Having a glass of wine here and there has not (yet) led to looking or feeling bad or being broke and living paycheque to paycheque, or guilt, shame, obsession, self-hate, life-hate or any combination of the above. Nor has it led (yet) to slipping in self-care, house work, being a mom or partner.

I’m not (yet) drinking wine from a coffee mug at 10am to get an early escape out of my shitty life because frankly, I love my life and enjoy being present for it. I’m also not (yet) getting drunk to cope with certain people or their antics — sobriety has been a huge eye-opener to folks I had the blinders on for.

That all said, abstinence-based programs have taught me that alcoholism is a progressive disease. If I buy into that and maintain having a drink here and there, I will eventually end up worse off than where I was six months ago at my rock bottom. I don’t see it because I don’t understand how I ever managed to function as a mother, partner — human even — drinking how I drank. I was hungover to some degree every single day of my life.

I went to sleep late and woke up in the middle of the night, every single night, drinking water to swallow the regret and guilt of not being able to control the amount of alcohol I consumed, making a pact not to drink the next day. Again. Life was so messed up and I was not a happy or fulfilled person and I would drink to escape reality which felt really good, but by the end of the night I would feel really bad again and the cycle just never stopped until I took back control on February 11, 2012.

What I’m trying to get at here before I go on is that I do not forget — nor am I discrediting or minimizing — my drinking problems.

Anyway, dabbling, romanticizing, enjoying, whatever — I have been doing it here and there. For instance, Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day I drank a glass of wine because I felt like it. My family was shocked but whatever, I’m not hiding shit and I told them I’m not hiding things. It was beautiful weather on the patio and the guys were taking care of everything — quite literally the one day a year I get a break from planning and cooking and cleaning — and I was enjoying my own mom and my girls.

Did wine add to that bliss? Well, yeah, it did.

But when I look at it from an alcoholic and relapse point of view, what did it add? Well, nothing that I can put into words. The moment would have been no better or worse had I not had a beautiful glass of carefully selected wine accompanying it.

So yeah, I admit that I kind of understand the relapse thing, at least why it’s helpful in recovery. I have a better understanding of what my current triggers are (ie. happiness, contentedness, relaxation, nice weather, being outside, company over), and I understand that my relationship with finer wines and stemware is a very romantic one, as is the scene I use it: where, with whom, weather, ambiance.

In Mary Kenny’s beautifully written article titled, “The Best Thing I Ever Did.” (I insist everyone reads it) she writes,

“Anyway, I am not a puritan about drink. Alcohol, taken in a normal manner, can add pleasure, conviviality, merriment and joie-de-vivre to life, and I am all in favour of these things.”

Yes. I agree with this. These are the words I am without regarding what a drink or two can add.

She also writes,

“Sobriety is the radiance of life, I would even say. Drunkenness is the avoidance of full experience.”

Yes. I agree with this also. I think it’s the most beautiful sentence I’ve ever read attached to the word sobriety — a word I have a hate-on for, right up there with relapse and alcoholic and recovery.

But whaaaaa, I don’t want to be an alcoholic, you know? I don’t even want to be a ‘problem drinker’. I’m such a baby about it, it’s true. I just want to be. I want to go day by day and enjoy the new life I’ve created without struggling to wrap my mind around, or not wrap my mind around, a future without even a tiny bit of alcohol.

I want the option to drink once in a while, if it will add something to the life of where I am or what I’m doing, but I also want to keep going to my meetings and working the New Life program because a) I like the women and friendship, and b) I don’t want to go back to an alcohol-dependent state ever again. I really don’t want to buy into alcoholism being a disease, my disease. And I don’t want to believe it’s progressive. And I totally refuse to believe that I’ll eventually find myself in worse a place than my rock bottom.

What’s fact in the abstinence-based community is that you can’t have it all. There are support groups for people who want to build new lives and moderate at the same time, but the fact that the founder of Moderation Management killed a father and his 12 year old daughter in a head-on crash while driving the wrong way down the Interstate after a binge, well, that’s kind of a turn off for me. I don’t want to moderate, you know, a certain amount, a certain number of days, certain rules and regulations, it’s like, why even bother when all it becomes is another crazy-making obsession.

Drinking problems are a strange, strange beast. Thank you for continuously reading, supporting and taking this journey with me. I promise that one day I will figure it all out and get back to writing about something other than this.

And she keeps going, … you can pull the wool over our eyes, you can have one glass of wine every night with dinner for months, you can have a sip of beer here and there and you are still an alcoholic, you have still relapsed in every sense of the word …

Holy shit. This is my life. Going to the meetings, working the program, supporting the newly sober, feeling like I need to be presentational about the status of my life to friends, grieving over the life I can’t have, the life of a normal drinker, listening to the stories, the struggle, relapse after relapse, misery and helplessness blanketed around brief periods of sobriety and happiness. It’s too much.

And she continues, … relapse begins before the first sip passes over your lips, it starts with attending fewer meetings, with less self-care, not working the program, feelings of being stronger, better, cured …

This is brutal. I’m not comfortable. I cross my legs to keep my feet from bouncing on the floor, staring her dead straight in the eye, pissed at her for lecturing and pissed at myself for not having what it takes to be normal instead of constantly being subjected to this bullshit.

Lets go around and talk about what you all consider early signs of relapse …

“The fact you guys say relapse is a normal part of recovery makes me really uncomfortable, like it’s the green light to drink. Because of it, I feel like it’s coming, like my skin is crawling, like I’m going to say fuck it all and enjoy my summer. I work this program hard, I have a plan in place, I have my tools in order, I use them, I come here every single Monday without fail and I’m tired. I’m exhausted and I’m mad and to hear relapse is normal is like, the worst thing EVER. I’ve traded in one obsession with drinking too much for one obsession with staying sober and I’m tired. I don’t want alcohol off or on the table, I just want to stop thinking about it. The future as a constantly recovering alcoholic feels like the worst fate, like, is this my life? Seriously … is this my fucking life?”

