The cold war between me and Bitch-Mom is going nuclear on Monday, and I am the opposite of excited.

I often feel like I’m stuck in lose-lose situations, that there isn’t a right choice that I can make.  In recovery they talk about “the next right thing” which isn’t a concept that comes naturally to me.  I get caught up in the possibilities of how something will play out, in trying to take into account every single consequence that may or may not result from anything I do.  This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I don’t see a world where people live in personal bubbles with no impact on one another.  I accept cause and effect as a fact and view reality accordingly.  When it turns from pragmatism into crazy-making is when I pretend that I can actually KNOW how something is going to turn out, when I start to believe that my prediction of future events is a predestined course that will unfold just as I have seen in my mind.

Yes, my life gets shitty when I pretend that I am God.  And not even the Catholic understanding of God.  Apparently when I am God in my mind I am God as John Calvin understood God.  No wonder things turn to shit.

But the very simple truth of my life is that I don’t know at all how things are going to turn out.  I once knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had met the man I was going to marry.  He married someone else.  I once planned my whole future on the sure knowledge that I was going to become a literature professor at a mid-sized East coast university.  I dropped out of grad school.  I once believed that I could stop drinking anytime I wanted, that I was in control and I didn’t have a problem.  I couldn’t and I did.  In all the futures I envisioned for myself, that I had bone-deep certainty in, not a single one involved becoming a friend of Bill.

I think doing the next right thing is about leaving space in my life for God to do what he thinks is best.  That if I’m less concerned about filling my imaginary future with my self-serving plans, then I am more open to what God wills for me.  The next right thing today is to make some coffee, read a book, and get some sleep for tomorrow.  After that the next right thing is to catch up on my grading.  The next right thing after that is to prepare as best I can to state me case to Bitch-Mom without being accusatory or defensive.  Past these three, I will just have to see how things stand on Sunday.  As familiar as I might find it to crawl into a dark place in my mind concocting all the unjust yelling Bitch-Mom is going to do at on Monday, I have no proof that that is what is going to happen.  It is very well what may happen, but since I cannot look into the future with a perspective outside of time, for all I’m capable of knowing she might cancel our meeting, or she might bring an issue to my attention that I haven’t given enough thought to, or she might yell and then listen to me.

I don’t know.  But I’m slowly knowing that I don’t know.

Socrates would be proud.

(1 Year 2 Months and 9 Days Sober)

I’m thankful that I got over the flu very quickly.

There’s been a bug going around the school for the last couple weeks and yesterday my whole body decided to reject all things good and lovely, so I whined until my admin sent me home and crawled into bed.

But I wasn’t alone.

See, I am a total TV junkie.  There are shows that I will watch 6 and 7 times, even when I know all the lines and how/where/when every plot point either elates or frustrates me.  There are fictional characters that to me are real living breathing people.  (Now in all fairness to my crazy, I am the same way with books and movies as well.)  But a funny thing happened when I started getting sober.  I couldn’t watch TV.  The shows that I truly loved and had followed for years were too overwhelming, too serious, and in many cases, were part of a very serious pattern of wine consumption.  (I mean for reals, did anyone make it through Season 6 of Supernatural not completely hammered?)  So, when the booze became a part of my life only in the past tense, I kind of thought I would just gorge on all my small screen favorites while clinging to “I WILL NOT DRINK TODAY!” but instead I could occasionally watch a few episodes of some entirely new show that for the most part didn’t turn out to be very good.

But starting about a month ago I really missed my old shows.  Not the I miss-my-old-life type thing, but more a are-there-things-I-can-take-from-old-life-into-new-one type thing.  I caught up on Fringe and How I Met Your Mother.  I’m working on back episodes of White Collar and investigating which venue I will use to mainline some Dexter.  My friend KP has been gently reminding me that I’m almost two whole season behind on Sons of Anarchy, an amazing show that KP and I both love to a sort of unhinged level.  On Monday night she posted the cover shot for an article about SoA on my Facebook page, and when my stomach rebelled against me it occurred to me that the universe might be telling me that the time had come for me to return to Charming.

