Insert Cliché Sports Metaphor Here
Sports? Not my thing. I could fake some grace on a tennis court when I was younger. I was in the outfield (illegally) at my sister’s Little League softball games because my hand-eye coordination and hustle-bility were unmatched by the older girls and my father knew it. Plus, he and I practiced nonstop on the weekends because he loved it and I pretended to, part of my never-ending quest for male affection, but that’s another rabbit hole for another day.
I wore Carolina blue on Saturdays in the Fall and drooled in front of Sport’s Bar televisions during March Madness. I have a Jake Delhomme jersey and a “Keep Pounding” bracelet. I was disappointed when the Hornets left Charlotte and equally disappointed when they returned. I froze my ass off in the bleachers for every championship game when my sister’s boyfriend played on our high school’s offensive line. Point being, I can display all of the proper social cues when it comes to athletics, but I do not eat, sleep, live, and breathe team sports the way that some Americans do.
I apologize if I am offending anyone (no I don’t, I’m just acknowledging those social cues we discussed) but if you’ve ever missed an important life event to watch the game of a team where you do not personally know any players, owners, or coaches… you’re a dumbass. Get a life. The Bears don’t give a shit about you, Jim from Chicago, so stop missing the birth of your children and funerals of your parents for the playoffs.
Historically, I’ve also been vehemently against universities giving scholarships to athletes while ignoring the accomplishments of its intellectually gifted students… but this year Covid cancelled sports all together and I received an institutional academic grant for the full amount of my tuition sooooo imma shut-up about that for the time being.
So, where do sports and I currently meet each other, you ask? The penalty box. Time-out for grown-ups. The bench where we go to sit and think about what we’ve done. Things move pretty quick in a game, though. There is clock, and every second counts. Especially when it’s the MVP that is sat on the sidelines, twiddling his thumbs, while the second-string fumbles over and over again to the tune of rapid circus music.
On the upside, there is a time limit. In hockey, you get five minutes for fighting, then your debt is paid. You are released once again to attempt a triple Salchow and perform unauthorized dental work on your opponents (I don’t know much about hockey…) In recovery, however, there are no time limits or standards, and the penalty boxes show-up in the strangest of places.
Addicts are not to be trusted. That’s a fact. No one knows that better than another addict. We sit in rooms with other addicts all the time, we can tell who is solid and who is struggling by a cursory glance. Its like an unwanted, strictly situational 6th sense. It often feels like meetings only happen on “Opposite Day,” because the people who press the hardest that they are “sober,” “doing really well,” “have it together,” and that it’s “different this time,” are the ones who are not gonna make it. The ones who say things like, “everything sucks and I’m dying on the inside,” they get it. They’re gonna be fine. They understand what sobriety is about.
Back to my point—addicts are not to be trusted. I was not to be trusted. When I first started trying to deal with my addiction, I was given grace, space, leniency, and trust by my loved ones, to deal with my shit on my own. I blew that trust so many times. So, naturally, when I finally did meet that shift in mentality that I’d been waiting for—the one that flipped off my drunk switch—I was still not to be trusted. But I was ok with that. I didn’t trust myself either.
Before there was a fight in me for recovery, a calm came over my being that allowed me to just stop: stop panicking, stop arguing, stop running, and stop battling my own self. My need for escape (aka booze) kinda just… slipped away. Since people couldn’t visibly see that my craving for numbness (aka hooch) was gone, they first noticed that my sketchy and rabid seeking of “alone time” was no longer present. I could stay in a room and sit on couch for hours at a time. I didn’t make up errands to run at 8:00 at night. I wasn’t disappearing upstairs every 20 minutes to pee, or take a phone call, or change into a 3rd pair of yoga pants…
Trust began to show itself in unexpected moments and ways. Like I said, that shift in my mentality was palpable. For so long, I would take the trust people gave me and abuse the Hell out of it. Now, the more trust I get, the more thoroughly I want to deserve it. In fact, I only regained trust in myself by basing it on the trust others had in me. I never thought I would be comfortable driving with my nephew in the car, but the first time my sister handed me her baby and said, “here, take this thing to Mom’s house,” I complied. I didn’t know someone could feel powerful while driving 11 miles an hour, but alas, I did.
