July Recommendation: Sobriety
Thoughts on two years without booze.
Two years ago, I sat at an airport bar and ordered a double Buffalo Trace, one rock. This would be my last drink, I hoped, and I wanted it to be something good.
By this point, I had had hundreds of “last” drinks, if not more. I cannot tell you how many times I swore to myself that tonight would be the last time, that I’d quit on Monday, that I’d splurge on this fancy bottle of wine and go out with a bang, that I was so hungover I would never touch that cheap vodka again. But when the next day or later that day rolled around, I was back at the liquor store or grocery store or gas station, starting all over.
This time, however, I was taking a step I had never tried before — I was checking myself into rehab. I didn’t know if it would work — I had tried so many ways to cut back or to quit before — but I was desperate enough to commit to a month away from my life for a hope at peace. I knew a lot of people who had gone to rehab and didn’t stay sober, but I also knew friends who had.
I finished my drink, grabbed my suitcase from baggage claim, and ordered a Lyft. As we drove past a liquor store a few minutes later, it took everything in me not to ask him to stop so I could run in for a pint of something. I wasn’t drunk enough to do this, to finally commit to a life without alcohol. I needed to chug straight vodka until I was numb. But I had already had that symbolic last drink, and some dumb part of me wanted my last one to matter. I didn’t say anything, he kept driving, and I checked myself in to detox half an hour later.
Two years later, I still have not picked up another drink. This doesn’t mean I won’t ever drink again, but it’s a start — one I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Last summer, reaching 12 months sober felt like I had climbed a mountain (and not the one I live on, but something steeper, higher, more treacherous). When you’ve been using alcohol as a crutch for 30 years, you’re back to being a baby, learning to walk on your own. And you feel like a baby, or at least a toddler — raw, whiny, apt to cry at the drop of a hat, upset that the bottle’s been taken away and you’re being forced to eat solid foods. I had to relearn how to do all the most basic tasks without alcohol, from cleaning to cooking1 to talking to other humans. Going one year without a drink made me feel like I could conquer the world.
Two years sober feels different. Anticlimactic I suppose. A few weeks ago, I was complaining to my therapist about my (self-perceived) failure — I quit drinking and I still haven’t written a book or even gotten a better job, what the fuck, self? She said, “When was the last time you took a drink?” I replied, “Almost two years ago, but that doesn’t count.” And in that moment, I felt that I was telling the truth! Which is completely insane — two years ago, the only thing I wanted was to be able to go without drinking for any significant time. And now I take it for granted?
I mean, I don’t take it for granted. I work for it every day. Sobriety is a blessing, but it’s also hard — if it were easy, there would be no need for 12-step groups, no recovery industry, no relapses. This disease is fucking merciless. I can feel how tenuous and fragile my sobriety still is after only 731 days. A lifetime, but also the blink of an eye.
Recovery statistics are notoriously unreliable, but they consistently show rates of relapse within that first year are very high. Though rates drop after the first year, it’s not until after a fifth year sober that the chance of relapse becomes truly low. (Yet it still happens. All the time.)
I can easily understand how a relapse happens just after one year, after you’ve worked so hard to reach an arbitrary goal and everyone celebrates you and then your life is just back to normal and normal can be just as hard as anything you’ve done. Because your brain is still your brain, and your brain is like, “Everything is supposed to be fixed now, I’m one year sober, why is everything still broken?”
It’s not that I thought quitting drinking would fix everything, but also, I did think quitting drinking would fix everything. Instead, it turns out, it’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. And, surprise, I’m still not fixed after one year or two years without a drink.
So I can see how relapse happens after two years, after three. Honestly, sobriety can be fucking exhausting. Some days, it doesn’t feel like a gift but a slog — one more day without an instant, easy fix for all your problems, no matter how temporary. Why can’t you just be a normal person who can have one single drink at the end of a long day to take the edge off? Maybe after all this time without any alcohol, you can just try it and see?
But I can’t. A single drink for me would be an entire bottle of wine, and then I’d need another. So, I’m stuck with my stupid brain 100% of the time. Some days, I don’t want to be, but also, that’s one more day that I’m still alive. That’s enough for today.
This is supposed to be a recommendation, and maybe I’m not making sobriety sound very appealing. But I swear, being sober is great! For example, since I quit drinking:
I’ve lost weight.
My heart rate (resting and walking) is normal.
My blood pressure is healthy.
I can show up to things on time.
