IT IS ONE DAY AT A TIME –
Dec, 27, 2021 – Like those 6.5 million folks trying Dry January this year, my own sobriety also began as a challenge. And while I’m grateful for my personal journey, I wish I was more respectful to folks with long-term sobriety when I was in the “let’s try this whole sober thing” phase.
Gone are the days when one must attend a 12-step meeting and identify with the A-Word (alcoholic). The only prerequisite to evaluating your relationship with alcohol is the desire to be “sober curious.” Maybe I’d have stopped drinking sooner if sobriety was this celebrated and accessible back in my whiskey-chugging days.
I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol from ages 15 to 29. Fourteen years of my life were spent living the stereotypical dancing-on-bars party girl lifestyle. Several nights a week ended in a blackout.
I never stopped to ask myself why I drank the way that I did. I was a career bartender and occasional college student who drank like my peers and coworkers. We egged each other on with Maker’s Mark on the rocks and intermittent shots of Jägermeister. When drinking buddies dropped off due to getting sober, graduating college, or simply just growing up, I poked fun of them behind their backs. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to stop drinking or how they spent their time if alcohol wasn’t part of it.
Now, with six years of sobriety and five years of therapy, I can clearly see why I drank until I blacked out — a clarity that may have never arrived with a round of shots on the table. I have PTSD from a traumatic event that happened at age 14. My mom did what she could by putting me in therapy and on anti-depressants, but those methods only work when the patient wants help. I didn’t want help. I wanted escapism. That’s where self-medication came in.
