I walked in our back door which leads to the kitchen and immediately go to the cupboard to get a glass for water. As I look up to the top shelf, I see that the Tequila bottle is gone. I go to the refrigerator and look inside. The beer is gone. I walk into the living room where he is sitting and ask him what is going on. He didn't tell me where, he just told me that he took the alcohol out of the house. And that is all he said. In all honesty, I can't remember those days too well. I wish I had written in a journal all that transpired that day and the days to come. But through his actions, he communicated to me that the alcohol was no longer a part of our life together. And while he would continue to drink occasionally, he did not do it around me and it was no longer the focus of our lives. We stopped going to bars. We stopped staying up all night drinking. We just stopped.
On January 2, 2001, he asked me to marry him. It was that night that I knew he had accepted me for who I really was.
When I was nine months sober, he and I moved out east for his new job. As most know, that transition was huge in many ways. Within the span of three weeks I quit my job, got married, took a small honeymoon, packed a house, moved across country, got pregnant on the way across the country, and landed on the other end of the US. I no longer recognized my life. Within the blink of an eye I had turned into a sober, unemployed, wife and soon to be mother. Good times. It hasn't been easy.
While I had attended AA meetings in California shortly after getting sober in October, I couldn't "click" with a meeting in my new hometown. Nine months after landing in my new hometown, my daughter was born. I stayed home with her during the day and went to massage therapy school on the weekends. It was a career change that I had been planning on making in California, I just didn't think that I was going to be moving across the country. Because my husband is not a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, hanging out at meetings as a social outlet was not an option. I was a mental basket case after the birth of my daughter and was put into heavy therapy to keep me from hurting myself. I was medicated for depression and anxiety and would remain so for a year after her birth. I had another child in 2004; there were no mental health issues after this birth but the cravings for alcohol would return from time to time.
Three years at our new address, I met a couple of ladies that were massage clients of mine. They both had considerable recovery time through AA. While I still attempted the odd meeting from time to time, meeting with these women became a focus for me. They understood alcoholism and could speak to me on my terms without batting an eye. I was grateful for them. It had been several years since I had spoken to another recovering alcoholic and I was thirsty for the connection. What I also found during that time is that I wanted to associate only with the women in recovery. I realized that one of the biggest turnoffs for me in AA is the mixed meeting of men and women. Back in California, there had been Women's Meetings all over the place. Not so in my new location. This place was completely backwards and old school.
Fast forward two more years and I am now living an hour from the original town that we had moved to. I am in the capital city and I am finally HAPPY! The new city, new house, new jobs (for both of us,) and better quality of life (no more commuting) have really made a difference. After getting settled into our new digs, I decide to try meetings again. I find a Monday night Women's Meeting downtown and within a mile of my house. I hit the jackpot. All it took was one night and I was hooked. I had found my home group.
It has been a little over seven and a half years since I took my last drink and this is what has happened and what I have learned:
- I have craved the taste of alcohol many, many times since October 1, 2000. But I didn't get sober just so that I wouldn't have to drink alcohol again; I got sober so that I wouldn't have to obsess about alcohol again. I knew that I could stop drinking. What I couldn't stop was the non stop obsessing about it. Romancing the Drink is what it is called in AA. It gets you nowhere but drunk. I don't obsess about it any more.
- I had a great childhood. There was no abuse. No trauma. I had a serious eating disorder that I finally recovered from in 1997, but there was no issues that I deem drink worthy. I simply liked to get drunk. I liked how it made me feel. Until it didn't anymore, and by that point I couldn't stop. I don't have an explanation for why my sobriety has stuck this time around. Maybe I just wanted it more and also have more to lose.
- I come from a family of alcoholics. I have the advantage of seeing where alcohol will take me in the years to come. The way I look at it now: no one ever died because they didn't take a drink.
- My husband and kids need my attention. Alcohol obsessing took all of my attention.
- I can't bear the thought of my daughters seeing me drunk.
- Alcohol has been linked to some cancers. I have lost too many family members to cancer to play it fast and loose with my health.
- People who don't like AA meetings probably have issues with things other than AA or they just aren't alcoholics. They just need to find the right meeting. It is not a cult. AA is a fellowship for me. It's a place I go when I feel like a monkey in a fishbowl. Sometimes you just need a place to fit in.
- I have been to bad AA meetings, but I don't walk out. I listen for the similarities not the differences and try to remind myself that it's not just about me and what I think. That there might be a newcomer walking in the door that night that desperately needs help. I am there for her.
- One of the hardest things I ever had to do was walk away from family and friends that drink excessively. But it was the key to my success with sobriety. I was alone and even lonely for a really long time, but it gave me a chance to re-create myself as the person I am today. And I like this person a whole bunch.
- There are a hell of a lot more hours in the day when you aren't drunk and hungover all the time. In the beginning, the restlessness and long days about killed me. But I had to wake up every morning and make a decision to be productive; otherwise the obsession would creep back in. Its amazing all that can be accomplished when you aren't chasing the drink.
And lastly, The Promises. Remember those? They have all come true and continue to be played out each day of my life. And it wasn't entirely due to the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, but they were certainly key. It was also God, and Buddhism, and the Upanishads, and Conversations With God, and the Seth Material, and certain people that I've met, and.....the list goes on and on. It's about the fact that I stopped thinking about myself and alcohol and began to think about other people's interpretations of life, no matter their beliefs. No matter if I agreed with them or not.
It was about FREEDOM. I had never known true freedom because I was always imprisoned by my drinking. I can go anywhere and do anything now because drinking no longer imprisons me.
It was about being open. Really open to new ideas and ways of living. And about taking a chance on a new, possibly better life for myself, knowing that if it didn't work then I could discard the old and start over with a new freedom. Always start over. Just this time, without a drink.
Kristin H.
Part 10 in a series of 10 posts chronicling my history with alcoholism and recovery. Comments may be emailed to my profile address.
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