****Crickets****

Apparently, recovery is hard. If it wasn’t hard then you wouldn’t have a drinking problem. It’s that simple.

******This is where I insert every swear word I know and start flipping cars and newspaper boxes*******

Last weekend I bought a really, really expensive bottle of wine and drank a wonderful tiny glass, then another — a normal glass that burned my throat raw. I got pretty drunk off those two. I then had the worst sleep I’ve had in nearly three months. It was so bad that I was sweating and had heart palpitations and needed water and had to sleep on the couch in the cool air.

I woke up under-slept and very hungover, drank EmergenC then headed out to Crescent Beach where sunshine and salt cured all.

That evening I drank one glass while editing photos, went to bed and had a good sleep but still woke up in the morning feeling like I could sleep for days.

Sunday night I couldn’t sleep except for 3 hours.

Monday night I couldn’t sleep except for 5 hours.

Last night I finally slept all the way through the night, almost 9 hours.

I can honestly say that even though I drank in moderation and decided before hand to not feel guilt or shame, I still don’t feel right. I don’t know if I had to ‘admit’ it to someone, just like I admitted to everyone I have a drinking problem.

And I don’t know where alcohol stands in my life other than it doesn’t stand anywhere on a week night or any day I have something to wake up for, including my girls who I wake up for at 8am, or earlier, pretty much daily. I know I can’t ever drink the way I did before because a) my liver, b) our current financial commitments and my ‘new life’ don’t allow for the cost of drinking, pretty much ever, and c) Life is way way WAY too good to even fuck around.

I do know that it was the taste of that wine I truly enjoyed before it started irritating my throat; that the fuzzy feeling past the first glass I wasn’t crazy about, nor the sleep-inducing effect, however, the way it affected my sleep that first night was horrifying and brought me right back to my bottle-a-day-or-more days. The way it has affected my weekday sober sleep is troubling also.

That all said, it was so worth it to stop obsessing for a weekend and just be; to give myself permission to NOT work the program, to NOT use my tools, to NOT constantly meditate on one of 14 Statements, to be strong in my choice to drink but to not overdo it and act a fool and hate myself and pass out. It was nice to let go and enhance the first evening, to let my creativity flow a little better while photo editing on the second.

So while I know where we don’t go from here, I don’t know where we go. I spent many years drinking alcoholically and many years being addicted to this or that — drugs, guys, blogging, etc. Part of my brain tells me I’m no longer addicted to those things so what’s different with alcohol? I have normal friendships with normal guys, I write my blog and network without it taking over my life. The only things that are permanently off the table are drugs (a given) and cigarettes (nasty and horribly addictive).

Anyway, I guess there are no answers on this journey and that’s why I’m writing about it here. The dialogue in my sobriety group will be YOU RELAPSED, YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC, RELAPSE IS NECESSARY IN RECOVERY, WHAT DID YOU FEEL LEADING UP TO IT, ANGER IS NORMAL, GRIEVING ALCOHOL IS UNDERSTANDABLE, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME, UPDATE YOUR PLAN, YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GENUINE DESIRE TO NOT DRINK, USE THE TOOLS AND RESOURCES.

I know, I get it, I understand. Just like I understand that they’re only doing their duties as sisters in sobriety, but it’s hard when you know the dialog word for word and you know it’s coming because you sit through it week after week after never-ending week with other people and it starts to wear on you and you look around and pray for a miracle: Please don’t let this be my life.

Most of all, I don’t want to dissect and examine it, I just want it to be, and carry on because I’m tired of hearing how my life as an alcoholic is going to go. Because sometimes you just desperately need people to listen and not say anything at all.

Somewhere in the middle of those days I failed a liver function test badly enough to cause my doctor concern. I spent the following two weeks juice cleansing for liver detoxification and repair, and thankfully passed my retest. Later I would find out that my liver was damaged even after more than six weeks of sobriety — the amount of time where it *should* have recovered to an acceptable state.

I don’t want to freak people out but I wanted to share this with anyone concerned over how much they drink; I know they’re out there because more than anything admitting my own drinking problems made people question their own habits. I can’t say much more because every body is different and everybody is different, but the liver thing took me by total surprise — scary surprise — because I didn’t think I drank that much in the whole scheme of things. It was more why I drank followed by what alcohol did to my life.

I guess I would (gently) advise is to recognize that while the liver is resilient and restorative, it is not magical and everlasting, especially when processing the garbage we knowingly put in our mouths via North American Diet/medications/on our skin/in our hair, etc. plus the toxins we absorb on a daily basis just walking, driving and laying around on Earth. Plus alcohol. It’s a large load.

Anyway, yep, despite the colour in my cheeks and clear(ish) eyes and active(ish) lifestyle and total facade I put out to the world to hide my drinking, part of my liver was quietly rotting. And when you discover something like that it changes everything. Suddenly, you are in control of your life, not your chosen God, the fates, whatever. You.

What you put in your mouth or rub into your skin or breathe through your lungs directly and vastly impacts the quality of your life. You can read and hear about and try all of the newfangled lifestyles and diet eliminations and exercise trends but until test results indicate that the most powerful organ in your body is/was more than 25% damaged by something you chose to put into your body for whatever reason(s), it’s all noise.

Now it’s about being alive. Not alive as in not dead or continuing in existence but !!!ALIVE!!!

