Sobriety is a Verb

SO IS SLOWLY –

March 8, 2021 – It wasn’t too long after that last bout of drinking before the cracks in my dependencies started to show themselves. A friend is playing a show at a bar downtown and your friend group will be there, but also you know it’s a room full of strangers. What are you going to be holding in your hand that will help keep all your anxieties in check? You’ve been invited to speak on a panel about mental health in creative industries and the conversation gets difficult. How are you going to calm your nerves and your heart after an hour of hard questions you don’t have an answer to? These were the types of questions I would ask myself, stray thoughts rattling around my brain desperate for a solution. Drinking, for me, was part of a comprehensive anxiety management system—a toolkit I kept in my closet full of broken tools and the end of a roll of tape, but one I kept telling myself was sufficient to suit my needs. This is all I’ll ever need, I’d tell myself, just me and this rusty hammer with a broken handle against the world.