Peanuts, Cracker Jacks and a Diet Coke

Apparently, today was for sleeping. It is currently 3:30 pm, and I just woke up. I feel fantastic.

It's been a while since my last entry in the sobriety chronicles, mostly because I was back to drinking. I was still better, drinking less, drinking more self-consciously, but I was drinking. I had one night a couple of weeks ago when I stayed at the bar until 4:30 am, having nursed both of my addictions (men and booze). I had been working, but got off my shift around 11, when I sat down with a cute boy and had a few beers. Meanwhile, when I went outside to smoke a cigarette, the bartender followed me out and we made out among the broken concrete and dumpsters in the back of the bar. Then I would return to my barstool and continue chatting with the cute boy while the bartender kept my glass full. In the middle of all of this, my comfortable, safe f*ck-buddy friend came in and hung out for a while. So, I felt drunk and attractive. Just the way I like it. The boys left when the bar closed, and then it was just me and the bartender for the next few hours. Good times. Until the next morning.

The next morning after a night like this leaves me somewhat giddy and somewhat exhausted. I get swept up on a wave of potential sexual or romantic possibilities (one day, perhaps sexual and romantic will actually overlap). I recall feeling so wanted, and frankly, making out with the bartender in the cool breeze outside, hiding from everyone, was pretty damn sexy. But as the alcohol wears off completely, it leaves me vulnerable to the real feelings that I work so hard to avoid. It was a warm day, and I was sweating out the booze through my pores, and my body felt sticky and gross, and my eyes just wanted to shut. But I was back at the bar, working a double, somehow finding the will power to push through and get those Guinness out to the customers despite wanting more than anything to just crawl into bed in an air conditioned room.

The path to a lifetime of sobriety doesn't begin suddenly. At least, not for me. Nothing begins suddenly. Change takes time. I had this night about 3 weeks ago, and since then, I have only had one other booze soaked evening, but it was far less dramatic. This is improvement. This is what they call "harm reduction," or "bullshit," depending on who you talk to (the idea of "harm reduction" is not one that is embraced in AA).

The reason I slept until 3 pm today is that I have been waking up every day this week at 6:30 am to get to an AA meeting from 7-8 am. My day then begins, and I have been getting so much done by 2ish that I've had time to make short trips to the beach, lying on the sand near the ocean and contemplating my higher power. A couple of days ago, I sat down to write after a meeting, and my pen ran out of ink. I was scribbling furiously, licking the ballpoint tip, trying to get it to work, since it was my only pen and I was in a cafe. Sarcastically, I thought to myself, "Higher power, please make my pen work!" and lo and behold, the ink began to flow. A small miracle for a godless girl.

Last night, I went to a baseball game, and I was steeled for the challenge of refusing the $8 pints of Budweiser, but I was also thinking, "well, so what if I do? Change is slow. Forgive yourself." But I had talked about it at the meeting that morning. I had received the support of the women, all recovering alcoholics, all with their own unique suggestions of how to stay sober, and all saying, "call me." One woman said that one of her techniques at the beginning was to think of returning to the meeting the next morning and being able to announce that she had, indeed, stayed sober. I think this was what did it for me. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning, but I wanted to get to that meeting and I wanted to say to those women, "I did it! Thank you." And that's what I did. Then I biked my butt home, crawled back into bed, and slept until 3 pm, waking up in a terrific mood. This is new. This is a step. I may be becoming a convert. Slowly.

Open Bar

I was at a wedding this weekend. I kind of figured I wouldn't be sober at a wedding, I gave myself the opening to make this my last stand before I fully embrace some serious sobriety. It turned out like it always does: I was naked and drunk, and so was he. It doesn't even matter who "he" is. And this way of life felt as empty as the beer cans next to the bed.

One of the biggest reasons I have been reluctant to quit drinking is the cataclysmic shift that would have to occur in the rest of my life. The other things that I would have to give up along with the bottle: most of my friends, anything I know about how to socialize, my ability to talk to other people, a large chunk of my self-identity...the list goes on and on. But when I sat at that AA meeting, it occured to me that by saying "no" to those things, I would end up saying "yes" to other things: new friends, activities that don't involve drinking, a deeper confidence in myself, and a self-identity that might actually match up with my ideal. Or at least get closer to it.

