The Sober Door © Book Excerpt

I've been writing a book for the last few months, it's a fictional labor of love about a woman who comes to terms with her sobriety. Since I have been getting a lot of e-mails regarding the book and am appreciative of all the support, I've decided to post the unedited first draft version of the preface to "The Sober Door".....stay tuned in the next year, it will be out there.....
Thanks,
Kim

The Sober Door ©

Preface

Locked in. Barricaded from the outside. He spared me. Saved me. Threw me with resounding force. Conflicted. I am being spared. I am being enveloped in blackness. I can hear him. Screaming outside. Ranting, ranting, ranting.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? ALL OF YOU?”

I know that I am safe for the moment. I know he is hurting everyone outside the door. I am shut in, shut out from him. They are outside. I am safe. I am spared. The noise of the punches. Each slap stings. Screams. Cries. It rings in my ears. I hear my brother screaming. My mother screaming. I am eneveloped in blackness. The vibration of each hit comes through the floor. I cannot see beyond the door in front of me.

“I NOT THE MAN YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE.”

I know I want him. I want him to open the door. I want him to bring me out, beat me and take me out of this dark place he has sequestered me to. I want to feel the pain. EACH and EVERY lash that is being inflicted.I have been in here for hours, this I know. Cramped and cowering, only wishing that he would love me enough to hit me too. I can smell his breathe, even from inside the tomb I am in. Acid. Fire. Sweetness. His nose, white like Christmas. His eyes wild as he had pushed my thrashing limbs. I was left out of the carnage. .I hear everything but cannot see. I am so desperate not to be forgotten in the massacre.

“YOU ARE ALL F**** NUTS”

For a moment, I hear his hand on the door knob. I think, “he’s going to bring me out.” I am not scared. I am ready to handle his wrath as it is inherently mine. I tremble. For once, I am not forgotten. I will be his daughter. I will wipe his tears away with my hand. He will know that I want him.

And quickly, his hand is gone.

All goes silent. I hear whimpering. It is my own. I know he is gone. Left me here in the closet. Darkness. I am alone. I don’t know where he is going or how long but he won’t be back. He went too far. He left me.

He forgot to leave my present. He forgot to sing, to blow out the candles. He forgot to tell Mom that I only eat chocolate frosting. Today is my sixth birthday. I am locked in the closet.

After the Holidays

Years ago, I used to find that the most depressing time of the year happened right after the holidays. The celebrations were over, the list of resolutions that I had made was already lost in the post-holiday shuffle and the coldness of winter was finally becoming reality. It was a time of looking back at the year prior and wondering if the regrets of my actions would follow me into the new year.

When I became sober, the post holiday period was more of a sigh of relief....I had made it through the social maze of skipped invitations and constant reminders of what I was missing out on (or so I thought at the time).

The last few years, however, I look at the post holiday period as a great time of self reflection. I no longer make lists of resolutions I know I will not keep. I have only one real and true resolution that I live every day of my life. Everything else, because of my constant resolve, is falling into place with the work that I put into being sober.

One thing I do around this time is take inventory of my goals and objectives. Where am I within my sober life? Where do I want to be this year? This month? This day? Resolutions, post holiday periods are more about asserting what we are living with and reflecting on how we can achieve even more balance in the months to come.

Today, my personal inventory looks a lot more like an orderly pantry than cluttered attic desperate for reorganizing. Sure, the cans on the shelves may still be stacked in slight disarray, but it's accessible and ready for cold winter days of reflection.

Happy New Year

So, New Years Day 2009. 530am. I'm on my way from getting coffee since I went to bed on New Year's Eve at 8pm thanks to my resolve not to go out on NYE anymore. Car dies (thanks to my 90,000 mile BMW that neither Healey Brothers nor BMW corporate would help at all). I walk home in 2 degree weather with pajamas on. Three miles into it I am picked up by the local newspaper delivery guy making his far too early rounds. I am freezing, he knows me from another lifetime. I am so grateful.

Get home, news is not good. No car. I'm likely paying for it for the next two years. Instead of the complete panic that normally envelopes me, I start thinking of my options (having it stolen, though it crossed my mind, is not one of them)......

I realize that, no matter what, I still have options. Was it a mistake to buy the car? Yes. Am I completely humbled? Absolutely. Do I still have my health and happiness? Most definitely.

As much of an inconvenience as it is, I am still here and alive. I still have family that was able to lend me another car for the time being (humbled once more driving a truck with 237,000 miles that actually runs!). I was freezing walking home but survived. I have seen great kindness from strangers, friends and family. Everyone is chipping in when years ago, they may not have been so apt to help.

In all, I am pretty lucky. I finally got back to my car four hours later (and again, kindness from the tow truck guy who picked me up at home), there was a yellow flower and a newspaper with a note written: "Hope your 2009 gets better. Smile". I actually smiled. In the wake of such shallow disparity, I still have the things that mean the most. And then some.

