfortable. It means leaving people who are harmful. Leaving old behaviours for new ones. Being sober means that you have left one life and began a new one. And at times, this decision that I had made weighed heavily on my heart.

Did I really want this life? Did I really want the stigma I thought was attached to being sober? I wrestled with my decisions every day of my life. Every step I made in one direction meant I was leaving a familiar place.

And the grieving began. I mourned the loss of my old life. I was waving goodbye to all those esoteric things that I had known for so long. Visions of my life before flooded my dreams. I was anxious. Guilty. Angry. But I muddled through this tumultuous part of the journey. I missed my old self. Missed the drama and dysfunction that I had deeply rooted myself in. But, somehow, I just kept moving forward until my pathway was free of past weeds. Suddenly, after a long period of mourning, I was walking with a lighter step.

After my first year, I started the next leg of my journey. Sobriety was easier. Not drinking was no longer an issue. Finding out who I was became the task. In doing this, I have walked down several paths. I have tested some directions that were unsuccessful. I used my art to help my find out what needed working on. I wrote and wrote until I was blue in the face. I read every book I could get my hands on. I diligently went to therapy. I asked questions. I was introspective. I looked for my spirituality. I posted. I chatted. All these things to find out who that person I had hidden away really was.

And for some reason, I hit a major roadblock. No longer was sobriety the focus on my life. I was just Kim. And that scared me so much, I almost faltered. I thought about sabotaging the work that I had done so I wouldn't find out who I was. I was petrified to peel the layers of my life. I had dreams that I was drinking again. I had thoughts of drinking all day and night. Anything, ANYTHING to keep myself from really knowing who I was. I did not believe I deserved the life I was living. It was a very painful leg of my journey. But, in the end, some strength inside of me took over. I never stepped off the path. I kept going in spite of the immense fear I felt.

And that brings me to now. Today, it's a slightly different story. I am on the journey to discover myself in the most pure and real form. I look forward to who I am and where I am meant to be. I live life with so much passion, I am exhausted at the end of the day. I kiss my nieces and nephews. I smile at the Gas Station guy. I no longer feel the need to escape myself and the choices I have made. Every choice I make is grounded in my new life. Believe me, I struggle still. But, it's such a real struggle that it feels so good when it's resolved with a clear mind and spirit. I am on the path to reformulating those things that are most important to me. I am walking towards the life I want. And my sneakers bear the brand of sobriety.

So, my journey may or may not be like yours. You maybe on Day one or Day one thousand. Everyday, it's a new path. New steps. And it's amazing to be able to say that we are able to see the changes and growth. We are fully aware, at every stage of this journey.

Checklist for Early Sobriety

Ok, you've made the decision to get sober. Beside the obvious of not drinking, there are many things to think about to help in early recovery. Below, I've listed a checklist that may help with some ideas. Feel free to add any additional items.

• Find a recovery program to help in the earliest days. Whatever program you follow, just allowing yourself to learn about being sober and surrounding yourself with sober people can be a big help.
• Create a resource list. Write out a list of people who you can call when you need someone to talk to, support or just a diversion from your old ways.
• Look for a good therapist or counselor if you feel it will help.
• Browse the bookstore and stock up on some good sober books for inspiration.
• Do an emotional inventory and record how you are feeling each day.
• Find a new hobby, activity or anything that will keep you out of the bar scene, you'll be amazed at how many things there are to do besides sit at a bar!
• Find another person in recovery and buddy up with them for support.
• Journal, journal, journal. I cannot stress how much this helps in early sobriety. I used to write fifteen pages a day, just pouring things out.
• Grab a paintbrush and be creative. Painting out your emotions is refreshing.
• Forgive yourself for the past. It's gone, over and you can only move forward at this point.
• Find some IM buddies from a sober site or group and utilize them as resources (Mine is Yahoo: kjpartstudio)
• Write down all the things you can do now that you are sober. Pick one each week and do it.
• Eat well, exercise and watch your sugar during the earliest part of sobriety.
• Finally, be gentle on yourself. It's a long process, one that is constantly evolving and changing. It's worth it.

The Point of Letting Go

I don't really know if my inability to let go completely came early in my childhood or whether it's been formulated from so many years of being emotionally irresponsible. Lately, though, it's another one of those elements in my life that is not so satisfying in its current state.

I keep going back...way back. Was I overly attached to any tangible object? My baby blanket that took me thirty years to finally get rid of? The pictures of people that are no longer in my life stacked in drawers waiting for a moment of weakness to be drearily thumbed through? Or was it losing my family to divorce and my father passing away at the age of 12?

No matter, this inability to let go has absolutely hindered so many opportunities in my life. Relationships that don't work but give me enough peace of mind to hold on to a tiny shred of hope. Thoughts that clutter my already busy head. Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that stem from my need to squash whatever happiness is around me. I feel as if all of these emotions and actions directly stem from this desire I have to keep negativity grounded within me.

And it's driving me bonkers because as much as I want to let go of all these hindrances, there is a great security in holding everything as tight as possible.

So, what is the secret? Writing it out? I've made my lists. Reading another book? Been there. I think that the secret is really, honestly just letting it go knowing that you can only control yourself. That I am teetering on making a huge life change can only be done if I truly want to and then taking the steps to get EXACTLY what I am after.

I think this may be the mantra for the day since happiness really only does come from within first.

A sigh of relief.....

I have to say, I am thankful that Thanksgiving is over. Made it through unscathed, once again....Hope everyone had a good one.

Thankful for....

Each day, I try to write five things that I am grateful for in my journal. It's one of those exercises that someone suggested about five years ago and amazingly, I have stuck with it and have learned to recognize and appreciate the good things in my life.


Now that Thanksgiving is right around the corner and everything gets a bit more hectic in life, I took a moment this morning to write five things that I am not only grateful for, I am genuinely thankful for.