But, somehow, I couldn't transpose this fabulous new mindset onto a weekend of celebrating someone else's matrimonial bliss. Honestly, I didn't even really try. I don't feel like I've failed, I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I didn't get anything out of it. I'm glad I felt like shit the next day, depressed and anxious. And I'm very glad that two nights after the wedding, while I sat with a friend and drank a couple of beers, I was introduced to two more sober people. I guess my freespirited buddy is dating a drug dealer in recovery. He showed up with his friend, both in NA, and I felt again like the universe is showering me with surprisingly sober men. First, Chris, the bartender who hasn't had a drop in 18 months. And now two scruffy boys who say things like, "I hope I get into college. I'm going to pray on it. And if it doesn't work out, I'm moving to Maine to grow pot."

I'm re-energized in my quest for the stability that comes with giving up the bottle. Sadly, I feel the deep motivation rushing out of my system, this journey has taken a steep uphill turn, and I'm struggling. I hope I'm up for the challenge.

AA

Went to a meeting tonight. I didn't arrive there as I thought I would. A few weeks ago, I said, "I am going to stay sober this week. If I can't do it, then I'll go to AA." Well, I stayed sober, and during that week, I called a friend in recovery and asked her to bring me to a meeting with her. I like being sober, and I want to stay that way. I don't think it's going to stay as easy as it has been, and I think I'd best lay a foundation for myself if I'm going to keep up with this thing.

I am feeling so very overwhelmed at this moment, I don't even know where to begin. So I'll end it here for now. Thanks all.

Saturn Return

I turned 28 in February, 2009. I picture myself digging in my heels while I remain powerless to stop the rush toward thirty. I have no job! No husband! No clue! I can't be thirty yet!

If you have not heard of Saturn Return, here is a little definition stolen from the Internet: "Astrologers have known for many centuries that it takes 29.5 years for the planet Saturn to make its orbit around the sun. That's why this crisis is called the 'Saturn Return'" (from http://www.saturnreturn.net/what_is.html). The gist here is that once Saturn returns to the place it was when you're born, it brings up all sorts of crises and unresolved conflicts from those first years of life, forcing you to man up and deal. Make some changes. The other option is to simmer in your energetic and astrological stew and wait miserably for Saturn to continue his (hopefully) dependable orbit, an option that leaves you wide open for a revisitation at the ripe old age of 60.

Isn't it so striking to read things written by strangers that perfectly describe your own thoughts, feelings, and fears? I have heard of this astrological phenomenon before, but now that I'm experiencing this remarkable shift in my own reality, I decided to look a bit deeper into it. In reading these random Internet articles, I feel I have found some explanation for my current state. My inexplicable urgency to quit the bottle, after years of declaring I should. The slowly growing ability to hear my child-like inner voice, encouraging me into contemplative and creative acts like writing. That same voice that tells me, "Stop saying you want to move to Cali and just fucking move. Shit or get off the pot. It won't kill you, and it's what you KNOW you need to do" (yes my inner child has a potty mouth). The clarity that is beginning to surround my intentions as a therapist, knowing that I want to specialize in studies of female sexuality. The one article I read even mentions that a woman's relationship with her father can come into question, and this is an issue that has been gnawing at me for a few years now. I still do not want to deal with it directly, but I know I won't be able to put it off too much longer. There's no juicy drama, by the way. Just...I'm his only daughter, and I'm kind of smart sometimes, and I've unconsciously felt a lot of pressure through the years to become his protege. And now, guess what -- I work for him. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this (I didn't intend for that to present as a temper tantrum, but that's how it came out, and I'm pretty sure there is meaning there)!

