I am unabashedly what you would call a good, old-fashioned addict. I’m not saying I take a horse-drawn carriage to my drug dealer’s house. No, I mean I like for drugs, alcohol, orgasms, chocolate, shopping and what-have-you to work quickly and to provide the necessary high that I’m seeking at any given time. Therefore, I’ve always wanted recovery to work the same way.
I honestly thought back in 2009 that I’d be able to stop using and drinking, pop into a few meetings, maybe pick up a hot rich boyfriend while I’m there and my life would be instantly better. Sadly, I soon discovered that recovery is not an episode of What Not to Wear and the whole process of feeling better and having my life come together would take a long ass time. Almost eight years later, something else shocking has come up: I still think about using and drinking.
“Billboard Thoughts”—that’s what I call them. Glossy, fabulous snapshots of drinking wine or sipping margaritas. There’s usually a patio involved somewhere in these musings as well as a pair of expensive sunglasses. And hey, why not throw in some shirtless male models if we’re going for the full fantasy here? While we’re at it, place a mirror filled with perfectly cut lines of cocaine in the shot? I mean, I know they don’t have billboards for cocaine, but if they ever did I should be on that creative team.
These snapshots of drinking and using always look perfect, attainable and like something I could have. Never mind the fact that my drinking was never really like that. When I’m having Billboard Thoughts it’s not about what actually was, it’s about what could possibly be. Sure, maybe my sloppy tragic drinking and drug using weren’t suited for a Lifetime movie, but maybe they could be? Maybe I could someday be one of those well-dressed, perfectly lit people sipping tequila and laughing heartily with their heads thrown back. Maybe it would be different this time.
Well, once my mind goes there, I know I’m officially in Crazy Town because I have two decades of “research” proving that no, you big dum-dum, it will not be different. Snapping out of these Billboard Thoughts happens pretty quickly once I remember that my addiction was never a pretty picture cooked up on Madison Avenue.
The other times I think about drinking and using typically come up in a FOMO kind of way. Most recently, it happened when I read posts from friends who went out for drinks after the election. I instantly thought, “Hell yeah! I wanna do that!” Don’t I deserve a cocktail or 40 after the most annoying and depressing election cycle ever? It’ll happen when I’ve had a stressful day too. I secretly want to be that guy after work who loosens up his tie (even though I don’t wear a tie to work), sits down in a leather covered booth and sips bourbon (even though I always hated bourbon). Wouldn’t that be divine?
So much of my drinking and using always revolved around wanting to belong, to be a part of—to be like normal people. I remember whining to my first sponsor after jealously staring at Facebook photos of friends drinking mojitos, “I just feel like everybody is having more fun than I am!” To which he replied, “That’s because they are. You’re getting sober and they aren’t.” His point was, their version of fun was no longer on the menu for me. Today, my FOMO evaporates once I actually hang out with people who are drinking. Bless their hearts, but they drive me up the wall with their boozy breath, close talking and constant story repeating. My last time with heavy drinkers over the holidays cemented that I wasn’t missing anything, and ultimately bought me a few more days clean and sober.
More often than not, what I think about using these days is cigarettes. A part of me will always be a chain smoking, dressed in black, listening to Love and Rockets teenager. I stopped smoking six years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking about smoking. I’ll see coworkers on smoke breaks or sober folks outside of meetings—all of them laughing, chatting and smoking their faces off. I see them and think, “Oh yeah. I should go do that! That looks fantastic.” Again, it always goes back to wanting to be a part of the cool kids. I’ve come to just accept the reality that I’ll probably want to be one of the cool kids even at a retirement home in my golden years.
I had the same thought over the summer when I watched an attractive guy with a cute dog walk down my block with a cigarette in his hand. I considered bumming a cigarette from him, maybe even chatting with him and petting his dog. Then I remembered that I am in fact happily married and that this guy with the dog wouldn’t have the number of cigarettes required to make me “happy.” See, I was never a one cigarette, one drink and one bump kind of fellow. I want them all and I want them now.
A dear friend of mine with two years clean recently shared that she had been having really intense thoughts of drinking, and it scared the heck out of her. She felt like she did all of the right things to stay sober—went to meetings, worked the 12 steps, helped other alcoholics and she was still thinking about drinking. She shared this with me and then shared it at a meeting. I gently pointed out to her that despite these thoughts—which are undoubtedly disturbing, especially in early sobriety—she has actually changed and gotten better. After all, wouldn’t the old versions of our addict selves have these thoughts of using, then not talk about them and just act upon them instead? Wouldn’t we just use whenever we thought about it and stay stuck in the repetitive hell that is addiction? I also pointed out to my friend that I had the same thoughts and while they weren’t cute, they didn’t kill me and I didn’t have to act on them. And her sharing about it actually helped me and probably helped other people too.
My passing thoughts aside, none of this is to say I spend my sobriety in constant fear that I’ll drink again. Quite the contrary, actually. The obsession to drink and use drugs has vanished and I happily live my boring, beautiful little life without much disturbance. But claiming I’ve never once thought about drinking or using drugs since I got sober? That would be a straight-up lie. Like, hello. I am an addict, and the truth is I’m going to think about it—probably for the rest of my life. That’s sort of what we do. But today, they’re just thoughts, temporary blips on the recovery radar and ones that feel less scary when I open my mouth and talk about them with someone who gets it.
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