That’s kind of where I am now, most of the time.

I mean, there are still improvements to be made and trials and tribulations to come. There is mind fuckery abound. Every recovering alcoholic I have met has slipped or lapsed or relapsed completely. They say it’s a part of a full and healthy recovery but when I ask if I can let my guard down and try drinking in moderation again they say “No, it’s not like that. Just don’t take the first drink.” Huh?

But everyone says (re)lapse is part of recovery, so I can drink? “You don’t need permission to drink. If you’re going to drink, you’re going to drink.” WTF man? Do, don’t … this sobriety thing is totally whack.

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that what I do these days is work really hard on the !!!ALIVE!!! part and remember the liver rotting part and the fact that Life Is Good as a direct result of continued sobriety. My new SUV, my kids’ bank-breaking marital arts training, our holiday to Disney would not be a reality while drinking, and for all of these things we’ve achieved in 73 days (along with the things not mentioned) I’m super proud.

Bottom line: Relapse would hurt not only me, but us. Badly.

Well, I hope everyone here is !!alive!! alive and kicking. As for blogging, I wouldn’t call this being ‘back’ or anything like that, I just got the hankering to write today Thanks for reading!

<3

This no drinking thing is no cake walk. Some days feel like it’s becoming more easy and natural, others it’s painful.

Contrary to what many people think, the hardest part of sobriety is not choosing not to drink. Zero times in 24 days has my sobriety been at risk. Choosing not to drink has proven fairly easy thanks to the fact alcohol is not around combined with the conscious decision to remove myself from people and situations that could be triggering.

It’s the one time in my life that I am fully aware of my selfishness and focus on myself as a priority. Nothing and no one else matters (the three people who share dinner at my table aside) other than maintaining my sobriety. And you know what? That’s OK. One of the gals in my group recently said that drinking robbed her of her ability to be assertive. She felt she was not worthy of standing up for herself when she drank. That I could fully appreciate and understand.

To be able to reclaim my assertiveness with confidence — “It is about me. This is how it’s going down and while you have a right to your opinion, my decision stands.” — it’s empowering.

This touches a little onto the HARD part of sobriety for me. All of a sudden I am more powerful than I can ever remember being. I am awake and see and feel things — good and bad — that I haven’t seen or felt in long time, if ever. Everything is so new that I wonder if I’ve ever allowed myself to be this person … me.

Teenager Me was baked. I don’t take issue with weed but if you’re 15 years old and getting stoned every day that’s a problem. High school Me was selling dope in the school parking lot and chopping up ounces of bud after school instead of doing homework. It took an extra semester but it was a miracle I even graduated.

Young Adult Me worked for the weekend to drink with friends. Sky-high on hard, expensive, glamorous drugs. Early 20s Me found herself dancing through downtown clubs and raver sludge, tweaking on Ecstasy. Eating magic mushroom filled chocolates and cheeseburgers, making stealthy trips through darkened suburbs to 7-11, hilarious and highly skilled missions that wouldn’t end till sunrise.

When I quit hard drugs, I was all about weed again, fell in love with my dope dealer and then fell in love with wine.

The only truly sober time of my young adult and adult life was 38 weeks of pregnancy and I was so overly anxious, hormonal, excited and nervous that it was a high in itself.

So yeah, it’s strange and crazy to meet your sober self for the first time in 18 years. 18 years of being in an altered state of mind, for whatever reasons, is a long time. It’s even crazy to wrap my head around reasons. Why did I have the need to alter myself and mind all the time? What was so wrong with being me? Did I hate myself so much that I felt I needed to be a doped up version to be accepted? I don’t know.

I don’t know why I smoked so much weed as a teenager and beyond; I really can’t explain that one other than this is British Columbia and there is no shortage of good pot. I know more people that smoke it than do not, and I’m talking about successful human beings here, not White Castle burnouts.

I know that I drank as a teenager because it was fun to get drunk with my friends. I did a lot of cocaine at 19/20 because it’s an immensely powerful and transforming drug with equally powerful addictive properties; I was a straight up coke head but my high school sweetheart was dealing it and there was an endless supply. Cocaine among other things destroyed our relationship and any plans we had for our future. It turned us and others into monsters and raging lunatics, obliterated friendships and relationships all around. When Jeremy and I broke up my supply was cut and that was that.

I drank at clubs for ease and confidence. I did a shit ton of Ecstasy because the world and everyone in it was so pretty, the connection between music and self was insane. All energy and vibes and love and flow. I remember my first time, peaking on the Granville Street Bridge en route downtown, saying to my friends with a jaw clamped smile, “I want to live like this forever.”

It figures, after I did pretty much everything stupid that stupid kids do, balls to the wall style, that heavy drinking was the appropriate next step for my mind-altering needs. Legal too.

I’m learning now that my addictions and chemical dependencies have literally stunted my emotional and mental growth. I may not be a 14 year old with raging hormones and pimples and teen angst, but I’ve never felt 32 years old or anywhere near 30 for that matter. Today I look in the mirror at 32. I may not see it but I feel it, feel the years, feel the drugs, feel the booze.

Looking back upon it soberly, my entire life feels like a dream — or nightmare — depending on the time. I’m not sure of the person I am.

Each day now I wake up with a clarity I’ve never known before, or at least cannot recall, and prepare myself to walk through emotions and feelings instead of drug or drink around them.

And each day I am totally overwhelmed by feeling. I walk through pain because I haven’t genuinely felt anything besides anger for a long time and sometimes it hurts. On the other hand, happy feelings and those of loving and being loved are multiplied by 100. The only way I can explain it is like this: Say you’re in a busy shopping mall or sitting in gridlock traffic and you have no choice but to absorb the emotions of everyone around you. That is what I feel like while taking my first steps through emotion, after a good solid decade of using substance to step around.

