How to stay sober when the world has ended
[This was a piece I wrote early in my sobriety journey. I’m happy to say that I’m over two years sober and feeling great, if not occasionally mired with moments like this. Recovery isn’t linear. You’re doing great. - HJ, 3/15/2022]
It is several days into quarantine, and I am trying not to think about drinking.
I have not had a drink for fifty nine whole fucking days, and mostly it has been easy, but today is hard. some days are harder than others. The gratitude I feel for having made it nearly two months is shaken up with my bitterness at people who are normal, like a cocktail I long to drink on a beach somewhere. That is no longer a life for me, both due to distancing and due to this commitment I’ve made. And I’ve got to see this through, even if it’s just to spite people who said I couldn’t. Bitters ain’t just an element to your favorite poison of choice.
On my social media feeds, Ina Garten is drinking out of a gargantuan martini glass. And isn’t it funny how everyone else can drink to excess? My hands twitch at the thought of opening one of the three bottles of whiskey I was gifted for my birthday. Of course, I’m not going to open the Bulleit or the Johnnie Walker. I’m not going to go down the street and buy a six pack, a bottle of wine at the liquor store, gloves on my hands, cracked from overwashing. I’m not even, in desperation, going to pry open the bottle of perfume on my desk to taste the sting of eau de parfum as it slides down my waiting, aching throat. i’m not going to do that.
Instead I’m going to be bad at yoga for twenty minutes a day. I’m going to pick my cat up off the floor and make him love me. I’m going to read self help books, and trashy novels, and back issues of outdated magazines, and fan fiction. I’m going to call my friends and listen to them complain and be grateful that they’re not in a hospital bed, but instead at home, bored, lonely too, probably drinking wine like I can’t. I would say I want to, but I don’t, not really.
Instead, I am relieved every night I go to bed without having drank a drop, knowing that I have done my best in quarantine and beyond..