I was 37 when I suddenly realized I’d given up on all my dreams. I guess I thought they’d all eventually show up on cue, like they were just hiding behind some game-show curtain. They were owed to me. There was a great screenplay or novel inside me, just waiting for the right moment to tumble out and deliver me to a better life. What I didn’t know was that twenty years of drinking had distanced me so far from reality that I might as well have been a character in one of the books I hadn’t written yet.
I couldn’t imagine a life without drinking. It’s part of my DNA—figuratively and literally. Alcoholism knots through my family, both sides, in hints and flourishes. I never once volunteered to be a designated driver, anywhere. I wasn’t the guy you went to when you needed sober advice. I wasn’t reliable with truths or trusts, I forgot important events, I made grand gestures and empty promises and, when it was all said and done, I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. I wasn’t a bad person—I was just bad at being a person.
Someone once told me that drinking comes in three stages: fun, fun with problems and problems. I don’t remember any pivots between these stages, though there were enough signs along the way. A broken engagement, a DUI, an abandoned Ph.D., people constantly waving at me in the proverbial rearview mirror. I wonder how many details went unnoticed and what experiences I’ve had in life that I’ll never recall. Somewhere along the way, I got married and had two sons. I also managed to quickly climb the ranks at a corporate job, but not without battling the daily headwind of a hangover. I vividly remember those mornings: electricity in my brain, shaky hands, exhaustion burning behind my eyeballs.
Early on, my wife was working nights at the hospital, so I could easily put away a bottle or two of wine. Later, with kids, I was tugging on pints of cheap vodka and cranking the baby monitor up to its loudest volume, in case I passed out. Either way, I didn’t have any real consequences beyond maybe waking up to discover inappropriately flirty Facebook conversations I’d have to delete, or stuff I ordered from Amazon in a blackout.
Then the consequences came. One day, I quit my job. Sadly, I don’t even remember why. I wasn’t really concerned if I had another one lined up. I simply didn’t care. I really wanted to stick it to the company. After all, things always worked out for me. I figured I could cruise Indeed.com and something would turn up. One afternoon, I woke to discover eight missed calls and messages from my wife. I’d forgotten to pick up my oldest son from kindergarten. A few days later, my youngest’s daycare pulled my wife aside and said that all the teachers had smelled alcohol on my breath during morning drop-offs and evening pick-ups. By this point, she was finding bottles of wine and vodka hidden around the house like she was living in the world’s worst advent calendar.
I first tried to get sober around Halloween in 2013. I tried on my own but the nausea and anxiety were too much. I’d hear voices in my sleep, toss and turn and my heart would race. Maybe this was a sign that I shouldn’t stop, I rationalized. Besides, the holidays were coming up and drinking was how I got through those. But I’d made too many public missteps, so I checked myself into one of the few rehabs that our insurance would cover.
I was terrified of treatment. I didn’t understand the rhythms and routines. And yet, there I was. I remember the immediate reek of Clorox and threadbare furniture. I sullenly answered questions, peed on strips of paper, had blood drawn and pushed away a plate of food. When I returned to the intake room, a man wearing rubber gloves had removed all of my unfolded clothes from my bag and was gingerly re-folding them, looking for contraband that wasn’t there. I remember suddenly flushing with embarrassment, thinking, “I can’t even fold my clothes right.” I broke down, sobbing.
The clinic wasn’t the nicest. It was cramped and filled with dead-eyed zombies padding around the place in flip-flops and bathrobes. Middle-aged men, teenaged girls, grandmothers with thousand-yard stares. There was the occasional hello but mostly, everyone was content to be disconnected. I went through the motions. I went to group, I listened, I spoke when asked. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Treatment had the opposite effect on college-educated, well-read, corporate-mannered me. I wasn’t as bad as these people, I was smarter than them. When I got out, I’d moderate my drinking. I’d drink three-quarters of a glass of red wine. I’d find a job. Everything would go back to normal. The world outside rehab was suddenly magical and full of possibility.