1. I am sober
2. My brown dog that greets me with the same wagging tail and wet kisses every night
3. My family, those here and not here.
4. That I continue down this path called life with a backpack full of support and creativity
5. The people who are on this journey with me, there are a lot!

I am off for the next few days, so have a happy, sober and wonderful holiday.

Emotional Baggage

Over the last few weeks, I have begun to see the amount of emotional angst that I carry for what it is.

Serious Baggage.

As someone who turned to self medicating at age 12, these unresolved feelings and memories have stayed with me with remarkable clarity over the last 22 years. I feel like I am an emotional pack rat at times as my head is constantly filled with unresolved issues or emotions that I would do anything to carry with me instead of allowing myself to let go. And these conflicting emotions have always been a source of comfort for me. Each time happiness would creep into my life, I've been able to dissipate the joy I may have felt with feelings of inadequacy or self deprecation.

And suddenly, I am tired of it. The boyfriend I dumped in high school who probably was the most stable person I've ever met. The ex husband who lurks around trying to amend a marriage long over. The death of my father. The pain and anguish I caused all the years I was an emotional mess. I swear, I can recall conversations, feelings and even the smells associated with these instances that I very often feel trapped.

But the comfort in these vivid recollections is waning. I have found over the last six years that I have to lose the baggage to be able to start living in reality, because living in the past with all these loose ends isn't conducive to happiness. It's limiting. It's non-essential. And it's just emotional baggage that I need desperately to lighten.

So, today I start my quest in letting go issue by issue. I'm making a list of all the events and unresolved feelings that have accumulated over two decades. I can imagine it will take me a long time and that this list will never end. I'm okay with that. And after I make the list, I'm going to mark down those issues or feelings that are worth resolving or if I just need to acknowledge them, forgive and let go.

I'm starting with a big one. A long overdue letter. I'm sad and it is going to be a painful letter to write. But, life changes and we are the only ones who can dictate where we go...or if we stay in one place, emotionally.

We clean our houses every season to allow for a new perspective. This time, I'm cleaning out the crap so that I am able to allow new experiences and emotions to come in.

And I have great faith that this will work.

Quote of the day.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Some Holiday Shortcuts

As the holiday season comes in a whirlwind, I just wanted to share some tips, shortcuts and ramblings, particularly regarding alcohol, over this time. If you have an additional tips, please feel free to comment.

• Be thankful you won't have to worry about being pulled over. It's primetime for checkpoints! I usually volunteer to drive to one holiday party and have even been known to throw a tip cup out for laughs (and dollars!).


• I keep a small list of the five reasons why I am sober in my wallet. Anytime I am faced with a "Sobriety Crisis", I pull it out and read through it.
• Keep a list of your closest resources handy; friends, relatives, sponsors, etc. Just in case you need to make a phone call


• A beverage in a wine glass or, even better, a martini glass, makes life a little easier when attending holiday parties and actually leads to less questions.


• Waking up with no hangover during the holidays means more time to actually enjoy them.


• For every cash bar you have to attend, put money in a jar that you would have spent and treat yourself to an extra gift.


• If the family scene is too much, or you generally have angst around the holidays, volunteering during this time is a great way to appreciate where you are.


• If you are nervous about telling people you are sober, just say "I'm not drinking this evening" Most people don't really care.


• Stash non-alcoholic beverages in your trunk. I never leave home without Diet Coke.


• Take a breather, often.


• And last, allow yourself an out. If you need to leave, just do it. It's ultimately about your well being.

The Burden of Sobriety

I was reading an article in Vanity Fair this weekend regarding a former child star's take of being sober. In a Q&A, Justin Bateman answers a question posed by the reporter:

"Not even a glass of wine?"
"No, not even a little bit. I am just not good at it. Now I run like I am being chased every morning. I don't know what the hell I have become, but it's starting to annoy me. "
http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/11/wayne_bateman200711

That last phrase has been ringing in my ears all weekend. "I don't know what the hell I have become, but it's starting to annoy me."

I feel like that often now that the pink cloud of euphoria that comes with early sobriety has lifted.

I constantly question my role in the sober world. I feel like my old life was more reckless, less "heavy" and a bit more carefree. Because, today, my mind rarely gets a break from thinking sober. I live it, write it and breathe all things sober.

And while it is the best thing for me, the best choice I have ever made...it can piss me off on occasion.

Last week, I was at a great event at the Tavern of the Green. Lots of advertising people. Lots of black ties and drinks clinking. In the sea of people drinking red and white wine (they only thing on the tables beside water), I felt as if I were on a different party boat. I watched the bottles being poured. I was very conscious of everyone beginning to loosen up. And I sometimes felt compelled to be even more gregarious or stealth with my diet coke in a wine glass. The funny thing, it's all in my mind. I've created the burden of my own sobriety. People rarely notice what you are drinking or why. It's the ones that become overly intoxicated that make conversation. No one noticed or cared that I didn't drink...but I did, even with years under my belt. And when I got on my train late in the evening, I felt such relief to be done with my bout of fitting in.

And these occasions happen all the time. I have to remind myself that alcohol is not some long lost romance I pine for. That the decisions I have made today will allow me to live a healthy and emotionally gratifying life. Even if that means sacrificing that bit of irresponsibility that could turn a mellow Friday evening into a wild escapade.

There is solace in living life with this burden, it could be worse, it could be the burden of being drunk all the time, which is worse.

But, there are just few times in my week or month, where I have to remind myself that being sober isn't a jail sentence...it's a choice.

And I think I need to take my choices, difficult or not, and learn to laugh the burden off my back every once in a while.

Quote of the day.

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."

-Helen Keller

It's not all about me?

When we are drinking, the world tends to revolve around us. It's about our problems, our insecurities, our irresponsibility. Many times, we are so deep into ourselves that the impact of our alcoholism on those around us tends to become trivialized.