And there seems to be a huge mental/physical connection to early sobriety as well. I go to bed exhausted. sleep a solid 8 -10 hours without waking. I wake up rested but exhausted. Aside from my very soul being ripped open for examination, my body and brain are clean for the first time in 18 years and under major reconstruction. I understand that it will be this way for many, many years to come.

Today I’m grateful for 24 days of sobriety, for clarity, and for this new person who is me and who I really kind of like but don’t quite know or understand yet. For enough self-worth to be assertive and to put my needs and sobriety first before anything or anyone else without guilt. For my AMAZING group of local face to face WFS sisters and worldwide community support. For you, my blog reader. For my girls, their constant energy and inspiration, whom I learn from daily. For Colin who is my rock and love of my life and who makes me feel special and adored every single day not to mention supports my sobriety by not drinking around me and pretty much not at all. For the people in my life who continue to support me with encouraging words and thoughts. For my mom who keeps telling me that she admires me and is proud of me and who doesn’t drink in my presence despite telling her it’s ok.

Ahhh, I feel like the most blessed person in the world.

~

 Life can be ordinary or it can be great.

Greatness is mine by a conscious effort.

~

Love can change the course of my world.

Caring becomes all important.

~

The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth.

Daily I put my life into a proper order, knowing which are priorities.

~

The past is gone forever.

No longer will I be victimized by the past. I am a new person.

~

All love given returns.

I will learn to know that others love me.

~

Enthusiasm is my daily exercise.

I treasure all moments of my new life.

~

I am a competent woman and have much to give life.

This is what I am and shall know it always.

~

I have very few shiny ‘things’ or luxuries but what I do have I appreciate more. A new box of tea. An iPod that I can run with. A camera to freeze moments in time. A journal and a pen. A car that goes. A computer that I can connect to my support group and you and the world.

I have basics and necessities and for those I am incredibly grateful.

Today makes 10 days, double digits. The last time I quit I went for 11 days before having a drink ‘just to see’. I put together about three more days before I said fuck it and drank every day to various degrees of drunkness for 14 months.

I can see now that I planned my relapse while practicing sobriety, that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye quite yet. But man, that was a long and painful goodbye. I can’t help but think that if I relapse again that that could be it, that my drinking would go to the next level, a level not as easy to walk away from.

About a month before I made the decision to start talking about my problems, I sat at the dining room table with my mom, a bottle of white wine between us. The girls were sitting with us and one of them started picking up the glass and pretending to take sips, “playing drinking” she said. A couple of days or weeks later I overheard them saying that they were going to drink wine “like mommy” when they grow up.

And that was the seed planted in my head.

God girls, you do not want to be like mommy like that.

My girls want to be their teachers and they want to be me. We are the three women they look up to most in the entire world and here I was dropping them off to their teachers with a hangover. Here I was brushing my teeth so hard that my gums would bleed, dropping Visine into my eyes, splashing cold water on my face, dreading the breakfast and lunch making, dreading the noise of their cheerful rested little morning voices, dreading having to talk to their friends moms, dreading the entire day, dreading the afternoon rush of homework and dinner making. Dreading my entire life, day after day after day.

And that’s who they wanted to be.

All of a sudden it’s not about control or unhappiness or depression or a simple choice to drink or not drink — it’s about saving my life and the lives of my daughters. Alcoholism and addiction runs thick in their veins and it’s my job to be an example and to educate them on the evils and life-destroying effects of alcohol and drugs well before they pick up.

Ten days in and this weekend was really hard, torture. Between Friday’s errands and torrential rains, going out for dinner on Saturday night, spending most of Sunday at beer-soaked Rogers Arena watching my brother play hockey, man, I would have done pretty much anything for a glass of wine.

But if I’ve learned one thing in 10 days it’s this:

I can’t drink one glass of wine.

Okay, I can, but as I drink that one glass my mind is already to the next one. Where is it coming from, is it available, etc. And if there’s no additional alcohol I’m either really disappointed, or bitchy, or I will go buy it, or I will wait till later, or if I’m broke I will go to someone’s house who I know will have wine, or I’ll wait till tomorrow. See? My mind will hold on to the thought of more drinking until I’m able to get enough to shut the addict up.

So while I’d have done anything for a glass of wine on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it’s more like I’d do anything for many bottles of wine.

I can now think a “drink” through to the end and that’s a powerful tool. Understanding that it will never be “one drink” is another powerful tool. Same with smoking. I could quit for weeks and months then take one puff and not smoke again for days but within a few weeks I’d be buying packs again. It wasn’t until I learned to never take another puff that I’ve been absolutely smoke-free for over two years.

It’s that addict in me, always and forever waiting for it’s fix. Drinking is way more deep-seated, way more emotional and fucked up than habitual smoking. Same addict though.

Anyway, this weekend was HARD. Mind fuck is an exhausting game. Constantly feeling things is even more exhausting. I never thought I’d say it but thank god it’s Monday. I need a nap

I remember feeling incredibly nauseous and making a reservation for the early seating at The Boathouse on English Bay, three blocks away from our apartment. I remember trying not to vomit entering a seafood restaurant, ordering cranberry and soda, insisting Colin get a beer because he’d been abstaining since we found out I was pregnant, ordering fish and chips. I remember eating a few fries, getting the rest packed to go and hightailing it out of there to home and to bed.

I don’t remember any other details of any other Valentine’s Day, just like I don’t remember a good portion of my life since 2005.

Today marks three full days sober, working on my fourth.