I am full of gratitude that I am going through this while I am deep into therapy. Otherwise, I think this energetic shift would be a whole lot scarier than it is. As it stands, I embrace the motivation I am getting from Saturn, even though I feel deeply the pain of the growth. I'm grateful for this whole event, to feel like I get the second chance I've been wanting, a rebirth of sorts. I don't typically follow astrology, but I treat it like I do religion -- I'll take what works for me and put it in my metaphorical bag and hopefully it won't get too heavy; if it does then I'll have to re-examine some things. But for now, I'm really diggin on this Saturn bit. Gratitude out to the Universe...

Two steps forward, one step back

First off, thank you to everyone who's expressed concern, support and encouragement. It's been so great to hear from you!

However, I did drink last night. I knew it would be a rough one, working at the bar until close. We shut down around 2:30 am, and that is when we can kick out all the drunks who paid us and start suckling on the taps for free. It had been eleven days, and I had a half a beer. Then, a full beer, followed by one more full beer. Two and a half beers is not a lot of beer, at least in my world. I finally left, and headed to my...um...what shall I call him...I'll just say that I have been cuddling up to Dave since Oct, partly because he's sweet and nice, and partly because he lives near the bar so on nights like last night, I can just walk on over and crash in his bed. Maybe sometimes naked, and maybe sometimes we have some sex. That is pretty much the extent of the relationship. Again, this is probably something I should cover in this other section. There were some other folks at Dave's, and I had probably another half a beer. Cross my heart, I was not drunk. But yes, I did drink.

Tonight, a friend came over, I thought we were just going to watch a movie but she wanted to go out and meet a guy. So...a glass of wine and a vodka tonic, but I was exhausted and I could barely stomach the cocktail. This feels to me to be a good sign. I'm home now, sleepy but certainly not drunk. Oh, and she didn't meet a guy; I unknowingly guided us to a local bar that was having it's gay night. Oops.

I have a date on Monday to go to AA with a good friend who is in recovery for seven years. This is not a commitment to sobriety, but it will be an hour spent contemplating such a commitment. I'm already beginning to understand the wisdom of "one day at a time." So, the past few days didn't go so well (though, if we look at a calendar, all of my drink did actually occur within one day...which somehow makes me feel better about it). I don't foresee many challenges until Wednesday, and that is a whole other day, so far away.

A Week In

Well, it's been a week...no, more than a week. Nine days, and some amount of hours and minutes that I'm too addled to figure out. And what an interesting time it has been.

Last Wednesday, I went out to meet a friend. We were going back to her apartment to watch a movie, a nice, low-key evening. But she was out for drinks first, so I met her and her friend at the bar and drank water. And so began my first experience with forced abstinence. I am pretty sure I freaked out my friend. "Wait, have we ever hung out sober?" she said. This was particularly striking because I thought we often hung out sober. But what do I know, I'm a drunk. Once we got back to her place, we put in a movie, and about a half hour into it, she looked at me and said, "I think I need a cocktail." "Oh my god, I sooooo don't mean to make you feel like you can't drink! Seriously, it's not even like I want one. Go have a cocktail. Seriously." And so she left and came back into the room with a glass full of ice and whiskey (which really does not count as a cocktail). We finished the movie. Then, she launched into discussing her problems with her boyfriend.

I am often the friend that will listen to these problems with rapt attention. I talk about sex more freely than many, I never judge anyone's sexual practices, fetishes, kinks or desires, and I find it endlessly interesting that we like to pretend in this country that our marriages and long term relationships are shellacked in love and therefore impermeable to the temptations of sex with others. We shove our affairs under the rug and tread around shamefully, feeling we're not normal and we're horrible and now we've got this big secret, but the fact is, most of us at least WANT to screw someone else once in a while, right? I guess all I'm saying is that there seems to be a major lack of honesty in our country's sexual conversation, and I'm out to set the record straight. So you can see why my friends feel comfortable using me as a sounding board or a confessional when it comes to this sort of thing.