I remember being told by friends and particular family members that they thought I may have a drinking problem early on. One example, in college, when a group of friends got me in a room and pressed me to curb my wildness. I did not comply. Another time, a family member threatened to oust me if I did not seek help. Again, I did not comply. I simply blew them off. What did they know? They couldn't POSSIBLY understand my needs and turmoil. My thinking was that no one person understood my desperate attempts to avoid my life. As my addiction progressed, my failure to heed any advice became more apparent and I simply avoided anyone who tried to help.

Toward the very end of my drinking life, I found myself secluding myself completely. I was angry at everyone and trusted no one, including myself. And, in alcoholism, it was about me. It was entirely up to me to end my life as an irresponsible woman. It was entirely my choice to stop drinking, because I finally saw what everyone else had been seeing for years. A confused, angry, depressed child who never let go of her past mistakes and misgivings. And that realization is what caused me to move my life in a different direction.

So many times, people who are close to or live with an alcoholic ask me "What can I do to get him or her to stop?" or "What can I do differently?" and "I feel so responsible".

In reality, the person who is responsible for his or her drinking is also the person responsible for getting sober. As someone close to him or her, it is easy to confuse enabling an alcoholic with helping them. It affects every one's life and it is so difficult to know that someone is going through such tumultuous cycles and there is little the outside person can do. There are ways to cope, however. Support groups, on-line resources and books to just help the non-alcoholic deal with the alcoholic. And those resources are for you to know that you are not alone.

From this side, I wish I had listened to all the people that had told me. I regret it every day of my life. I regret the pain and anguish I caused so many different relationships throughout the years. And I cringe at times at all the worry and stress I inflicted on those who loved me so much. But I also know that nothing mattered to me but erasing everyone from my addictive mind. I was so desperate to be helped but so deep into myself that I didn't know how to get out.

From your side, it becomes a matter of providing as much support as you are able. If an alcoholic is all about them, they may take your advice but the denial may be too great.

Today, I have someone in my life who has a drinking problem and I am now on this side. I worry and think about this person every day, hearing reports about a stint with sobriety that usually doesn't last very long. I go to sleep at night and pray that I will not have a message on my phone. I comb the papers everyday to ensure this person is still alive. And the emotional toll is great because I caused pain to this person in my days of drinking, leading to the demise in our relationship. But, there is a point in which I had to understand that everyone makes their own choices. As much time as I spend worrying, this person is where I was a long time ago....inside their own addiction. Ideally, if this person approached me, I would be there. If this person needed anything, I would be there. The only thing I can do is keep that door open, hold this to my heart and hope that the day will come when life begins for this person as well.

Hope and faith in people's strength is amazing. We know that change needs to come, at times, we just need to find the strength within ourselves.

Greetings From the Bottom

I wrote this a few years ago, but someone asked me to repost.



Greetings from the Bottom.

My entire life has been a cycle of wanting to live with vengeance and needing to numb the constant pain I feel. Pain that I found unbearable. Numbing entailed irresponsibility. Denial. Aloofness. Any way to keep myself from feeling fledging terror and anger has been my modus operandi. The hurt. The pain. All these things exist in depression.

So, I began the arduous task of researching the label for this pain I have been feeling since I can remember:

Adversity, anguish, calamity, cross, crux, difficulty, disease, disorder, distress, grief, hardship, illness, infirmity, misery, misfortune, ordeal, pain, plague, plight, scourge, sickness, sorrow, suffering, torment, trial, tribulation, trouble, woe

It's astounding that all of the aforementioned synonyms can be applied to an emotional process. Some of you think of it as drama. I think of it as my daily existence. I cannot distinguish between what is truly detrimental and what simply exists as life. I cannot express my anger and rage towards the people who cause it. Instead, I have turned inward. What you see when you are hurt is what I see each hour of my day. The sense of impending doom hinders my ability to live in a moment. I retreat. I create fantasies to ease my sense of reality.And in doing this, my life illustratively becomes vast acreage. A pliable bit of earth in which I call home.

I live on my expansive piece of proverbial property and see the many holes I have dug over the last thirty years. The holes I bury my emotions. The holes I bury the hatred and anger that I am afraid to set free. The hole I must dig to feel protected from my own enraging heart.The holes in which I dig are not unique. They are the same holes you may dig when you feel panic. Or grief. In your world, these are smalconceiveses. The difference is that I live in these holes. I rarely find myself on the outside looking in. Instead, I am constantly on the inside looking out. Watching lives being led with true zeal for happiness. While I sit underneath life, enveloped in angst.

Three weeks ago I dug one of my holes so deep, I thought I might not make it out intact. I was in such conflicting darkness that my eyes could barely distinguish any light. When I dove in, I forgot to bring my tools. My flashlight. My shovel. I simply dug and dug with raw, aching fingers. And this is where I remained. Time passed so slowly, I was unable to calculate just how long I had been underground. Nothing sustained like the darkness I felt. I withdrew from reality and sat in a quiet numbness that only one suffering this affliction can feel. I mourned. I grieved. I panicked. Yet these feelings seemed to pass in front of me in those shadows. I was unable to feel anything but my own self-pity. My emotions so raw that I worried that I may bleed to death. I was a product of my own rigorous self-deprecation. Constantly berating myself for feeling so deeply.My hand reached out. My raw, tormented fingers barely reached out of the hole.

I found a sliver of light that was able to help me regain some awareness. Suddenly the darkness became scarier than the life that was waiting for me. I reached and reached. I was waiting for someone to grab my hand. And, someone did. He inadvertently put his hand out and I grabbed it. I used it to hoist me from deep within the confines of my misery. A tiny move upward saved me from burying myself completely. I was given the opportunity to start the climb back up from the bottom.And this climb entails a considerable amount of recognition. Recognizing that this darkness is a disease within itself. That the feelings I possess are not simple figments of my overactive imagination. They are real and validated. What you feel is different than those feelings I have.