I’m detoxing, and that sucks. Today is especially hard because I woke up with what felt like a hangover – so that doesn’t really feel like fair play.

It’s Valentine’s Day and my mom is making us a home cooked meal. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy … so, so good for the soul. That and I am useless in the kitchen right now, triggers everywhere.

Things are going well but I feel like total shit. The only things keeping me up and going are both my online support group and the women from my face-to-face group. People want to know what it’s like, do I stand up in a crowded room and say, “Hi, my name is Jen …”

No, I don’t. The group is small and it’s all women and they don’t even ask you to introduce yourself or talk about yourself, you’re just one of them, hanging out on comfy couches in a nice but badly lit room, laughing, talking, sharing, nodding, connecting.

We are mothers, grandmothers, without kids, professionals, stay at home moms, travelers, wealthy, poor, single, married, divorced, remarried, young, old, happy, sad, serious, hilarious. The little snippets of background are incredible. Women, all beautiful. Instant sisterhood.

The group is based on 13 acceptance statements, no steps.

There is no such thing as being powerless over alcohol, no handing over of power to something higher. Here you are powerful and strong, a competent woman with just a willingness to admit you have a life-threatening disease, and that you are taking back control from alcohol or drugs.

You own your power.

But it’s hard. Sobriety is incredibly hard and takes a lot of work, takes a lot out of a person like me who drinks to function and then drinks again to escape. Discomfort is very much present and there’s no numbing or promise of relief. You’re forced to feel.

Anyway, I just wanted to give an update and say hey. And thank from the bottom of my heart each person who reached out in support. I’d love to respond individually to everyone but right now that is a mountain I can’t climb so I’m just sending a ton of love and thanks out into the universe.

Being a closet drinker became too exhausting and soul-sucking to bear but the thought of telling and explaining to each individual person in my life was also too much. A lot of people don’t get it, can’t believe it, don’t understand how they could have missed it when in fact it was my full-time job plus overtime to hide it.

It is what it is, accept it, carry on.

Of course, I’d also chat more about it with anyone who thinks they might drink too much. Beyond AA there are very few resources out there for women, and I feel incredibly blessed to have found one, but it took a lot of digging. If anyone out there needs info let me know.

At that, I’m off to my kids Valentine’s Day party, and then to mom’s house to make some memories.

It’s good to remember.
xo

Another reason we’ll be heading into the mountains in March is because on Monday I start an alcohol recovery program: a very cool, women-only alternative to the higher power and 12-steps of AA. (Whistler will be something to work hard in the program for.)

In that respect my drinking relationships are now over.

So many factors contributed to reaching out for help but reading my last post over and over again, the control issues, the handing over of control to alcohol, well, my answer was there.

I wrote it in such a way that said I had other issues to deal with and alcohol would be moderated to social situations but in my reality, depression and alcohol go hand in hand. Moderation of any kind exhausts me, constantly thinking about when and how much and where and with whom and limits … it’s just another obsession I don’t need in my life.

It took a few posts, a few in-depth exchanges with people I trust, one heart to heart with Colin who has lived with my depression and alcohol dependency for years, and one phone call.

Then I had to say help and that was the single most hardest thing I’ve ever done. Once I said it though it was a flood of relief, like breathing after holding my breath for way too long.

I had to laugh talking to my program coordinator last night: I was telling her about what a drunk I was, how I’d sit in bed at night, wasted, making promises to never drink again, knowing how hard the morning was going to be, how bad my head hurt, how shitty I felt. I’d sit there and write in a paper journal exactly how I felt so I could read it the next day.

In the morning I’d wake up hungover and write in the journal again about how hard it was to get out of bed and make breakfast and lunches and get the girls dressed and to school. Occasionally I’d still be drunk depending on how late I’d stayed up the night before drinking and how I couldn’t even stomach coffee, my shakes were already bad enough as it was.

I’d write all of that to read when cravings to drink started like they did every day. At 4pm I’d take the journal, rip the pages out so no one would ever see them and pour myself a glass of wine. I just won’t drink so much tonight, I’ll deal with my problems later, I’m stressed, I’m exhausted, I need to drink tonight.

She says, “That’s one of the most common stories among women here.”

Huh.

So, here I go.

Stoked but nervous. Sad like I’m losing my friend, my rock, my security blanket. I’m not even going to attempt thinking about all the future times I won’t be drinking to deal with things — stress, sadness, happiness, people, family, celebration, etc. — all without the veil of booze. Crazy. And honestly, I can’t even fathom my life without alcohol right now.

I feel weak and like a total failure for not being able to control my drinking, or quit without help, but I know it’s the opposite.

The stigma attached to alcoholism is harsh, so I have to look around at all the people with all the problems.

Legit medical problems aside, a lot of people have control issues with food and you can tell because many people are overweight to some extent, or trying to lose weight. They simply cannot say no to foods that are bad for them even if they know it. Or they can’t stop eating when they’re full. Like me, they don’t grasp moderation.

It’s totally acceptable in society to eat and drink. Overweight and addicted to food, functioning alcoholic and addicted to drink. Equally sucking away at quality of life and health, one just sounds a lot worse.

Same goes for most accepted/overlooked addictions: TV, video games, internet, extreme exercise, calorie obsessing, nail biting, gossip, etc. It’s all kinda the same thing, a lot of it ties in with depression and addiction, some are just habits.

All I know is that I’m not alone in struggling with something, I’m actually in the majority.

But alcohol is my own beast. And I’m ready to reclaim my life.

Here it is:

I’m a control freak.

If there was a step up from control freak, that would be me. Is there a phobia of losing control? Because that is me too.

Every single thing I fear in life is about losing control.

I fear being a passenger in a car.