And just like I remember, SoA is complicated, terrifying, and heartbreaking.  And while I cried my eyes out, hid under my pillow, bit my nails, and laughed every so often, and obnoxiously texted KP, all while trying not to throw up (that’s the flu not the show) I was able to appreciate a bit that the old and the new aren’t incompatible, that I may even be able to bring them into harmony.  (I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.)  This is one of the fundamental tensions SoA explores, and in a much less dire way (you know, because I’m not a member of a gun-running biker gang) I saw many reflections of my own struggles played out on Jax and Opie’s faces, in Tara’s silences and screams, in Gemma’s desperate need to control.  But a reflection is not the thing itself, and I am a free creature rather than a fictional one, born a actual person with free will, not a character dependent on her creator for words.

My freedom has felt oppressive lately.  As I work to rid myself of slavery to sin, to invite grace into my life, the allure of easy comfort and quick gratification is even shinier, and therefor my anger at myself those times I give in is greater, because I know just how actively I am working against my own well being.  The extra time and energy I have being single and without children looks lonely and taxing, because I convince myself that I cannot say no to any question put to me, since after all, it’s not like I’m accountable to a husband who needs my love and support.  In my mind, now unrestrained by a need to drink as much as I can as often as I can, I fall into a trap of thinking that no choice is good enough, no action high enough, that I have been given a singular and un-repayable gift which I am not making the most of and maybe never will.

What if I am just as mediocre sober as I was drunk?

You see, freedom is not the same as simplicity.  But also, doubt is not despair.  I’m allowed to doubt in myself.  That is natural, and I have quite a talent for it.  But despair leads straight back to the bottle.  So, in the words of St. Francis, “where there is doubt let me sow faith.”  I cannot lack faith when I realize that I was given a chance to turn my life around.  I cannot lack faith when I think that tomorrow friends are opening their home to me, inviting me to spend Thanksgiving with them in exchange for making the mashed potatoes.  (Um, yeah, say a little extra prayer for that one!)  I cannot lack faith when I know that my mother goes to sleep unburdened by undue worry over me, her prayers for my safety answered after many years.  I cannot lack faith when I look now at the ability to doubt without despairing.  I didn’t have that for years.  Maybe I’ve never had that before.

And so I am thankful.  Thankful to be on the recovering side of alcoholism.  Thankful for faith.  Thankful for doubt.  And thankful that after tomorrow I can watch the greatest Christmas movie of all time and I won’t be “starting the season too early.”

Yes, that movie is Die Hard.

(1 Year, 2 Months, and 1 Day Sober)

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kind of in hate with the world right now.

Uggg.  Just ugggggggggggg.

For most of this week I’ve been under-slept and over-stressed.  Not because the world really is falling apart, just because I FEEL like it is.  And today, last period while my class was in gym, it all finally felt like too much and I started having a panic attack.  By all that is holy I managed to calm myself down and didn’t completely lose my shite all over the place.  But it was still a scary moment.  Not scary because I was confused about what was happening; why my face was suddenly on fire and I couldn’t breathe and my skin seemed like it was shredding off of my bones.  No, that has all happened before, many many times.  It just hasn’t happened in a while.

I seem to be incapable at the moment of getting any distance between me and the world.  Everything coming in from the outside seems abrasive, defeating and specifically designed to cause me the most pain.  All of my reactions feel explosive, out of proportion and uncontrolled.  During the week I would get upset about something I knew wasn’t worth being upset about, but I couldn’t listen to myself that it wasn’t worth it.  I’ve found the most imaginative ways to see myself as the victim, but knowing I was going out of my way to find excuses to be hurt wasn’t enough to get me to stop myself.

I know that a huge reason I am completely raw is that I haven’t been to a meeting in a long long time.  Sobriety is a habit, it takes work, and I have been nothing but lazy about it for far too long now.  And that’s what I do.  I aspire to “good enough” and then coast downhill from there.  When things are dire I’m all focus and determination, but when things are fair to middling I’m dismissive and easily distracted.