I walk along life scared. Scared to feel. Scared to be hurt and rejected. I tread heavily on my property, searching the parameters for a way out. A path. An exit. You may or nay not live near me. You may have holes, but they are not similar to the deep depressions in life.So, I say: Greetings from the bottom. Where I have begun to unearth those emotions that have been buried so long. I am no longer digging downward. I have begun the laborious task of filling in the holes that are no longer part of my present. I move dirt to make way for acknowledgement. I find that I am throwing seeds over to begin the new growth. I am extending my hand to those who will take it. I am the caretaker of my property.


www.kjpartstudio.freeservers.com copyright, kjpartstudio 2007

Questions

Do you have a topic or question you would like to see addressed here? Please send me an e-mail at kjpartstudio@hotmail.com

Emotional Responsibility

One of the most difficult facets of being sober has much less to do with not drinking, I've found, and more to do with taking responsibility for our emotions.

After almost six years of not drinking, the need to drink has subsided substantially. I rarely have moments where I found myself with an uncontrollable urge to wash away my fears and problems in life.

What I do find, however, is that I struggle with the very real need to be emotionally responsible. I have spent years learning how to contain the emotional outbursts and avoidance that I have lived with most of my life. And even with all the practices of being sober and living in a new life, it can sometimes take ONE emotional trigger to push me to behaviors that my drunk life afforded.

The one difference that I see now, however, is my ability to rectify these behaviors and be truly aware of those trigger points. Drinking for me was mostly about avoiding a lot of pain at life events that had transpired. Drinking allowed me a moment's reprieve from the clutter and noise that filled my emotional void. And getting as drunk as possible, my thinking was, allowed me to cry at those memories and hardships that I had never fully dealt with.

So, today, I take all of the aforementioned drinking behaviors and thought patterns and I work tirelessly on rectifying my emotional patterns. Not an easy task, especially since it's not the most comfortable place emotionally.

For instance, my reaction to someone who may be critical in the past would to IMMEDIATELY take it personally and lash out defensively. This is a tough one for me and I still have to stop and take a breathe before I react. One of the reasons I turned to drinking were my emotional insecurities. I had a difficult time regarding myself as anything but worthless, even if I did step through many impressive and worthy milestones in my life. Today, I am consistently working to understand that criticism isn't necessarily personal, it is essential to looking at a situation objectively and allowing another perspective to come through.

Another challenge I find is maintaining an even keel of emotion when things don't go as planned. The other night, I was lost in Albany and late for an event where I was scheduled to receive an award. I was driving with incomplete directions and my frustration level kept rising to the point that my significant other was getting uncomfortable with my grunts and tsks. Instead of getting frustrated at his reading of the incomplete directions, I had to stop for a moment and take responsibility for the fact that I had actually not printed out the correct pages. So, I pulled over, called the venue and the situation went from full Kim crisis mode to manageable.

But, these triggers and our ability to pinpoint the source of frustration, hurt or anger is perhaps one of the biggest challenges one faces in sobriety.

The one exercise I have learned is to list every single trigger that I have become painfully aware of in my journal. I have a page called "Triggers". It's a long long list that I review everyday....and every once in a while I succeed in keeping my emotional trap door shut when I feel it necessary.

Physical Angst

This week, I was making stew (the fall is definitely approaching in NY) and I was pouring in a can of Guiness to be cooked off after nine hours. I realized that if I took one sip, no one would ever know the difference. I stood there for a moment, justifying all the reasons for one ridiculous sip of beer. And it hit me, all over again. It didn't matter that I have been sober for almost six years, it still felt like day one of not drinking. It was an occurence that is so infrequent, it took me by surprise.

Of course I never took the sip, but I was reminded of how close one must keep sobriety within their reach.

So, I pulled out this article I had written a few years ago to remind myself of how often the past comes into the present looking for a quick fix:

October 2002

Though not drinking for me has been relatively easy in the last eight months (I eventually cut out most of the activities that were conducive to my drunken behavior), I had a very scary episode a few weeks ago. In the middle of the night, I woke panicked from a dream. I got up, went into my kitchen and had this incredible urge to drink. So incredible, I shook. I opened the refrigerator out of sheer alcoholic habit. I paced. I ran through every life event in a matter of three minutes or so. I was angry, hopeless, sad, and enraged all at the same time. It was horrible. It was so real and present in me.

So, I stood there. And decided that I was just going to let it all go through me. Almost like going through a tunnel, seeing all of these people and places go whizzing by. And man, did it hurt. But I felt it all. I refused to just try and forget about it.If you were to visualize this whole incident....it would have started in my head, gone through my heart, and out my toes. It was emotionally draining in one sense and refreshing in another. And the moment passed.

So, I used this the other day (to speak of your foreboding emptiness). I was driving down the road with the leaves changing colours on either side of the road. I was listening to Les Miserables on the stereo and I had this overwhelming sadness. I missed my ex husband. I missed being irresponsible. I was mourning everything. I felt so so sad (of course, the music didn't help). So damn melancholy. I decided instead of changing the music to some happy yappy station, I would let myself feel all of this again. Feel it right through to my heart. And again, it hurt. Pain is remarkable in that aspect. But,in doing so, I was so much happier that I was capable of feeling deep emotion. That I had worked so hard over the last months to be able to be in touch with these emotions---sad, angry whatever. And I cried....and the tears came out like crazy. Cried so hard that I had to pull over with my Les Miserables blaring the most sappy song and just weep.And then?

It was over. It passed. And I found my resilience to the situation enlightening. I had released so much....and that is something that I had never been able to do in the fourteen years I had been drinking. So, to sum up....the feelings of sadness, the need for alcohol haven't gone away. They are still present in some capacity. The tools that you have within yourself just get more refined and stronger to deal with these situations. You become more aware of your emotions and strengths...and pull them out when needed. And that, I suppose, has been my on-going method.

Sober Madness

Hello,

I apologize that I have been remiss about posting but wanted to let you know that's all about to change.

Very soon, Sobriety Girl will be syndicated by the Poughkeepsie Journal, a Gannett newspaper.