I like to drive, do it well and am cautious to a fault. I am the driver who sees the tenth car ahead tap his brakes. I am the driver who prepares to stop when yellow lights flashing. Few people like driving with me but I am a safe and phenomenal driver.

Having to be a passenger, especially on long trips at high speeds, sends me into panic mode and I’ll do pretty much anything to never be in that position.

I drive and it’s all good. You drive and I’m probably not going to go.

Yeah, I know it, I’m a messed up girl.

You see, when I was 18 my boyfriend and I were in a car accident. A drunk driver ran a stop sign and we crashed, really hard, going really fast. I had no idea I’d be traumatized for life, no idea that 14 years down the road I’d be worse off not better.

Basically, I no longer trust anyone behind the wheel of a car except myself.

I fear flying.

I’m not afraid of heights, I’m not afraid of dying by fiery crash into the Pacific Ocean, and I’m not afraid of the plane exploding in the air after take off. I’m afraid of the minutes the plane is out of control before it crashes to the earth.

I fear having my face ripped off by a bear.

I live on the side of a freaking mountain, yo. My kids have wildlife drills more than they have fire or earthquake drills. They see bears all the time from their classrooms and we have an extensive trail system in our backyard.

I am terrified of having no control over the cougar or the bear trying to eat me alive. Plus, we are campers, always have been, and every time we go I have severe anxiety all night long of being trapped in a tent while a bear claws it’s way in. Not relaxing times.

I fear left turns.

This one goes back to driving. Having to make left hand turns in heavy traffic makes me extremely nervous. I guess it has to do with the fact that I’m not 100% in control and I am forced to give some of it to oncoming cars. Sometimes I’ll even go out of my way to make a bunch of right turns instead of one left.

Did you know that UPS and Fed Ex drivers aren’t allowed to make left hand turns during peak traffic hours because it takes too much time and time is money? Well, that’s my excuse too, heh.

I fear the dentist.

Sharp needles and tools and pain I’m not in control of. Terrifying.

I fear pills. Red pills, blue pills, white pills, green pills, every kinda pill pills.

It takes a brain crushing headache to make me take an Advil, forget any other kind of pill. And not because I have a hard time swallowing them but because the moment I swallow I lose control of it and what it’s going to do to me. Most of the time it does a nice thing like makes my head feel better but a long time ago a pill almost took my life.

In early 2001 I took what I thought was Ecstasy but wasn’t. It was the closest I’ve come to overdosing or dying, or perhaps it was just a severe panic attack, but I couldn’t breath or swallow, couldn’t stand, couldn’t see anything except bursts of bright light.

I was totally fucked and there was nothing I could do except pray. Yep, pray to God. I’m not a God person, I’m a vibes and positive thoughts person but in my mind I was *thisclose* to dead because I couldn’t get oxygen to my brain and the only thing I thought to do was bargain and beg for my life.

That included a promise to never take another pill.

So yeah. I know that means illegal drugs, but somehow the fear has me applying that promise to all drugs.

I’ve had two surgeries and two recoveries and when morphine wasn’t entering my blood stream anymore via IV I had to take pain killers but I’ve never taken anything stronger than extra strength Tylenol, even after my c-section, no joke.

WHAT THIS ALL MEANS.

I try so hard to control everything and it’s an exhausting full-time job.

In the past I lost control in ways that hurt and scared me and it’s shaped my entire life. I’m worried, anxious, afraid, scared of everything, doom and gloom. That’s why Buddhist studies and meditations helped so much because I learned to simplify, to be aware, to live in the present and stop foreshadowing all of the potentially bad things that could happen.

I learned to enjoy the ride.

I believe I have two really huge things to deal with and alcoholism isn’t one of them, but it definitely ties in.

1. Depression

It resides in me. When I get depressed I do not turn to exercise or heart to hearts with girlfriends or group activities. I turn to alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant so I’m doing myself absolutely no favours there and I’m playing with fire.

I have to make a plan for depression, I need to understand my triggers (rain, rejection, lack of money) and see it coming, and I need to avoid alcohol, especially drinking alone. I need activity, I need fresh air, I need more girlfriend time and I need more fun.

2. Control

I give control over to alcohol. And why wouldn’t I? I spend most of every single day controlling every second with severe anxiety. I’m tired and worn out and the only way I know how to relax is to let alcohol take the wheel so I can chill the fuck out for a little while.

No more.

I have to begin dealing with my control issues. I need to take baby steps to let go.

I need to pull out all of my awareness and presence books, study them, get back into that weekly class that teaches me to just be.

I need to let someone else drive the Sea to Sky Highway doing 10km over the limit and be okay with that. ENJOY THAT. I have to take lots of hikes fully aware that I may come across wildlife because yeah, I’m living in their territory, but not let it stop me. ENJOY THAT. I need put some faith in the fact not everyone is drunk and running stop signs and turn left for fuck sake.

~

This much is clear: I don’t have a problem with alcohol when I’m happy, fulfilled and content.

I like having drinks with friends, enjoy a beer with hockey or around the camp fire, love to discuss and try new wines.

My dream has always been to do a Napa Valley or Okanagan vineyard tour. And not because I’m an alcoholic but because I want to learn about and experience wine culture. I don’t even have to drink (though I’d likely get shitfaced and that’s OK), I’m just interested, always have been.

This isn’t denying I have a problem and this isn’t giving moderation another try.

I’m admitting I have two major problems and I need help.

Until I start figuring this out and maybe forever, alcohol cannot have a place in my day to day life. I can no longer hand control over to a substance that will potentially take me down if depression is lurking.

Alcohol + depression will kill me after it destroys my entire life and the lives of my family.

Depression, control. These are my focus points.