Happy New Year!

When the Party Ends.

I feel compelled to write this morning as I can no longer ignore the newspapers, TV, on-line blurbs about twenty-something-drink-touting celebrities gone wild without jumping on my soapbox in some fashion.

Though life in NY is a lot less glamorous than Hollywood, and my life in particular, can't hold a torch to celebrity hob nobbing, my party days still haunt me on many levels.

When I was young, I realized that I was a gregarious type, singing chords of Annie to anyone who could stand my repeatedly bad version of "The Sun will Come Out". I was an attention seeker probably from the moment I was born. Yet, weaving in some family tragedies and the angst I felt being outwardly social and inwardly a mess, being a party girl held many advantages.

I built my social reputation on drinking, getting drunk and acting as wild as I could handle. I was perceived as spontaneous, wildly irresponsible and willing to do anything for a serious buzz. Shots? Loved them. Beer Pong? Martinis? Wines by the bottles? All my mantra during my late teens, early twenties.

During this period, I was running around with trendy crowds in NYC and Washington DC. According to myself at the time, I was fabulous and unstoppable. I did not know one single person in any of my social groups that did not drink. I stumbled around Manhattan at 3am, crashing wherever, with whoever. And getting into cars with strangers? Never a problem when you had the camaraderie of a drinking partner.

And during this period, I now recall, there were few and futile efforts to slow myself down. People would casually mention that perhaps I was drinking too much. I found myself constantly apologizing for drunken mishaps, hangovers or blatant irresponsibility. I would blow off any member of a non-drinking circle, family included, because they simply did not fit my lifestyle. I was entirely too stubborn and too convinced that drinking was acceptable and respected.

Never once during these years did I think about actually stopping. That would have been sacrilege. I would have suddenly lost rank on some self-conjured social scale. I would have no one to party with, no friends and no life. Not only was I able to bury serious emotional issues, but socially, I could hide behind the fact that I deemed myself life of the party. It simply became easier to modify every other aspect of life to fit my need to be this girl. It is a way of life that so many people in their early adulthood are now faced with.

As I write this, I still have a pang of guilt for getting on a soapbox. I truly believed that life did not exist without drinking. It had been etched into my social psychology for so long, the words "alcoholic" or "drinking problem" were reserved for those people who were weak and unable to handle the drinking life.

And as I write this, I am laughing at how utterly, absolutely, undeniably wrong I was.

I never believed that "alcoholic" would happen to me. But, it did...and fast. My life went from being twenty something with a penchant for partying to a young adult with a serious issue. The party was over and I was desperately drowning issues long pent. I was trying to live in a time that no longer was. Trying to draw attention as a beautiful, stay out all night, sophisticated imbiber. In fact, I was turning into a socially miserable drunk. I would turn belligerent. I would miss work. I was spiraling out of control and I was in such incredible denial, that I almost took it too far too many times.

Yet, my denial perpetuated my actions. I became even more wild. I was lying. I was making excuses. Anything to make sure that my life as fabulous party girl remain untarnished. Ha, I think now, if I had looked in the mirror then, I might have realized that my image had been tarnished years before.

And then, one day, after some bouts with "hitting bottom", I decided it was time to stop.
I had gone too far. My romance with being a party girl had ended and my parties had become drinking at a bar with anyone I could find. After 14 years, it was the most painful "break-up" I have ever experienced (I don't think my divorce came close).

I have now been sober for seven years. I will say that my life as the party girl no longer exists as I knew it. As I work in the illustrious world of advertising agencies, I am still surrounded by the notion of partying all the time. I am still immersed in a world of drinking versus not drinking. And it's not easy. I frequently find myself longing for home on the rare occasion I am out and about. I have become a member of the non-drinking club and still have to remind myself that membership has its privileges. The friends I had during all those years of partying have either moved on to other party friends or simply dropped me because I chose something so socially foreign in young adulthood today.

But, there is never a day that I am not thankful that I made the choice to change my life. It was my decision to make, and I made it with grace and acceptance. I still mourn my old life at times, but I know that I've gained the ability to be responsible and true to myself. I really never thought that I would have gone so far in my sober life, but I have and I continue to live each day with strength and pride.

And in an ironic twist, in December 2004, I made my debut as a sober woman in the pages of Glamour Magazine. Picture, article...the works. It was a defining moment for me as I had always dreamed of being in a magazine as someone famous or notoriously wild. Never did I realize that anyone would actually want to read the story of a woman who gave up all those notions in exchange for a quieter, emotionally responsible life. Life as a sober woman on a soapbox.

So, twenty somethings, take heed. Perhaps when every one who is famous keeps hitting bottom, it will finally be trendy to be sober.

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
• 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.

Trust.

Last night, I had one of those amazingly lucid light bulb moments that seem to come far and in between lately, with the lights in my brain kind of flickering on and off due to a multitude of distractions.