The good news? I will now be posting four times a week about all things sober. Stay tuned.....things are about to get really cool.

Kim

Another word for Sober.

There are many times in the last five years that I find myself trying to define the word sober.

Sober. Sobriety. Not drinking. Recovery. Change in life.

The dictionary defines sober:
* Habitually abstemious in the use of alcoholic liquors or drugs; temperate.* Not intoxicated or affected by the use of drugs.
* Plain or subdued: sober attire.
* Devoid of frivolity, excess, exaggeration, or speculative imagination; straightforward: gave a sober assessment of the situation.
* Marked by seriousness, gravity, or solemnity of conduct or character. See Synonyms at serious.
* Marked by circumspection and self-restraint.Self restraint? Devoid of excess or speculative imagination?

The question arises in my own head....have I become boring and morose in my sober life? Have I become plagued with seriousness because I have chosen this path?In the last three years, I have also found myself having to defend and define my sober life. "Why don't you drink?" "What happened to make you stop?" "Are you WEIRD?" "YOU DON'T GO OUT?" "Have you no fun in your life?"Well, I think to myself tirelessly, life is just different.What happened to make me cease drinking habitually for the majority of my young adult life? Well, I guess things were just not working the way I wanted. Nothing significant happened, per se. Yes, I hit bottom, but not in any spectacular fashion. I just got sober. I simply took out an element of my life that caused me pain. And now, I find that people have a difficult time grasping the concept.

And when did I become so concerned about what people think? Years ago, I could get drunk, stand on a bar and proclaim my love for Jimmy Buffett in song without skipping a beat. I could fall down the stairs at a restaurant and simply smile and say, "oopsie". But, we live in a world surrounded by alcoholic intentions. It's part of our society and part of the way we chose to socialize. Not a day goes by that does not include a reference to alcohol. And I accept that with the grace of a woman who has made a choice. But, damn it, it's still frustrating as hell. I actually watch people watch me at parties. I see them double glancing at my martini glass making sure that there is nothing stronger than Diet Coke in my glass. And these people never knew me BEFORE! If they had, the would know that I rarely drank martinis. I play the part with little fanfare. I participate in the charade of the drinking world with my own sober theatrics. And when I arrive home to my bed, I collapse with the exhaustive sigh of someone in recovery.

I have worked to make everyone feel comfortable for the choices I have made...and for a moment, I wish I could replace the word sober with some amazing adjective that would wipe away the stigma of my decisions. The stigma of all my past mistakes. . And yes, I wish I could replace sober with just about any other word in the English language.

And in all of these quandries, I sometimes find myself questioning my motives. Why am I really doing this? Meeting people that I never knew existed. Constantly searching for my own soapbox to stand on. My purpose. My MO. When before I was simply a woman with a drinking problem. I did not publicize my life on such a vehement scale. I was never a hippie, cause- related type of woman. I drank. I got drunk. I caused some drama and then went home to pass out.Now, things are different. I have made a choice that has changed my life. I will not change the fact that I am sober, so sober it is.

So, I have taken the liberty in redefining the word sober in my own glorified dicitonary.sober (adj.): respect for one's own self. Self assured, self-aware and unconcerned with those people who just don't get the reasons for this journey.

And for those of you who drink, life on the other side is not bleak and weary.

Blisters do not appear when in the presence of someone sober.

July 17th, 1986

Miss you, Dad.

Creative Recovery

This is a program I wrote for using art and recovery, click on the link and save to your favorites, it's going to be a whole new site soon.

The site is about to undergo a massive change and I'm adding a lot more content and updating things like addresses, e-mail, message boards, etc..

Coming in August.

Oh, and I'm finally writing THAT book, the one about being sober.

Coming in the future.

Quote of the week.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."

Maya Angelou

The Last Glass

I always like to repost this around Springtime, I wrote this five years ago.........

the last glass.

I started with twenty-four. Twenty-four Waterford wine glasses. It was weeks before my wedding to the man I so arduously loved. Some were gifts from my family. Many were gifts from our friends. The blue boxes with white ribbon poured in like the wine collection I so astutely built. I took each one out of the box, unwrapping their delicate tissue. The chardonnay glasses with their spindled stems- as if ready to be caressed by the sophisticated hand. Waiting for the candlelight to pour through, reflecting romantic evenings. The cabernet glasses with their wide mouths waiting for a supple reward. I could tilt the glass back to meet the succulence in my lips. Finally, my most cherished eight..the Bordeaux glasses. They were the generals in my army. The glasses were heavier in weight yet far more elegant than the rest. I sat waiting for the right vintage to begin my revolution.

I whimpered when I broke the first six. Three months after my nuptials to the man I thought I loved. The expensive vintage collection began to dwindle. In its place came the bottles that I found at a local winery. Not a bottle from Georges Duboeuf, but some fine wine. A large soiree, friends mingling around the fire. Forbidden fruit poured endlessly by the gracious host, who was subsequently in the Garden of Eden herself. Words began to unfold and emotions began to erupt. First went the chardonnays. Thrown with such vigilance. Aimed right at my beloveds head. There went two hundred dollars towards the refrigerator door. Tearfully, I swept up the shards of glass. But, alas there were eighteen more. I still had the reds. In my battle, I had lost a troupe but still had soldiers.

I cried when I broke the next four. In the early light of spring, I reached for a glass. My coordination stifled by my constant imbibing. I poured a bottle of inexpensive cabernet into my tall glass. I no longer took trips to the winery anymore. I had been there far too often; my face was beginning to be recognized by the patrons. I searched for replacements and conjured up my imaginary wineries in Southern France. I could pretend. I could pretend that my wine rack was not empty. I could pretend that I was not alone. I was drinking away the grief that his silence caused. The grace of the Waterford could not still my shaking hands. I dropped them. Four of my best friends dropped in one evening. With such ferocity, I tried to save them. I had my own personal drunken funeral for my glasses. Tossed into the trash compactor.
I sobbed when he took the next eight. Fall had come. He left with the decanter. The wonderful Waterford decanter. With it etchings so meticulously set in the glass. He lovingly wrapped up the reds and left me with six. He continued the romance, the love affair with elegance and sonnets. Only, my glasses were now empty on the shelf. No life seeped into them. No reflection from candles would burn again. Dust began to choke my thirst. And the flames had been extinguished. Candlelight would no longer pour through the same glass. The wine bottles taken to a new place. To begin a new life. Without me.