Lets do this.

I’d had twins, sure, it was hard. People carried on saying they didn’t know how I did it and those were great compliments but I had no choice. My two babies was your one baby, nothing amazing about that.

I’d cry all the time. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know how to bond, didn’t understand the feelings of protectiveness and love I was supposed to have. I’d be alone too often and I’d yell and swear and cry and feel total remorse and failure.

I shouldn’t be a mom, how did I think I could handle this?

To top off an already horrible mental situation, Colin and I began having problems and I was able to add ‘woman’ to my failures.

I managed to get through dark days knowing that by 4pm the girls would be napping and I could have a glass of wine. 4pm turned into 3pm then 2pm. Soon days revolved around when I could drink, when I’d finally be able to feel normal, stop being angry, stop crying, start being a mom.

With the veil of drink I could enjoy my girls, shower, tidy the house, make dinner, function.

~

I’m not sure when I stopped drinking like that, probably spring when the sun came out. Fresh air improve my state of mind. The girls thrived outdoors and I’d spend days following a routine. I loved walking while they napped, sun on my skin. I still drank but never during the day. I was a closet drinker, just like I was a closet smoker, never in public where one could be judged.

When fall came I went to work. My mom babysat. Early mornings and routine kept my seasonal ‘disorder’ at bay. It felt awesome being back in the city, my career, with adults. Awesome until the girls weren’t sad to see me go or excited at my arrival, and sobbed when my mom left. Awesome until I began missing firsts.

I quit after 6 months. It was 2007 when I started my first blog. Drinking wasn’t an issue, still, once in awhile I questioned frequency and amounts. Looking back I believe I turned in an addiction (drinking) for an obsession (building a blog/readership).

~

2008. Those days were consumed with bad choices and people (some literally bad, some bad for me). There was one drinking episode in the latter part of ’08 that should have been my rock bottom but became a jumping off point when everything collapsed at the start of ’09.

~

2009. I started using alcohol to self-medicate. This time I wasn’t dealing with PPD or feelings of failure, I was drinking to drown my fuck ups as a morally bankrupt human being. At times it would start as early as morning.

I saw therapists this year and hated them. All I did was cry, sign a $150 cheque, book another. I should have been in AA.

~

Most of 2009 and 2010 is blurry.

~

Because of things I couldn’t handle anymore the girls and I left in 2010. Over the years I’d threatened to leave but never did because I had no money, no place to go. With my brother travelling and room at my mom’s house I left.

It didn’t last long but it was good. I think sometimes both partners need a glimpse of life apart to open their eyes. Especially when you have children. The life you’ve built, the togetherness, the friendship, the family. It makes the bullshit less significant.

By the end of 2010 I realized the biggest contributor to my unhappiness was that I was an alcoholic and I found support. That lasted three weeks before deciding moderation worked better. I found a Buddhism study, practiced meditation and felt a strong sense of being grounded, centered and clear going into 2011.

~

Things were amazing last year.  Best ever. We moved into a beautiful new space with a backyard and pool and a sense of community – everything I dreamed for my family.

Then out of the blue I crumbled.

The girls went to school, I struggled to find my identity, my doctor ordered me to lose 20lbs, my friends felt far away, I struggled with comparing myself to the wealthy women who live in this neighbourhood. I tried to get back into my career so we could keep up with the Joneses and all I got were rejections.

For someone who’d had a meaningful career and salary it was a huge slap in the face. This led to anxiety, insomnia, depression and heavier drinking.

~

I know drinking sucks life from me. It takes me away from mothering, home, relationships, health.

I have a choice and I’ve exercised it whenever my mind has skirted the edges. I’m aware. And like Jeremy’s comment it is simple: do or don’t.

I have a history of alcoholic drinking but I’m not powerless over it. I abstain. I drink responsibly. I drink socially. I do all of the above.

The complicated part is that from time to time I make the decision to float around the numb place at the bottom of a bottle. Lonely and alone in a pool of worthlessness and failure, sadness and hurt, hate and rejection. The fog, it’s strangely comforting like a sad song that takes you back, helps you remember, makes you cry.

I guess that’s why every so often I question what it all means. Having that place, it’s not normal.

I understand and appreciate what it means to be powerless, but I can’t say it. Nor can I say I have a hereditary disease thanks to alcoholic genes. It’s too easy to play a victim card, say circumstance happened and I’m the fucked up result.

Drinking is my choice and choice is power. I make the decision of whether it will suck away my quality of life, health, happiness and future.

Me.

I’m in control here. Most of the time I forget that fact completely.

Any time I set a goal whether it be writing (NaBloPoMo) or photography (Project 366) the daily pressure kills the project. I start out strong but when it becomes a chore I’m done. I don’t know why I always forget this. I wish I was the kind of person who thrived creatively on schedules and memes and prompts and numbered projects, I do, but I am so not that person.

My life as a stay at home mom is mundane and scheduled and prompted and numbered. I thrive in that department with schedules and chores and calendars and pressure … but that’s about as much structure as I can take.

I want to continue sharing photography that’s truly inspired, new, interesting. Pictures that tell stories. I’m in awe of Maggie and Trish who manage to do just that daily.

~

This book I’ve been reading, Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp, has got me reflecting on my entire life. Though her book was published in 1996 and written in another time it’s painful to read, recognizing myself on those pages and knowing fully that I could have written exact lines and paragraphs word for word. I’ve cried, cringed, and nodded my head countless times.

Aside from when I’ve experimented and sometimes struggled with other addictions, I’ve always had a relationship with alcohol.

As recently as one year ago I questioned the relationship to the point of seeking out help and support. I declared to people around me, to my blog, to my support group, that I’d accepted I was an alcoholic, accepted that I had a life threatening illness, and that I was ready to do something about it.

