Today marks two years since I decided to stop drinking. My mom was an alcoholic and people in my family have died or continue to live under its influence.
I have married alcoholics. I have fallen for alcoholics. I have been attracted to alcoholics.
I was fond of saying I am not an alcoholic, though I could be a lush.
It wasn’t until I faced the truth of my son’s needs that I was able to articulate the way I want to be present for him all the time.
And then it became a desire to be present for me.
And after me, it has become a desire to be present to others.
And now here I am two years later, and I have a wish that I could go back in my life and live most of it wide-eyed, sober, and present. I wish those moments when I made a bad decision because I was drinking that I could unwind and reconsider who was going to be hurt by my actions. I wish I hadn’t relied so much on alcohol to help me traverse difficult moments, people, emotions, desires and decisions …
Two years sober I can tell you that I still dance, I still am a wild child at heart, I’m high on life most of the time. Not much has changed about me except that I am soberly aware and present.
I don’t miss drinking – not one day – not one minute – and I wish for all my loved ones who struggle with alcohol that they too will come to know the serenity the comes from choosing not to dull your senses, but instead to go deep into each one and live all of them. Your experiences will set you free.
I am free.
Congratulations my friend! Sobriety is everything! The presence you describe is an amazing gift! I’m pushing 15 years now and like you, wish I could take some years back. I try to see that alcohol was there for me when I needed to not feel the full force of traumas. I’m so ok navigating what live hands me now!
Both of my parents and my younger sister died of alcoholism within 3 years. My kids and grandkids deserve a better me but mostly I deserve the best me possible and only sobriety offers that! I’m so proud of you!!!!
Thank you, Kandi – IYKYK!
It’s been an amazing two years and I’m here to say – so worth it!
Congratulations on your 15 years – that is a beautiful life!
Congratulations Rachel!!
I am also from two alcoholic parents, along with aunts and uncles who depended on alcohol to get them through life. My father became sober at age 60 when he saw what it was doing to our family. My mom became sober at 70 when the doc told her she would die otherwise. She began to bake birthday cakes for us adult children and tried to make up for all those years she was absent from our lives due to drinking. I vowed to avoid alcohol from the time I was a teen – yet I married two alcoholics. My first husband was an active user. My second was 36 years sober when he died in 2019. No matter how much we live into a sober life with our eyes wide open to its effects, we never lose the memories of living with others who were lost in the black hole.
Ain’t that the truth, Emma. I was at an ACA meeting last night, and we were talking about how we recreate relationships like the one we had with our alcoholic parents. It is this awareness I wished I would have had when I was younger and was urged by a therapist then to go to ACA. If it wasn’t for Tin, I would not have been at that meeting last night, and I have come to appreciate this group so much – we have all lived in the black hole, unaware there was a way out when we had agency to do so. And now it is like breathing air for the first time. Much love to you – you looked gorgeous the other night – keep up that dazzling radiance!