I panicked when I broke the next five. One more left. I no longer looked at the glasses with a fervent eye. I used them for anything that could numb the pain. Vineyards had stopped producing the fruit of my garden. In its place found the weeds of alcohols existence. I could only bring myself to lift the glass if it contained venom. I had begun to despise the glasses for the life that used to be contained in them. Glamour had ceased to exist. The clanging of glasses was not in toast but in concerted effort to forget celebration. If the glass was not full, I panicked. Pouring into the loneliest, endless black hole. But not even the last of the glasses could sustain the ache. I threw them in angst. Threw them into the floor as if I could demolish my past. As if I could break this state of destruction. Angry rants begot sophisticated conversation. The stems became daggers into my own heart. One final glass remained.

I rejoiced when the last one broke. It stood on the shelf. An icon to my former life. I worshipped the last glass as if it was on a pedestal. Like a far removed screen star. I looked lovingly at the shining reflection every evening. Yet, I had not touched it in months. Had not caressed its sleek, smooth body. A friend from my old life came. She let it go. It slipped out of her hand. I watched it. I saw its demise. Falling, falling, it shattered into tiny pieces. The stem no longer recognizable. The body marred. Suddenly in one moment, the pieces were gone in the trash. I had scraped them up and thrown them into the past. I looked up. My heart lifted. The war was over. The Waterford was gone. The whites, the reds gone from my life. The wine defeated. Swept up into a pile and discarded into the past. I smiled.

My glass was empty. My life was full.

Copyright, KJPartstudio 2007

On my 1,825th Daily Reminder (5 years sober)

For the last few days, I have been thinking about this day. Tomorrow is the fifth year that I have traveled down the sober road. Five years. The words keep playing over and over in my head. "Five years ago, I......." Part of me wants to shout it out and the other part wants to run far away.

But, as I do every year, I resolve to sit down and reflect on where I am in my sobriety. This year, I find that I have become a tad more vocal about my place in sober world and the sober world in general.

One aspect in sober world I have noticed this year is the amount of press and publicity sobriety has gotten. On one hand, any kind of recognition for de-stigmatizing being sober is fabulous. We deserve to be here too.

On the other, I have noticed quite a few nuances in "recovery", thanks to the ever increasing role the media plays:

Spouses cheat, blame addiction.
Inappropriate remarks made, blame addiction.
Intolerable actions, blame addiction.
Accidents, blame addiction.
The world falling apart, blame addiction.

And, it's true that when we are bombed, wasted, drunk, addicted, etc. there is a tendency to engage in questionable behavior, we cannot look to quitting said addiction to automatically solve the problem.

From a personal standpoint, I remember when I first became sober, I had a tendency to blame all of my shortcomings on drinking. My behavior was because I drank too much. My irresponsibility was because I was an addict of alcohol. My bad moods were directly related to my drinking past. I blamed and blamed for much of my early sobriety.

I was so busy blaming all of my bad behaviors on my being drunk for those years, I was denying the underlying problems that were there all along, drinking or not drinking. My attitude became, "now that I'm not drinking, I will....." or "since I stopped drinking, I can...." Even worse, "you should have seen my when I was drinking" has been a common mantra. I spoke of resolution and intent, but found myself stuck once I needed to really act upon my words.

Simply put, there comes a time when being truly in recovery needs to spill over into other aspects of life. There is this point where you simply cannot pin everything on your drunk days of yore. It becomes another method of escaping our own personal truth and responsibility to ourselves. Thinking about this stage, I've named my 5th as the OWN IT year.

The OWN IT stage is not the pink cloud of early sobriety. When we first stop drinking, this becomes a monumental feat in and of itself. As it should. I still wake up at times in my life and cannot believe that I ever made the decision to actually stop.

The OWN IT stage is not glamorous. It's likely one the most difficult in our recovery because the crutch is gone. We now stand on our own two sober legs...no excuses.

The OWN IT stage is so important because, I believe, it paves the way to our future emotional happiness.

The OWN IT stage is where we begin to act on all the promises we have made to ourselves when we decided to become sober. We've accepted the fact that our life was not going the way we wanted, and now we must own all the good and the bad.


This OWN IT stage has really been a doozie in terms of realizing how necessary it is to be emotionally responsible. I feel at times, particularly in the last few months, that being sober is no longer good enough. That really owning my actions and emotions is the key to growth. That accepting myself and who I am will only enhance the choice I made five years ago.

For example:

Now that I am sober, I still struggle to get myself to the point of total financial responsibility. Before, I blamed my inability to balance my checkbook on being a barfly. Today, I have to force myself to really look at my spending habits and the reasons behind them. It's not pretty, but I've denied it for so long that getting to the root of the problem is less stressful than continuing my struggle.

Now that I am sober, I can no longer deny those elements in my life that are harmful to myself and my well being. Before, I accepted blame and believed that I was the cause of many things beyond my control. Now, I find that I have to accept other people for who they are and what they can or cannot provide. This has caused me great sadness to realize and then some kind of emotional release when I realize that I cannot control everyone around me.

Now that I am sober, I understand that not everyone will believe me until my actions defer the belief. Before, I thought I was smarter than everyone. I truly believed that my intentions would suffice over actions. Now, I know that only actions can prove what I've long intended. This was a big one for me this year as I had people still believe I was the same person from years ago. Instead of vying for their approval, I've moved on and refocused on my own approval.