But that night? I couldn't focus on a word she was saying. Something about having hooked up with a musician while her boyfriend's away. Something about wanting to spice things up with her boyfriend. I mean, this girl's got some kink fantasies, and I'm proud that she can name them and talk about them, but it was all I could do to stay inside of my own skin and sit there and try to form some kind of advice. I could barely fit her concerns inside my mental rubric of understanding, much less craft any logical responses. Of course, the conversation also turned to my sobriety experiment, which apparently offended her. "Why not just drink LESS?" So I get on the defensive, but also realized that my own actions have put her on the defensive and that was what I was hearing from her. This tested my patience. Eventually, I left.

The boys at the bar literally laughed in my face: "You? Not drinking? I give ya till next week." "Ha ha ha, what, are ya gonna join AA? I'd pay to see that!" "So, we've all been trying to figure out what brought this on..." "Aw, you're no fun anymore!" And so on (and you've gotta imagine this in their Irish accents). But you know what that does? It makes me more dedicated. It makes me want to go in tonight and say, "Nope, still haven't had a drink." I want to SHOW them.

On the other hand, I have gotten the chance to develop relationships that don't require alcohol. Friends who have been on the outskirts of my normal social scene have come closer, because they don't depend on booze, because these friendships are fresh and untainted, and because they are spiritually and energetically in tune. I have become more aware of the way that the world provides. I was to have a date on Monday night, a date that would have been wrought (perhaps I should write about this in the other section on dating), and I doubted I could get through it without at least a glass of wine. There I was, texting back and forth with this guy to figure out time and place, and suddenly he just disappeared. No more texts. No more calls. Fine, I was slightly pissed (there goes my free dinner), but overwhelmingly relieved. A few days later he tells me some bullshit yadda yadda story about stepping on his phone, but I really don't care. I was delivered away from that booze trap. Last night? Free ticket to a random concert. I saw the beer tents and wanted one so badly...I wondered if I would make it through the night without a drink. And then the concert was cancelled, two hours after the band was supposed to come on. Electrial difficulties. When the hell does that happen? But there went another evening that could have ended up in beer soaked adventure. Fun. Mischief. Misery.

The last thing I'm noticing is that it feels like my life is incredible right now. It feels like a million things are happening. But if you look from the outside, nothing is happening. Nothing at all. I'm broke, I work a job that isn't a real job, I'm living in a city I hate but feel stuck here, and this morning, I got a parking ticket, again. Everything that is happening is inside my head, my heart, my gut. Those lower chakras are groaning, but I don't know enough about energy work to do much about it. Someone asks, "How are you?" and I have to say, "Oh, fine!" and "What's going on with you?" "Oh, not much!" but that is a lie. If you really want to sit and listen to the things that are happening with me, you gotta get ready for a serious therapy session, where I'm the one on the couch. I don't want to share my secrets with anyone who asks, "How are you?" but I feel a liar when I answer with "I'm fine!" Since I just graduated with a Masters degree in counseling psychology, I happen to have a lot of friends who are ready to do just that type of therapy session. And I am grateful for that. The boys at the bar, however, are going to have to shut the fuck up and let me be, because they are clearly not the ones who get to know my reasons.

Flirting with Sobriety

The first time I drank, I was in eigth grade. My girlfriends and I got our hands on some Zima, dropped Skittles in to make it change colors, and got tipsy together. When I look back at this childhood imitation of maturity, I want to laugh because it is humourous, but it is my life, and it is serious, and it makes me sad. It doesn't take long to get hooked on colorful Zima, or the feeling of abandonment of control that it afforded me, the youngest, the only daughter, the smart one of the family. Once alcohol had it's grip, I could be whatever I really was. Words could just come tumbling out, I didn't have to take responsibility for them, because, after all, I was wasted. My adolescent relationships were forged over booze. We all hung out with each other, but more importantly, we hung out with the keg. We saw each other through the light brown haze of cheap beer.

Consider that a prologue.