I think the only thing that kept me from drinking on election night was the thought that “well, voters can keep doing the same thing over again thinking it will be different this time, but I know that just ends in misery.”  I think it goes without saying that I wasn’t pleased with the results, but I would be even less pleased if Obama’s victory had trashed my sobriety.

There is no solution to the way I am right now other than the completely obvious one.  I need to go to a meeting.  I need to remind myself that I am not alone in my condition, that I am not hopeless for my future well-being.  I need to listen, to share, to get out of my “me, me, me, it’s all about ME!” mentality.

(1 Year and 50 Days Sober)

Years ago I had a very strict Saturday morning routine.

I got up by 7am, ate breakfast, made a HUGE pot of coffee, put on whatever disc had arrived from Netflix, and cleaned my apartment from top to bottom.  (Except vacuuming, I hate vacuuming and never do it.)  I was usually done between 10 and 11, and then I would shower and get on with whatever else my day entailed.

I loved my Saturday ritual.  It kept my living space neat, it was time to myself where I felt both relaxed and productive, and I never felt like my weekend had been “wasted” because even if I didn’t accomplish anything else, I got that done.  Sometimes, if I’d been out late the night before, I wouldn’t get up until 8am, or I’d need a couple Advil before getting started.  But this tradition was part of the way I lived my life before I was an alcoholic.

Once that shift was made (when I no longer had a drink because I enjoyed it, but because I NEEDED it), my Saturday mornings changed.  It was something I noticed but didn’t think about too closely.  Because I was passed out instead of sleeping, I got up later and later.  Soon, noon seemed like a perfectly appropriate time to start my Saturday.  A few Advil and a bagel no longer shook off the vestiges of beers gone down.  Soon a new Saturday routine developed and it wasn’t pretty.  I would drag myself from the bed to the couch, turn on whatever I left in the DVD player, lie there until the room wasn’t spinning too too much, make the hangover french fries I kept in the freezer, and drink Diet Coke until it was time to shower so I could go out again.  My apartment would get cleaned whenever it was impossible to get into the kitchen because of the piles of beer and wine bottles, or when the black bookshelf looked grey from dust and cigarette ash.  My insides and my outsides were literally a mess.  If anyone asked my how my weekend was I would say “oh ya know, hung out at home” and change the subject.

It wasn’t just that alcoholism made it physically difficult to do what I had done before, it was also that I didn’t want that time to myself.  Cleaning, for me, is a huge part of how I put my mind back in order.  I can’t think in cluttered or messy spaces, and putting things where I think they belong, and making sure they’re neat, gives me the internal space to put myself where I think I belong.  Everyone who meets me thinks I some anal retentive nut job clean freak, but it’s really just that I am incredibly claustrophobic, both internally and externally.

Things are different now.  Being sober doesn’t mean that everything goes back to exactly the way it was before you became and alcoholic.  If it did, then you would just start drinking again, because things exactly as they were had some fundamental flaw that propelled you to drink.  So my Saturdays are different now.  Most Saturdays I have errands and appointments that can’t wait until the afternoon, so I’m out of the house by 10 am, not to return until the late afternoon.  I also live with a roommate, so it isn’t just my stuff in the apartment, and she feels judged when I clean up her things, so I wait until I can’t live with it anymore.  I try to keep my own space pretty neat on a daily basis, so there usually isn’t a great deal that needs to be done all at once.  (I do need to take out my garbage, I’ll do that today.)

For the most part my breakfast, coffee, and recollecting has shifted from Saturday to Sunday.  I get up without an alarm, get the caffeine flowing, and (usually) catch up on the news/blogs/stupid internet stuff that I’ve missed during the week, or return emails I haven’t gotten to, or talk to my mom.  Now it is a lot more about putting information in order than physical objects.  Sometimes I catch up on an episode of TV I’ve missed.  It’s all very slow and relaxed.  Eventually I put on real clothes, go to yoga, get my grading and planning done for the week and finish out the day with Mass.  Besides the coffee, there really isn’t much commonality between the old routine and the new one.  Except that once again, I can spend time with myself.  Even if I’m not super enthused about who I am on a particular Sunday, or the week that I had leading up to it, I look forward to having some time in my week to take stock, do what makes me relaxed, and preparing for what will come next.  When I was drinking that kind of time was the last thing that I wanted.