I was having a conversation with someone and I suddenly realized that I questioned whether or not I trusted this person. It was a weird sequence of events. I started thinking that I didn't trust them to behave rationally and in the healthiest manner when it came to conflict. And then, suddenly, I had a flashback to someone essentially telling ME the same thing. That I was unable to be trusted. Then, the light bulb went off. I suddenly understood that my own definition of trust and my defensive reaction to being questioned in the past really stemmed from not understanding the true meaning of what it is to trust someone.

In addiction, trust is not the most prominent trait in those who are afflicted. Personally, I have had one hell of time learning to trust myself. In the past, I've lied, made up reasons and justifications to fit my own behavior. Trusting myself came far down the list of reasons not be so self-deprecating. And in turn, I rarely paid attention to the actual meaning of trust as it applies to emotional well-being. When I was told I was not trustworthy, it was so much more than just not stealing or lying, my own interpretation. And, because I was so defensive when told, I never even bothered to ask for a definition as it related to a given situation. I sit here and shake my head at my absolute ignorance.

I spent some time looking up various definitions of trust; confidence, absolute certainty in trustworthiness of another, belief, faith, reliance.

Whereas my definition of trust bordered on naivety (you trust someone not to steal your belongings), I suppose it's been defensiveness that has not allowed me to look at myself and what others could possibly interpret trust as.

I see now that trusting someone means that you know that they will be able to handle themselves with rationality and strength. That trust comes with being open to someone else and learning what their needs are, communicating fears and hopes without defense or reaction.

I'm simply amazed that I just never got this. I've had it explained and talked about so many different times in so many different types of relationships. I just adamantly refused to acknowledge that trust comes deep within and starts with oneself. What an exhausting epiphany it's been in the last twenty four hours!

And so begins the process of just trusting the emotions I have first and foremost. That my strength and will to be in my life will manifest itself through the actions I take. That when things get bad, I am fully capable of handling a situation with the grace and esteem that I have truly come to possess.

And in doing so, trusting others will be a constant shining instead of the flickering light that's been in serious need of a bulb change.

Sobriety and Thanksgiving....

Here's a scenario. It's your first few months sober and Thanksgiving, being your first holiday, suddenly creeps up on you. Panic. Angst. What do you do? Hide from the family? Ignore the holiday completely?

As if holidays aren't tricky enough, being sober during these times, when being merry and celebratory is analogous with having a drink in hand, can be daunting. I know, I've had a few (seven and counting still) myself.

One of the most elemental facets of sobriety is to make sure that you are always taking care of yourself, on every level. If you are not going to spend the holidays alone (I'm hardly ever against the idea!), you should have some contingency plans in place for the trip to grandmas.

The first task I completed in my first year sober during the holidays was to take a sheet of paper with every single e-mail address and phone number of all my support systems (at the time, there were many), quotes I loved, goals I had..etc. I wrote SURVIVING MY HOLIDAY SOBER on the top of it, scribbled incessantly and tucked the paper into my wallet. In all honesty, I never once pulled it out. But, it sure did help knowing that at any time, I could run outside and call someone or read some relevant bit that would ease the anxiety.

Okay, piece of life support paper in tow...doesn't get you through family ordeals or questions. Simple thing to remember: "Sometimes, the less information given, the better". Does Aunt Sally really care about whether you are drinking a bottle of wine with her? It probably bothers you more than she. Do you need to launch into a sober diatribe? Depends, but I would lean no. You are primarily sober for you, no one else. Your sobriety is an added benefit for those around you.

It's your choice as to how much information about your life you want to disclose. I've learned in the last seven years that if one of my family members still chooses to believe I was in a big magazine for helping people (when, in reality, the article was about me being a former party girl), then so be it. Not worth the argument.

Before and after long hours at the table, it may help remember the following thoughts (I've used one or all over the years):

• Pets are a good reason to excuse yourself early to go home
• Going for a walk with one family member is sometimes easier than answering to twelve and fresh air never hurts
• Any kind of clear soda in a glass with some fruit that you get immediately upon arrival will usually put an end to the "what are you drinking" question
• Be kind to yourself, don't fall into the roles that we're assigned at birth
• Remember that this day falls only once a year
• There is no chance you will get pulled over on the way home
• You will not be hungover on Friday
• Be thankful, really thankful, that you are sober this year
• Families usually fight because it's like looking in a bunch mirrors, everyone is related and similar
• Watch sugar, it's a great way to become testy

I have my own rituals, I try to do Thanksgiving with friends so that I can relax. Remember, there are more holidays in the next month! I go for a run. I buy my favorite beverage and put it in a wine glass, just for my own sanity.
After seven years, I think I am just about starting to love holidays again. The panic isn't there, I have control over my emotions when it comes to family sagas and I just really am thankful to be where I am in life.
And thanks to all of you. I'll be on http://www.mix97fm.com/ in New York on Wednesday at 730am EST. You can also listen on-line.
Have a safe and happy holiday.