Now I'm 28 and I work in a bar. I have not figured out how to be among people and be sober, I have not figured out how to say 'no' when someone offers me a drink. Please don't read this wrong; I do not drink rum in my morning coffee, I don't sneak those little bottles of booze around in my purse, I'm not that kind of alcoholic. Last summer, I worked at a sleepaway camp, and didn't drink for two months, and I survived. But my life is at a standstill these days, I am in an emotional deep freeze, I haven't cried for months, despite losing a grandparent and a potential romance (romance, as opposed to one night stand). I have created stories to tell (funnier stories than this one) because of my drunken escapades (if you keep reading my page, I promise to tell of the night I woke up bare-boobed on my front stoop, locked out). I am the drinking friend, I am the fun one, I can be counted on to come out of my house, rain or shine, and join you for a bloody mary (before noon) or a martini (happy hour) or a glass of wine (after dinner).

But I am also broke, and while I have two degrees, I work in a bar and I have no idea what I am going to do to climb out of my debt. I have been drinking away this problem, and all the other problems. This is not new, and I have known this for a long time. I have said many times that I should stop drinking, but that voice came from my brain, and I do NOT trust that mushy mess of cells up there, because it is an asshole and it has no regard for my emotional well-being, it tells me how horrible I am and it tells me all I'm doing wrong, and I'll be damned if that is any help at all in the bigger picture. So screw you, brain, either get on board or shut the hell up.

It's just that a week ago, a voice from down below, somewhere previously unreachable, it piped up and demanded that I quit drinking. I've been trying to tap into this voice for some time, I have developed a pretty consistent meditation habit, I have tried to get to writing more, I have stopped dating compulsively so that I would have more time to just be with that voice, the one that is actually me. But she's so shy! I guess that's what happens when she's ignored for so long, when she's shamed away by her perceived failures. So when I heard it, I heeded the call for sobriety. I write this on Sunday night. I haven't had a drink since Monday, despite having won two handles of really good vodka at a fundraiser (yeah, go figure). They sit there on the table, they are reminders of what was, and what may be again. The bartenders that I work with are taking bets on how long it'll last. They say, "Aw, you're not fun anymore." Some of my friends are a little freaked out, and I would be too. But then, others drink tea with me and eat the scones I've baked while we discuss spirituality and politics and I feel like I might be coming home to me.

Geoff (a test post)

Geoff says he is an actor. So of course, I met him working at a restaurant. He is good looking. I wondered if he was gay when I met him. Fair, tall, waify, he's an actor, after all, and nice.  Very nice, very considerate, giving, interested in me, my life, my interests, maybe even my well-being, at least as far as my restaurant job is concerned. How do I work this, Geoff? Can you cover my station for 5 minutes while I smoke a cigarette real quick? I screwed up this order, Geoff, can you help me fix it? And he'd hand over tables sometimes, he hardly complained. Sometimes, he's make little comments about getting too many tables of bad tippers, or maybe just not getting enough tables. One time, he complained to me about a table for of assholes who kept making fun of his name - why is it spelled with a 'G'? Didn't he parents know how to spell? I knew; they'd tried to flirt when they walked in the door (or maybe they didn't try to flirt and that was why I didn't like them), and I shared his distaste. And they weren't going to leave a good tip. So Geoff complained. In a quick and breathy sort of way. This was a nuisance, but there was no real anger in him about it. Never any real anger...or happiness or anything in him. He was an actor.

Was he gay? He was married. Young and married. So unusual, I was suprised when he spoke of his wife. Who is she? Who marries a guy like this? Is there more to him than what I see? Surely there was. I only worked with him, I didn't really know him at all. I'd never seen him naked, I'd never even seen him eat. He just seemed so empty, and full of himself. I felt bad for his wife. I felt that she might always be searching him for more, to reign in those parts that weren't hers because they were too distant, too far away from her, those parts that were the gleam in his eye that was where he was when he would space out. He didn't even own those parts of him and so he never could have given them to her. Maybe that's why she loved him. That is mystery, and mystery is attractive. But for Geoff, that mystery, that was disgusting and humorless. I felt that if he ever achieved in his personal life whatever it was he was seeking, he would take flight and start a new life. He would leave her behind, he would have a lot of fights with her, pull away, maybe even have an affair, probably with a man.