I’ll be honest, not being able to drink is incredibly frustrating in that regard. Some days, I can’t get over the unfairness of it. Some days, I can’t navigate myself out of the “why me’s?”. Or, simply, the “why’s?”. Why do I have to feel anxious all the time? Why isn’t there a medication that works perfectly? Why does facebook exist just to ruin my day? Why am I such a “first pancake” of a person? Why don’t they like me more? Why don’t I like me more? Why do I try, when all I ever do is fail? Why did I work so hard to get sober, just for my life to stay shitty? Why did he leave me, even though he promised to stay forever? Why do I still miss and love the people who willingly left? Why can’t I get a singular part of my life together? Why can’t I get out of bed right now? I have so much more than most people, why isn’t what I have enough to make me happy? I’ve been asleep for 16 hours, why do my eyelids still feel heavy? Why do I keep trying to live better when the world is clearly trying to bump me off—failure after failure after failure? Why do I have to keep living, when being alive is so Goddamn disappointing…?

  If I understood the Bible and Dante correctly, then I know I’m right about this:  Hell is walking, without weaponry and without armor, into a cave that is simultaneously freezing cold and unbearably hot.  One by one, from behind each stalagmite, emerge your most ominous fears, your most painful memories, your deepest hurts in ghoul form, and insidious demons from lore and the ancient world.  In order to pass through to the other side, you must stare each one down and say, “you don’t own me.”  Not just once.  You must declare it to each entity, over and over, until your hands no longer shake, your voice no longer crackles, and you know without a doubt that the piece of you that they had stolen has returned to its place in your soul.

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.

I think that people are afraid to use the word “grief” as often as it occurs because it undermines the level of grief that we feel over the death of a loved one. In its definition, “grief” simply means “the sorrow one feels over a loss.” People lose a lot of shit—car keys, debit cards, track of time, bets, profits, reading glasses, remote controls, whatever falls between the car seats, things they “swear they just saw,” and their minds… My point is that grief occurs in degrees. The intensity and circumstance may vary, but the origin is the same. Something is lost.

But what if the thing that is lost is something that never “was” in the first place? What if the lost entity in question was merely a dream, or a plan, or an option? It’s one struggle to adjust your heart to fit a life where something no longer is, but its another strain to steer your heart away from something that never can be.

I know exactly which groups to attend depending on what I am dealing with on a daily basis. If I want to dig deep into the philosophy of addiction and get into playful, respectful debates, I go to the Literature meeting where I am the only girl and the only person under the age of 50. If I want to fade into the background and practice my embroidery while listening, I go to a topic meeting on zoom. If I want to cry and receive overwhelming support and understanding about the fact that I’m 30 and divorced and I may never get to have children even though I don’t even think I want children and I feel abandoned and all I ever did was try my best and how angry I am at all the men who put their hands on me without my permission and told me that it was all that I was good for or that it was my fault that they assaulted me because I use dirty words sometimes so when I said “no” they decided I meant “yes” and how mad I am that my father died right when I needed him most and how jealous I am of my sister for being so successful and better looking than me and all of this bullshit is piled on top of the fact that I can’t drink myself pretty or secure anymore... Tuesday Night Women’s Meeting.

Up until recently—and I mean very recently—like a week ago, I joked that I was a “bargain item.”   You know, like a piece of furniture in that sad corner of IKEA near the registers.  Other than a small scratch, there is nothing wrong with my form or function.  I’m ambitious, I’m educated (getting more educated actively), I’m clever, I’m kind, I’m charming when I want to be, I’m obnoxiously honest, and I have nothing but time, love, and effort to give away enthusiastically.  You could buy me at discounted rate, cheat my damaged side to the wall, and nobody would know that I came from the reject pile.

                That joke isn’t funny, though.  I am finally at a place in my life where I see a future, despite all that I have lost.  A better future.  One where I always put my best foot forward.  With all of this new found self-love came a naïve optimism, and I nearly forgot that some people would automatically and always see me as “damaged goods,” without a stupid joke about it coming from my own two lips.

Being an alcoholic is humiliating.  It is.  Not because of what I did, what I am, what all occurred, or how I handled it, but because of what people automatically assume about me when they find out that I am an associate of addiction.  If it weren’t for stigma and context, I’d feel like a warrior.  I’ve been fighting an epic, invisible battle since I learned to walk and talk.  I kept marching forward in life despite being bogged down with existential barricades and questions like, “why can’t I remember anything my teacher says in class?  Why do I run to my neighbor’s basement when I see one dark cloud?  Why do I get nervous butterflies like I’m about to go on stage when I’m just sitting around doing nothing?  Why can’t I force myself to get out of bed somedays?  Why do I forget how to breathe when I’m just sitting at my desk at work? 

The year I had my first full-blown panic attack was the same year it became legal for me to drink so, y’all, its shocking to me that I didn’t pack up a U-Haul and move directly into a bottle for another 5-6 years after that.  I took 3 years out of my 30 to do the wrong thing, but to finally feel right.  I didn’t quit because it stopped working.  I didn’t quit because I got bored.  I quit because, when I was drinking, I made the people I love feel the way I feel when I’m sober: Nervous.  Awkward.  Burdened.   Terrified.  I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. 

I love to learn and I hate to learn. I love my “book learnin’” and I hate to learn life lessons. So, naturally, because God has a sense of humor, I’ve gotten the most out of both courses of study in the last year. The two are not mutually exclusive, though. To learn about literature is to learn about life. To learn about addiction is to learn about life. To deal with addiction, you have to be able to accept life on life’s terms, quite the same way that you have to accept the sad, dissatisfying ending of a great book. We cannot change or control most of the things that happen in life, but we can control the way that we handle them. It is agony to face hurt and betrayal in the moment it occurs, but years from now, with a stronger constitution, you will find that things happened exactly the way that they were supposed to.