Recently, I was home for Steele’s 2nd birthday, and I was staying at my sister’s house. I received some pretty unsettling news from a friend of mine. I planned on handling it like an adult: sitting on the couch in the dark, sniffling quietly and dabbing at tears with my cardigan sleeve. However, babies are intuitive, and Steele crawled haphazardly across all three persons on the couch to sit on me and inspect me like I was a dead frog in the driveway.
“Sad? Wha happen? Sad?”
“Yes.” I said, “Aunt Square is sad.”
After my brother-in-law and Steele gave into their bedtime, I left my sister on the couch and went to grab my keys and put my shoes on. I knew how sketchy it sounded, I knew how aloof I was being, but I didn’t have a choice, I had to move.
“I’m going for a drive.” I told Maren.
She digested. “… is that something that you do when you are upset?”
“It is.”
For reference, I have a breathalyzer. Judge all you want, but it holds me accountable and if I am ever questioned, I can prove that all the impulsive, clumsy, incredibly stupid things that I do are done completely sober. Since going for a drive at midnight sounds a bit devious, I told Maren that I’d blow when I got back to the house.
“Oh,” Maren said, “I’m not worried about that.”
It was a nonchalant comment. And it meant the world to me. It was the biggest vote of confidence that I had received since I was recognized as a “drunk” many years ago. It came seemingly out of nowhere, but it came at precisely the right time. I was in another one of those moments when I was forced to wonder what all of my hard work (and recovery is incredibly hard work) was all for. I was feeling as if I had ultimately failed, despite savagely fighting for something for the first time in my life. Yet, there it was, a spark of trust and an unadorned show of love to put me back in the correct mindset. I was going to be sad for a bit about what I did not achieve, but I could not say that it was all for nothing.
My story is not the average story. I’m just lucky that I’ve never been arrested, I don’t have children, my addiction was to a legal substance, and I’ve never had to detox or withdraw from anything. The plight for those who did get ensnared by both addiction and the legal system is complicated and frustrating. Don’t get me wrong: they should be punished and forced to prove their rehabilitation beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if their worst offenses were done in moments of clouded judgement and mental instability that only occur in the midst of active addiction, the prosecution still stands.
Believe me, I know what its like to do something unthinkable while under the influence, or in a moment of addict-desperation and to be appalled by it later on. Not just appalled, but completely incapable of calculating what led to that action. Just because it is a common problem for addicts, doesn’t make it any less horrifying to have to look at a moment in your portfolio and not be able to connect with or recognize the person who did it, even though the person was you. There are miles between a competent, sober person and the cop-fighting, money-stealing, straight-man-giving-blow-jobs for cocaine. The punishment is for those miles in between. Along the way we had little moments where we could do the easy thing or the hard thing, and we chose the easy thing. We chose the easy things so often that they became a pile of husks and debris blocking the road between us and our rationality, which is why we can’t just blame “addiction” and call it a day. We did have choices at one point, and we chose poorly.
If the justice system eludes you, as it does literally everybody, the rules and regulations for (American) basketball do a pretty good job of enforcing tiered penalties. A player fouls another player, a penance is swiftly served. You only get to commit so many infractions before you are dismissed entirely from playing. The justice system is a lot more lenient than an NCAA referee, but that’s because life lasts longer than 48 minutes and we can’t all just do ads for Gold Bond or go play in Europe if we fail.
Just because my personal punishment wasn’t administered by a judge doesn’t mean that it wasn’t stiff, prejudiced, and punitive. Action and reaction in real time, as outlined by Sir Isaac Newton. Regardless of whether we are punished by the courts, by others, or by ourselves for being addicts, it is yet another aspect of addiction that will never be black and white. Just because we served our time, paid our fines, and signed our divorce papers like a good little girl, doesn’t mean that the wake left by our addiction has dissipated. There will always be a level of suspicion surrounding us. Maybe that is for the best.
