Maybe for the people who were fine in social situations before they became alcoholics, its not such a big deal post hoc. Before alcoholism, the majority of us were awkward as hell around other people, which is why liquor was applied ad hoc. And it worked so well… it was cheap, it was sedating, it was inhibition resistant, and it was there. All the time. If you dig down to the root of addiction, you’ll find that the cause has little to do with the existence of addictive substances, or that those substances are so addictive, or money-grubbing cartels, or boredom, or the Freudian “death wish,” or rebellion… addiction is existent because people are insecure. They can’t stand it. We can’t stand it. And we’ll do anything to feel—for five seconds—like we belong.

Great people have philosophized that life is about the journey, because the journey contains all the good parts.  Man is not meant to die at age 80 in a stew of passion, grief, inspiration, anger, fear and joy.  We’re meant to die peacefully, with gratitude that the journey of life gave us moments to feel all of those emotions, with such profundity that our hands quaked and our knees weakened.  Nobody appreciates those moments like a used-to-be alcoholic because we missed opportunities to experience those feelings when we were drinking for the purpose of feeling nothing.  Now, when we feel them… Good Lord… fireworks. 

It borders on false advertising for Alcoholics Anonymous to say that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” It makes it sound like the war ends when you can finally admit that you have a problem. Unfortunately, no. Not at all. Drunks come limping in, a little bruised, a little beaten, saying that drinking got the best of them, and they’ve decided to walk away from it. Then someone like me has to tell them that walking away isn’t a choice they get to make. Addiction called “no quarter.” You turn and fight, or you lay down and die. There is no third option and there is no satisfying surrender. The vomit, the DUIs, the stomach pumping, the slurred arguments, the hangovers, the lost jobs, the lost relationships, the humiliation… those weren’t the battles, those were antecedents. You haven’t seen real carnage—not yet. Pick up your weapon, son. Addiction was high cotton. Recovery is the war. And you just declared it.

As I walked through the venue in search of caffeine, I couldn’t ignore the abundance of alcohol.  It seemed that there was a bar every five steps, taunting me in my pursuit of a Diet Coke.  I was never tempted to drink—it was never that kind of fight.  I can breathe through that too.  But I did long for a way to feel like anything or anyone but myself in that moment.  For five days, whatever I am, who ever I am, just wasn’t enough.  And that is a terrible feeling.  The kind of feeling that makes newlywed women with potential get drunk in their closets every night just to feel worthy of doing the laundry and the dishes. 

So, there it was.  My life was never threatened, but my usefulness in this life was questioned.  The stars all aligned for some harsh comparisons and I detonated.  I’ve fought hard to be the things that I am, but my worth only shows in library basements and lecture halls.  Put me in a resort condominium with the few people whose opinions I actually care about, and I begin to shrink faster than Alice on shrooms. 

The environment of addiction recovery is adamant about exposing difficult truths because none of us are drinking and shooting-up over a humdrum Monday we once had.  We’re addicts because we’re desperate to run away from something and our legs can only take us so far.  And what we are running from is not always a wrong done to us by someone else.  Many of us are running from a wrong we’ve done to someone else.  Or a wrong we’ve done to ourselves.  We get high to disassociate from the “me” we don’t like.  We drink to drown the girl that did the bad thing.

I’m really not a silly woman who estimates herself with an insignificant man’s yardstick.  Neither his lack of regard for me nor my resulting insecurities are going to threaten my sobriety.  The reasons why I drank may be eeking back into my psyche, but the reasons why I will never drink again are crystal fucking clear.  I don’t know why it always seems to be men that disorient me the most, but I suppose it is mostly men.  I miss the days of motivated sobriety when my perceptions were fluffed by my invincibility.  Two years ago, high school did not define me, divorce was a magical quest sent by the universe to condition me for bigger battles, and something better was waiting around the corner if I could just hold on for one more day.  The reality is not entirely bleak, but it is this:  divorce means you aren’t worth the trouble you make, you’re not the worst in your vocation… but you aren’t turning any heads, and the “better things” are there, but they are skeptical of you and what you are, and they need more time to decide if they want to be yours.  But hey, its better than being drunk and dead in a ditch.

There is another blessing in being an addict in recovery, other than simply surviving while others are still suffering.  I would almost say that the years, things, and people that alcoholism cost me were a fair price to pay for the perspective.  Yes, two years of sobriety is a success.  But not I, nor any other addict would measure our success by stacking it next to someone else’s failure.  Its not a point of pride and its certainly not a victory.  Either we all make it, or none of us does.  There is war going on that we seldom talk about.  All of us addicts are fighting for our sanity and our lives while we mingle with regular people at the grocery stores, and dinner parties, and fro-yo socials.  Some of us wear the mask well.  Some of us don’t.  Some of us feel the weight of it all, all the time.  Some of us have people to help us carry it so it doesn’t feel like such a heavy load.  Good people.  Great people.  The kind of people who have already had to bear my burdens and would still take more, if I told them that I need another hand free because the man next to me with the white chip needs a boost. 

If someone with 20 years of sobriety tells me that I’m “doing it wrong” …am I doing it wrong?  I would never claim to be doing it right, and that’s why I don’t sponsor or sermonize.  But am I actually, unknowingly standing on a ledge because I don’t write all of my character flaws down in a $30 workbook once a year?  I have also been told that I am “obviously capable of dedicating myself” because of the dedication and fastidiousness I give to my vocation.  They tell me that I should be giving half of my energy and focus to AA in order to be stable in my recovery.  That I should siphon time from my studies and my nephew to invent a God that works for me and answer 3am phone calls from court-ordered meeting attendants who, by the way, aren’t calling so I’ll stop them from drinking—they’re calling to make sure that my lifestyle is still less desirable than malt liquor from a gas station (It is. No need to call and check). I have a nasty premonition that some drunk will go on an all-night bender, take a quick storm drain nap, start again when the liquor store opens at 9am, wander into a quiet neighborhood, inevitably get naked, climb over a fence and fall genitals-first into a child’s backyard birthday party.  When they plead guilty to charges of public intoxication, indecent exposure, and endangering a minor, the judge will ask, “Why?  Why did this happen?”  The answer will be: “Because.  My sponsor, Kara Elyse Werts McMillan Werts, wasn’t persuasive.”

Would it be nice to have taut skin and all the possibilities of life ahead of me again? Sure.  But I think of 20-year-olds in the same manner that I think about people who are still in active alcoholism.  They have no internal scale to properly balance the things that are important long-term, verses things that seem imperative tonight, right now, right this minute.  The opinions of others seem important.  Being present at cool places with cool people and posting it on the ‘gram is important.  That guy who won’t call you his girlfriend and only texts you at 2am asking “U up?”  Oh, yes, he is very important.

Did I mention that addiction is nuanced?  It is.  There is no cure-all, one-size-fits-all, quick fix, or easy remedies.  Its different for every person and it kills me that my morsel of sober success cannot benefit anybody but me.  Not only that, but when people ask me how I got sober, I have a concrete answer but it is not a method that I would ever endorse…

“Kara, I’m trying to get sober.  Can you tell me how you did it?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, easy—I just drank and drank and drank, ignoring every warning and blowing every chance I was given until I alienated everyone around me, destroyed all of my relationships, and cultivated a life so miserable and pathetic that drinking couldn’t even ease the pain of what I had lost and my desire for alcohol just went away.”  *This stunt was performed by a trained professional alcoholic.  DO NOT try this at home.*