Now that I am sober, I have to take one step further. Before, I was sober and that was a great feat. Now, I realize that if I intend to graduate from the emotional responsibility academy, I have to take all the courses.

Today, as sobriety becomes more and more mainstreamed, I worry that it will become a quick fix. I worry that people will use it as an excuse for inexcusable behavior. I did for a long time in my sobriety. In reality, one can only focus on that euphoric feeling of doing good for ourselves for so long before reality sets back in. A reality that causes many people to go back to their old habits and life.

Becoming sober is the first step. Recovery is the process in which we heal. In which we learn to love ourselves again. Where we own up to our demons and resolve to be the person we've intended to be all along.

And in the last five years, I face this challenge every second of my life. I still battle between the person I was and the person I intend to be. I reach so high and sometimes I falter. I question my decision. I get angry at my past. It has become considerably more difficult this year...because I am suddenly faced with the reality that if I don't act on what I truly believe, my decision is for naught.

Yet, if I had to do it all again, I wouldn't change one aspect of my life. I am blown away that I have followed this path over the last five years. I am humbled by the people I meet and the inspiration I have seen. I am grateful for my life in every form, the good and the bad.

And I realize that denying myself the ability to really live life would be detrimental. I deserve all the wonderful and amazing things that have happened, because I am making them happen. I look at this stage of my recovery as a milestone in my emotional schooling. I am so eager to move on to the next grade level, but have to constantly remind myself to listen and pay attention to those elements that will allow me to fully appreciate the life that I am building.

So, another year, another stage. I have a strange sense of happiness underneath my cloak of questionability. I really am proud of where I am, but I am really excited to keep moving forward.

It's all a path.....and the flowers are just starting to bloom along the way.

Generic Letter Writing

So, I have spent the last 48 hours writing letters to people I will never send. And, it is amazing what you can get out when you know it's not actually going to the intended recipient.

If anyone has a letter they wish to post, send it to me and I'll anonymize and post it. It's really a wonderful act of cathartic babble and worth the psychoscribble.

For example:

Dear INSERT NAME HERE,

Thanks for all the ______ things you have done to me. You've made me feel like _____ and I just want you to know that I am better off with/without you. I hope you _______ and when you realize ________, it will be too late to apologize.

Best of luck, ___________.

Sincerely,
INSERT NAME HERE

My plan is to finish writing all of them (and I keep thinking of more and more people that have pissed me off over the years) and then having a ceremonial burning of the missives. I have found lately that letting go really is the only way to get rid of all the emotions that one wastes their energy on. And trying to count on people to understand your point of view doesn't always come to fruition.

Hence, the generic letter writing campaign.

creativerecovery@hotmail.com

The truth.

The truth is...........
That my sobriety is my only consistent source of strength.
I am waiting for someone.
I am scared of the future.
I am scared of the present.
Everything in the world is going for me.
I have difficulty finding peace within myself.

I will....
Remind myself that sobriety is my honest endeavour.
Stop looking out the window for the one I love to return.
Look forward to the future.
Love the present.
Continue striving to be the best woman I can be.
Find peace within my heart.

Studio Work for Purchase

http://www.kjpartstudio.freeservers.com/photo2.html

I wish Sober was another word: A Rant.

There are many times in the last almost five years that I find myself trying to define the word sober. Sober. Sobriety. Not drinking. Recovery. Change in life.

The dictionary defines sober:

* Habitually abstemious in the use of alcoholic liquors or drugs; temperate.* Not intoxicated or affected by the use of drugs.* Plain or subdued: sober attire.* Devoid of frivolity, excess, exaggeration, or speculative imagination; straightforward: gave a sober assessment of the situation.* Marked by seriousness, gravity, or solemnity of conduct or character. See Synonyms at serious.* Marked by circumspection and self-restraint.

Self restraint? Devoid of excess or speculative imagination? The question arises in my own head....have I become boring and morose in my sober life? Have I become plagued with seriousness because I have chosen this path?In the last three years, I have also found myself having to defend and define my sober life. "Why don't you drink?" "What happened to make you stop?" "Are you WEIRD?" "YOU DON'T GO OUT?" "Have you no fun in your life?"

Well, I think to myself tirelessly, life is just different.What happened to make me cease drinking habitually for the majority of my young adult life? Well, I guess things were just not working the way I wanted. Nothing significant happened, per se. Yes, I hit bottom, but not in any spectacular fashion. I just got sober. I simply took out an element of my life that caused me pain. And now, I find that people have a difficult time grasping the concept.And when did I become so concerned about what people think?

Years ago, I could get drunk, stand on a bar and proclaim my love for Jimmy Buffett in song without skipping a beat. I could fall down the stairs at a restaurant and simply smile and say, "oopsie". But, we live in a world surrounded by alcoholic intentions. It's part of our society and part of the way we chose to socialize. Not a day goes by that does not include a reference to alcohol. And I accept that with the grace of a woman who has made a choice. But, damn it, it's still frustrating as hell.

I actually watch people watch me at parties. I see them double glancing at my martini glass making sure that there is nothing stronger than Diet Coke in my glass. And these people never knew me BEFORE! If they had, the would know that I rarely drank martinis. I play the part with little fanfare. I participate in the charade of the drinking world with my own sober theatrics. And when I arrive home to my bed, I collapse with the exhaustive sigh of someone in recovery. I have worked to make everyone feel comfortable for the choices I have made...and for a moment, I wish I could replace the word sober with some amazing adjective that would wipe away the stigma of my decisions. The stigma of all my past mistakes. . And yes, I wish I could replace sober with just about any other word in the English language.

And in all of these quandries, I sometimes find myself questioning my motives. Why am I really doing this? Meeting people that I never knew existed. Constantly searching for my own soapbox to stand on. My purpose. My MO. When before I was simply a woman with a drinking problem. I did not publicize my life on such a vehement scale. I was never a hippie, cause- related type of woman. I drank. I got drunk. I caused some drama and then went home to pass out.Now, things are different. I have made a choice that has changed my life. I will not change the fact that I am sober, so sober it is.