Sobriety lasted maybe 3 weeks before I decided it wasn’t for me (I’d never hidden bottles or drank hard alcohol or drank in the morning or drove drunk, fallen, blacked out, etc. Heck, I haven’t vomited in my entire life, let alone drank so much I threw up. I was not an alcoholic) so I began practicing moderation until I stopped caring or labeling myself and just drank how I wanted, when I wanted.

And here we are, one year later, no more, no less, no closer, no farther than where I was last year.

Doesn’t matter if I drink a bottle of cheap wine every night or tequila shots or a glass of something fancy and expensive with dinner or abstain for a week just to prove to myself I can, or keep it only to weekends or a cheat day to lose a few pounds … drinking has always been a thing.

Something I think about too much, something I do too much, something I wake up and regret too often.

Something I can stop and walk away from, but hardly ever do, or want to do.

I look around my family and it’s absolutely full of drinkers and addicts on every level including full blown alcoholics. Alcohol and drinking has been perfectly normal my entire life, something I was just born into, something I watched my parents and their friends and my entire family do to relax or celebrate or have fun. That photo of my baby brother with his mouth around an airliner sized bottle of Johnnie Walker or that one of me in my stroller holding up a beer can as if to say “Cheers!” … all perfectly normal and apparently hilarious enough to snap photos to be preserved in the photo albums.

People don’t understand my type of drinker, the one that drinks neatly, quietly and inwardly. In control. From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t have a clue. They cringe and shake their heads at train wrecks like Meg Ryan in When a Man Loves a Woman or Sandra Bullock in 28 Days. Detox, rehab, AA, recovery. Those are the real messes, not the suburban stay at home mom of twins.

I’ll tell my mom or a girlfriend that I think I might have a problem with alcohol and addiction and they wait for some kind of horror story to go with it. People I talk to think I’m fine unless there’s havoc being wreaked. You just really like wine, you’re fine, cut back if you think there’s a problem.

That’s the thing, I function and I function well. There is no outward problem presenting itself and that’s why this is all so weird and confusing and complicated to me.

In all my adult life no one has encouraged me to quit drinking let alone noticed a problem. The ones that would are not the people I choose to surround myself with. The people around me are the people I have drinking relationships with in some way. These are the same people who enjoy drinking whether or not they have a problem with it. I’ve never once had someone say to me, “I think you might have a drinking problem,” the way people have said I have an internet problem, drug problem, starving myself and bathroom scale problem, attraction to men who are super fucked up themselves problem, attention seeking problem, or cigarettes when I smoked.

That said, hasn’t my life been a bit of a train wreck through and through?

I’ve shared a lot over the years and you know what you know about my life and struggles up to now. You might not know anything at all. You definitely don’t  know everything, not even close. No one knows everything except for me and even I refuse to remember it all. To remember some things brings great shame — not the kind of shame that comes with drinking too much at a party and flashing your boobs; I can only wish my shame was that normal.

No, my shame is dark and twisted and ugly, at least to me. The things I’ve done are appalling, the damage I’ve likely done to my brain and liver over the years I don’t even want to know, the people I’ve hurt and betrayed because of drinking, the lies, the way I’ve lashed out at my own children and put them in danger. It’s despicable.

They way I used to drink and probably still do;

A slow, intense, quiet, hold it together, drink more, be better, they’re idiots, don’t let anyone see you out of control, don’t be one of them, don’t act like that, drink more, walk straight even though you can’t see straight, straight line, one line, drink more, one foot in front of the other, control, straight line, eyes open, straight line. Just swallow, hold it all in and compress.

Finally I would do something absolutely horrendous, no filter, something I would never do without being totally out of my mind wasted. And then I’d drink to forget the shame, shame burying more shame. I drank often and a lot to contain and push myself deeper away, yet to come out of my shell, to fit in and be something I’m not, and to forget it all.

Always inside my own head, rarely present or aware. Nothing is ever clear while inside your head, add alcohol, add fog, and life is no longer navigated safely or sanely no matter how straight the line.

That’s what I mean by my drinking has always been inward and dangerous, rarely ever outward in wild and outrageous bursts that end with puking in the bushes and passing out. I never wanted to be that teetering, screeching, annoying, cheap cider drinking girl. I wanted to be the in control girl who could drink with the guys and smoke weed with the guys and hang with the guys, and I did for most of my teenage and young adult years. Apparently I was seeking a lot of validation from guys for reasons I haven’t even begun to explore.

And now, well, now it’s different. Now I can drink a bottle of wine and not say one word to another soul, just me and alcohol. That’s when I look at the title of this book and go oh … relationship. Love story. Drinking and I, we’ve been together through everything, we’ve had our differences, our highs and lows, good times and bad, we know each other’s secrets and pains and ins and outs, and now we’re just chilling like an old married couple.

That’s sad, and that’s a problem.

I’ve been reading going, “Oh, good, this part doesn’t apply to me,” and then I lay down at night and remember something, something I’ve totally blocked out or something I blacked in and out of as a teenager or young adult. And all of a sudden that part does apply to me. I wake up drenched in sweat at least three times a night since starting this book. Uncomfortable feelings. Bad memories. All hushed or forgotten by drinking. Nothing really faced or dealt with head on.

Have I quit drinking? No. I’m drinking no more or less than I ever have over the past five years. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel great in the morning, sometimes I want to die when the alarm clock rings. I haven’t changed anything as of right now.

Making sweeping statements, setting lofty goals and quitting things that aren’t good for me is what I fail best at, so for now I just keep reading this crazy intense book and writing.