Two weeks later, I was chugging a wide-mouthed can of Miller Light in a parking lot. I hadn’t gotten a job I’d interviewed for, so I felt entitled to the beer. It went down so fast and so cold that my chest was on fire. For a few seconds I was actually repulsed by the beer, but I could feel myself approaching cruising altitude. This was my normal. Since everyone knew I’d gone to rehab, I kept lying and hiding my drinking even better than before. Yes, I’m sober. Yes, I’m thankful to be present for once. Yes, I’m getting my shit together. Nothing could have been further from the truth. There’s nothing quite as soul-shattering and empty as lying about something like that. I had to drink even more to answer the questions from family members about the experience of rehab, and from former drinking buddies who wanted to know the “secret” to getting sober.
Eventually, it got difficult to remember which lies I’d told, harder to remember where I’d hidden bottles, and downright impossible to pretend I was sober. I gave up. I went to an AA meeting on a Monday night, mainly to keep my family off my back and make a real show of trying. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to say I was an alcoholic. I put a few days together, but I couldn’t sleep and I had zero appetite. I was angry. But I went to more meetings and sat back in the outer circle of chairs I’d later learn is nicknamed the “half-measures row.” Being close to the door gave me peace of mind. I used to find comfort in escapes. I’d always needed the ability to cut loose at a moment’s notice, never to look back. James Bond ejector seats, escape hatches, kill switches.
I started to learn how the meetings worked—the routine, the lingo, the coffee. I practiced how to make just enough eye contact to be friendly and human but not so much to be too eager or interested. I sure as hell wasn’t going to make friends. But I listened. Sure, I said a few words here and there just to prove I wasn’t a cardboard cutout. In those first few weeks, though, I mostly kept quiet. Every sober thought came to me like a Polaroid fading into view. I’d gotten sober right after New Year’s, so I felt exactly like Ohio in winter: gray, snowy, wide open. I didn’t identify with people; I identified with long country roads scorched with salt. And while sobriety was so new as to be cloudy and exhilarating at the same time, I sensed something very familiar about it all. I’d felt this before.
One night, the suggested discussion topic was how to remain sober while dealing with a personal loss. Something about grief, death and dying. I hadn’t really opened up too much at this point, but when it came time for me to say something, the words torrented out. “I don’t know about anyone else in early sobriety,” I said, “but right now, I feel like I’m in mourning.” With that, I got my very first round of solemn nods and murmured agreement. I’d connected. I even got a sponsor out of the comment, apparently having reminded him of a feeling he’d long since forgotten.
There is often concern about losing friends when you quit drinking. But in early sobriety, it’s like your best friend has just died. There’s no other way to look at it. There’s nothing cute about the analogy, either. You’re processing a very real death. When you realize that the thing you’d depended on through so much—wedding receptions, work mixers or (in my case) birthday parties for your kids—is lost and gone forever, you have nowhere to go. So there I was, black-armbanding my way through those first few weeks, feeling twinges and stabs and pangs whenever I was reminded that drinking wasn’t an option for me. It was exactly like going to call a loved one, only to remember they aren’t there. I had never felt so lonely.
I kept going back to the Monday night meeting. It’s my home group now. I also listened to podcasts. And when I say I “listened,” I mean I obsessed over them. I listened—really listened—to how people spoke to one another and I appreciated the delicate nature of conversations. I’d never noticed it before. I got sober by listening to other people. End of story. I didn’t get sober by thinking of my family or even myself. Surrounding myself with people who understood what it means to have robbed yourself of choices in life was huge. Until getting sober, my life was a series of sad shortcuts. Now I was hearing how other people drew their lives in deliberate lines and I wanted to see what doing the right thing was like.
Sometimes I look back on the time I’ve put together with mild wonder, but I know that it can all go away pretty quickly. I still miss my old friend and feel shame when thinking of how good a beer sounds on a hot day. Sometimes I have drinking dreams. Mostly, I live my life knowing that getting sober is about rigorous honesty. I’m not shouting from every treetop about my sobriety but I am telling the people who matter, because that keeps me accountable. The biggest reason I was afraid of getting sober was losing my identity. In recovery, I discovered I never had one to begin with.
Now I do.
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