Time for another cup of coffee.

(1 Year and 45 Days Sober)

Last Sunday, before the hurricane hit, I was in Georgetown getting a new tattoo.

I knew that I wanted to get a tattoo in honor of my first year of sobriety, but as the year mark approached I couldn’t decide what I wanted or where I wanted it to be.  A friend and I had been talking on and off about him getting a tattoo.  He had never gotten one before and he wanted one, but he wasn’t totally sure.  We were hanging out one night, just after my year anniversary, and I told him that if her wanted a buddy to go with him, I would be on board for that.  Of course then he asked me what I was getting and I told him I didn’t know.

That night I went home and started really thinking about it.  What did I want?  I knew that I didn’t want my sobriety date (9/20/11 if you’re interested), which is commonly what you’ll see people in the program have tattooed somewhere.  I knew inside that that wasn’t what I wanted.  My sobriety date is a huge day in my life, one I will probably never forget.  But my first year of sobriety was so much more that just a date.  It wasn’t right.  I started thinking about endings and beginnings.  About how the last year of my life has been the most painful I’ve had to live through, and at the same time the most open and happy, a year full of more love than I could have imagined.  And after hours of looking at pictures of trees, birds, suns and all the crazy shit people tattoo onto themselves (seriously, it is so addicting looking at tattoos because people do ridiculous things, in both the cool and the foolish way), I decided that I wanted words.  But all the quotes that I felt applied to what I wanted to express were really long.  That’s what I get for being in love with Early Modern English poets.   By scrolling through Pinterest I had come across a few Harry Potter tattoos, and all of a sudden I knew exactly what I wanted.

My new tattoo says “I open at the close” with a 2 inch circle surrounding it.  It is above the inside of my left ankle.  And I am so in love with it.

(Here’s a picture!)

Funny enough, plenty of people I know recognize the quote immediately.  It is what is inscribed on the Golden Snitch Dumbledore give to Harry in his will, in which Dumbledore had hidden the Resurrection Stone.  (I suppose I should say Spoiler Alert, but serious, if at this point you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I can’t think that you care.)  And plenty of people have laughed good naturedly with a “Andrea you are such a dork” follow-up.  I am a dork, and I am completely okay with that.  I first read Harry Potter in 1998 when I was 14.  And I have loved each word ever since, without any apology.  But I picked this particular quote for more than fan-ish sentiment.

In a very real way, it is literally true.  I closed the bottle and my life opened up.  When I decided to end a long phase of my life, to stop drinking, I was small, cold and lost.  I could not see that I had anything left, and couldn’t imagine what would be there in the future.  And despite my worst fears, I became bigger, warmer, and found.  Day by day, even when it sucked, I could see how much better my life was without drinking.  I reconnected with old friends.  My relationships within my family became smoother.  I started to enjoy things again.  I opened up and let my life happen, in all its messiness.  When I ended what I had known for so long, I was given an opportunity to have something new, real, and ever growing.

But there is also the metaphorical sense in which I mean my tattoo.  I had to be willing to die.  By that I mean, I had to be willing to sacrifice, every single day, in ways that I couldn’t have imagine.  In order to stay sober I have to wake up and chose to correct my selfishness, to give myself to others, to do what is right even if it isn’t what I want.  To stay sober I cannot hold onto self-pity.  I cannot pretend that I am the most important person in the universe.  I have to life with a constant willingness to let go.  But to let go with purpose.  I have to see myself and my life as an instrument of God’s plan.  I might not need to battle a lunatic bent on genocide, but I have to face forever that darkness of my alcoholism, and do everything I can to combat it.

So my new tattoo is a reminder both of what I’ve achieved as well as what is yet to be accomplished.

And have I mentioned how much I love it?

(1 Year and 44 Days Sober)