I’ve made new friends.
I’m a better friend (or, at least, I’m trying to be).
I’m less flaky.
My skin is better.
I’m a nicer person (most of the time).
I don’t sweat nearly as much.
I’m not as stressed about money (most of the time).
My sleep is better.
My credit has improved.
I spend almost no time getting mad online.
I don’t hate myself nearly as much.
I don’t wake up every morning wishing I was dead.
I’m not spending all my time thinking about my next drink.
Although my life has not (and will not) instantly become the ideal existence I envisioned without alcohol, it’s far, far better than the mess and misery that it was two years ago. I feel so much better physically, mentally and emotionally. I am so much better.
A year ago, on my one-year soberversary, a sober friend told me he didn’t think I’d make it to a year because I was so angry. But one of the most considerable gifts of sobriety has been the elimination of most of my rage. It’s not that I don’t feel upset about the state of the world or the truly terrible humans causing so much pain and devastation. It’s just that I (mostly) can now accept that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about (most of) it, so there’s (mostly) no point in getting angry/resentful about it. I can choose not to watch/read/listen, and I can choose not to post/tweet about it. I can unfollow people who make me mad, and I can delete apps so I don’t stay trapped in the outrage cycle.
TLDR: In year two of sobriety, I not only didn’t drink, but I learned to live without Twitter. It’s bliss.
I originally planned just to write a short piece about how great sobriety is and that you should try it if you have concerns about your substance use. (Which, statistically, most of you do not. But also, statistically, some of you might.) Although it took me a long time to quit, I found other people’s writing and honesty incredibly helpful on my journey from “I probably have a problem” to “I definitely have a problem” to “I really need to quit” to “I am going to start trying to quit” to “I am finally going to get help quitting.” (I especially love Edith Zimmerman’s “My First Year Sober” and A.J. Daulerio’s
and everything Ana Marie Cox writes.) Knowing that these other people had been through some shit and gotten sober and stayed sober gave me hope, even if I couldn’t yet put down the bottle. So, I’m sharing this. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won’t. But not talking about addiction doesn’t make it go away. Alcohol kills more people than other drugs every year, and as a culture we’re somehow okay with that. But there is help out there, and if I can do this for two years, I swear that anyone can.A couple of years after I had secretly admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic, I emailed a friend whom I knew had been sober for a long while.
“I think I probably need to stop drinking at some point and I know that you have done that and do you have advice?” I wrote.
“My foremost advice is that if you’re thinking you need to stop drinking, you’re probably right,” he replied.
It took me three more years to accept that he was correct and to finally start trying (for a few months) to stop drinking. Then the pandemic hit, and I did not stop drinking, and it took another two years before I got in that Lyft. Most days, I can accept that it took what it took to get me here, but sometimes I wonder what my life would look like if I had stopped the summer or fall after that email, eight years ago. If I had admitted that I needed help, if I had gone to rehab, if I had found a meeting, anything. Maybe I would have relapsed — my job then wasn’t exactly a great fit for sobriety. Perhaps I would have relapsed during the pandemic, like so many. Maybe I’d be exactly where I am. But maybe I’d be eight years sober, and I would have skipped out on a lot of the misery that happened in between.
Which is to say, if you’re thinking you need to stop drinking (or using something else), I highly recommend that you quit while you’re ahead. Or just try it out and see how it goes. Maybe sobriety won’t be for you. Maybe you’ll discover you’re the lucky person who can moderate his drinking, that you’re just fine having two beers on Saturday night, and you don’t think about alcohol the rest of the week. Or maybe you’ll realize you can’t quit on your own, and you won’t put off getting help for almost a decade.
All I know is that two years sober is tedious and tiring and requires so much work on myself, but it’s really good, and I’m glad I’m here. You might like it too.
If you’re struggling with substance use disorder, there is help. I am more than happy to try to connect you with local resources or offer suggestions if you ask for them, but I am not a professional. But please reach out if you feel like it!
I’ll be back later this week with my belated June essay that has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol, and neither will my July essay. I can write about other things, promise!
I cannot tell you how hard learning to cook sober has been. Just brutal.
Congratulations on every sober day. Truly an accomplishment. In a weird way, it sounds akin to cancer survival in how people celebrate when you make it past that culturally acknowledged point but then act like, 'Ok, you're good now. Back to normal!'
Let's just say there were cases of LaCroix that got me through the cooking process.