I go back and forth in my mind all the time trying to figure out if I’m garbage, or if I’m great. My conclusion changes daily. Like the other night at my sister’s: I find out that I am 100% completely forgettable to someone who meant the world to me = Garbage Kara. Five minutes later, my sister casually let’s me know that it didn’t even cross her mind that I would drink, even as I am leaving her house at midnight to process some disorienting news = Great Kara. The victories come more regularly than the punches, but the victories don’t leave a swollen bruise on my cheek.
Being open and honest about addiction and mental health has come at a price. I knew that it would from the moment I hit my caps lock and screamed to the internet I AM A DEPRESSED ANXIOUS RAGING ALCOHOLIC. I get a lot of direct praise for my honesty. I get more whispers, leers, and passive aggressive comments for my flaws, even though it was I who served them up to the spectators on a platter. I take all the reactions I get in stride. But I’m not bullet proof.
When I say that the victories come more regularly than the punches, its not a happenstance kind of deal. I have my arms open to the victories and I keep a vigilant high guard against my opponent’s advances. So, for a fist to land on my face, it had to come from a side of me that I didn’t realize I needed to protect. For instance, when someone applauds my openness and makes an effort to get close and get to know me, my story, and my directive better, I let my guard down. What’s the point of boasting vulnerability if you can’t be vulnerable, right? Then, of course, that same person cites your deepest hurt as an excuse not to get any closer than they already have.
The hardest hits come from the gentlest people, has anyone else noticed that? I can shrug it off when someone calls me a “drunk.” I don’t take it personally when people question my judgement on certain things. I’m not bothered when I’m assumed to be dishonest, because, historically, I have been. However, when someone kind and intrigued digs into me with good intentions, but walks away believing the worst to be true… I feel that in my bones.
Perhaps my problem is that I don’t know how to just “leave it on the field,” as they say. I carry my losses with me everywhere I go. I do it on purpose, though, because the places where I failed before are the places that I’ll be damned if I fail again. You’ll never catch me at a bar, slipping and saying, “I can have just one.” I’m not missing anymore precious family moments or being the reason that those moments are ruined for somebody else. When it comes to relationships, should I ever attempt one again, it isn’t going to be a “Hail Mary.” I’ll be going in with a helmet, pads, a mouth guard, and extremely tight pants, ready to hold the line.
The few sports that I played taught me valuable lessons. I know a bad pitch when I see it coming. And I know the precise moment to swing. I know when to duck, too. Half of that technique is learned, but the other half is pure instinct. I don’t expect everyone to trust me about everything. Or anything, really. I’m still in the drunk penalty box and may be forever. I don’t even trust myself with certain things, but when my intuition pipes up, I listen intently. It’s a never-fail part of my constitution that tells me important things, like when a rainstorm is coming, just by the smell of the breeze. It tells me when to take brownies out of the oven. It tells me when to fight harder, and when to gracefully surrender. It told me when it was time to stop drinking.
Life is a game, and the world is a stage, depending on which metaphor I’m using. Sports. Right. Earlier I made it sound like “time-out” was a bad thing. For my nephew, it’s a punishment. For overpaid coaches and adults, it’s a tool. A time-out stops the clock so that we can reassess our strategy without the pressure of a looming buzzer. There’s nothing wrong with taking a breather to get your head right, then getting back in the game. If I’ve earned even a smidge of trust in my sister’s house, then I can certainly trust my gut again. Those same instincts that tell me that Steele needs a helmet just to run around the kitchen are the same instincts that rake in the victories and keep me standing after every uppercut. Yes, Steele’s instincts were right too: “Aunt Square sad.” Its ok, though. Its just a time-out. Aunt Square sad, but don’t worry. Aunt Square knows when to swing.