So, I have taken the liberty in redefining the word sober in my own glorified dicitonary:

sober (adj.): respect for one's own self. Self assured, self-aware and unconcerned with those people who just don't get the reasons for this journey.

And for those of you who drink, life on the other side is not bleak and weary. Blisters do not appear when in the presence of someone sober.

http://www.postsecret.com

Quote of the week.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live"
-Dorothy Thompson

Change of Heart.

Years ago, I married the love of my ripe-old-age-of-twenty five life. He stood before me, sobbing uncontrollably in front of a hundred or so of our friends and relatives. His love for me at the time was unwavering. He adored me. He loved me. I was his third wife.

I had been privy to all his faults and flaws prior to my tipsy nuptials. During our time as husband and wife, I was miserable but unable to let him go. I thought I knew what I wanted and tried to be a wife. Think, Martha Stewart meets the Jekyll and Hyde in female dossiers. I had no prior stable marriage model. My father was gone before I was seven and had his own bouts of infidelity. I was a young girl who married for love. Married without any knowledge of the work and commitment it takes to actually beat the odds of divorce. And I was blindsided because I loved him so very very much. Throw in the fact that we drank almost every night and you have a very volatile combination of emotions.

Soon after one hell of a wedding, my marriage began it's long demise. Infidelity. Abandonment. Lies. Love gone horribly wrong. And suddenly, I was an overweight, burned out advertising executive with a more serious drinking problem and baggage packed full of crap. All before my 27th birthday. When I came home and my husband was gone, I secretly wasn't surprised. However, I was crushed. My heart was broken because I had been abandoned by the one person I thought would keep me afloat in my faltering emotional life.

And the healing began at a snail's pace. I woke up. I got sober after fifteen years of drinking to excess. I began my writing career and soon became a published author. I was featured in Glamour, Marie Claire and had my art and writing splashed around the sobriety world. I returned slowly to the corporate world of advertising and rebuilt bridges that I had almost burned from scorned experience. And while I poured my heart onto my website about the trials and tribulations of my broken heart, I, again, secretly thought that the day would come that my betrothed and I would be reunited.

That day came about five years too late. Three weeks ago, I went to see him at his "home" with another woman and their child. His "home" sits upon the same sandy soil that I had spent my childhood with my father. My life was spent there, on a skydiving drop zone, with all the dysfunction and instability that you can only IMAGINE you'd want to live in. I had lived it in my youth and married it in my adult years. And here I was, five years removed from my ex and a world away from my childhood.

We embraced, we cried, we laughed. We walked the same steps that I had taken twenty five years prior. And during this time, I looked around the pictures and letters in his home that had remnants of where my life had once been. The people we knew and loved. The places we had been to. But it was different this time. I was no longer in the pictures. They were all part of a life that I no longer belonged to and I quickly saved myself and fled before the pain in my heart resurfaced. I was so proud of myself for letting go.

But, that admiration I felt for myself quickly turned to self deprecation. In the weeks leading, the promises got deeper.....All I would have to do was wait two years for him to take care of things in his present life and we could be married again in Big Sur, the place we had spent such a romantic time in our lives. In two years, he promised us a house, a new marriage and a family. In two years, we would have this reunion of spirits and live out the rest of our days together. And the letters, phone calls and subsequent meeting all pointed towards this life of complete bliss.

Yesterday, we sat in a park, not far from the ad agency I had returned to and the career that I had become so successful. Here he was, sitting in front of me telling me every single word and scenario that I had hoped and waited for over the last five years. Would I wait? Would I meet someone else? Wouldn't it be amazing to live the rest of my life with the man that I had held such a burning torch for all these years? My mind was spinning and it was no longer a dream, it was reality.

And reality always scares the hell out of me.

The sun began its long journey into dusk, I said goodbye to him and got on my train back to my real life two hours north of Manhattan. My dog, my love, my house, my friends. My life that no longer included him save the memories of our life together in a shoebox in my closet. The cobwebs had begun to emerge since the last time I had dragged out the box. I had someone else in my life that I had tried to love but was scared to death. I was moving on, slowly, unsteadily, but with half hearted conviction that I would be great and that the life I had chosen was the right path. My secret desires were no longer including him....but revealing where I wanted to be, who, when.

My heart aches. Not for him, but for myself. I have spent the last five years rebuilding my life. I have moved on with years of therapy, new men, new experiences. I have never found that love again, but I did find a great solace in knowing that I was living the life I should have. I was sober. I was in control. And I was becoming one hell of a woman.

And as I said goodbye, smiling and laughing and so happy to have had the hours I spent with him, I sat on my train looking at the river. And the tears started pouring from my eyes with relentless pain. How could I wait two years? How could he ask me to sacrifice two years of my life when he couldn't sacrifice one goddamn thing for me in the last ten years? How would I live with myself? How would I live blissfully happy after all the years of heartache I felt? Could I love him that much?

I cried. I cried. I cried some more. And suddenly it hit me like the storm on the river I was passing through. I had loved him so much. I had loved him more than anything, but I didn't love him more than myself. Now, I respect where I have been and where I am going. Now, I know what I deserve and need in my life. And I sat there in utter disbelief that I could be making such an observation. Had it suddenly clicked?

I was willing to take the emotional fall for the sake of this other woman and child. I would walk away silently and without consequence and hope to hell that he would patch up his life now, without me. I realized that I couldn't be the cause of someone else's heartache. I couldn't be personally responsible for this woman and child's loss. And I would not let the pain that was so familiar and detested creep into my heart again. It simply hurt too much and I had come too far in my life to revisit that emotional upheaval again.

Again, no matter how much I had loved him, I finally realized that I loved myself more. And in the technological age that we live, I sent him a text message saying just this and pressed send before I could falter.

And as I went up the river, towards my home, the storm began to pass.

Quote of the week.

"Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails."
Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)