How I Got Sober: Claire
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How I Got Sober: Claire

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how-i-got-sober-claire-1People get sober in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they just quit on their own. Sometimes they go to rehab. They show up in 12-step rooms, ashrams, churches and their parents’ basements. There is no one right way—something we’ve aimed to show in our collection of How I Got Sober stories. This is a special addition featuring regular AfterParty contributor, Claire:

Click here to read all our How I Got Sober stories. Do you want to be featured in How I Got Sober? Email us for details.

What is your sobriety date?

July 6, 2007

Where did you get sober?

Portland, Oregon

When did you start drinking?

I don’t remember the first time I drank. It was probably someone’s wine at dinner, or an accidental swig of an unattended gin and tonic. I do remember the first time I set out to deliberately get drunk, though.

I was painfully unpopular in high school. It was bad. I was bullied every day. It was the 90s, and the makeover rom-com was big—think Clueless, She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You. I think everyone, including me, expected me to step out of my nerdy overalls and go all Sarah Michelle Gellar. Instead, I was nominated for Homecoming Queen as a joke. So it was a big deal when I was invited to a party over the Thanksgiving weekend at the home of a popular girl. There was a clique of kids who were in all the same classes as me, who surrounded me at all times, but made it clear that I was super uncool, not wanted, persona non grata. I went to this party literally shaking because I was so nervous.

And, because it was high school, there was cheap beer and generic label vodka in a plastic bottle with a handle, and jocks, and way too many people who’d been mean to me. I couldn’t handle it. I started with one beer, just to relax and at least try to look the part of someone who belonged. But I didn’t. I couldn’t even fake being normal. I humiliated myself in the first hour and then got down to the serious business of getting hammered.

Six beers and eight shots of vodka later, my hostess found me in the bathroom. Vomit in my hair, the whole nine yards. I woke up in her little sister’s bed, surrounded by pink pillows and stuffed toy ponies. I’d never had a hangover before and assumed I was dying. Everyone else had gone home; I helped clean up and ditch the empty cans at the rec center recycling center. Glamorous, huh?

What killed me was the shame of knowing that, drunk or sober, I wasn’t welcome. I was an embarrassment to myself and others. However, I did discover the alcoholic’s magic power to make the consequences disappear: all I had to do was shrug and say, “I was drunk.”

How would you describe your life before you quit drinking?

It was way too exciting, considering that nothing was going on. Drinking is boring; drunks are boring. I was disenchanted about the whole thing from a young age—tres dull, darling. However, that didn’t stop me from drinking my head off. Pills, powders, all of it. Aside from the physical dependency, I think part of me just wanted to disappear, and alcohol and drugs made that possible. I was numb a lot of the time.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of being unessential.

Later, I heard someone describe drinking as “suicide on the installment plan” and that really resonated with me. I was on the fence about whether I wanted to live or die—but I certainly wanted to keep drinking until I made a decision. I wanted to kill myself but I didn’t want to do it all at once. Besides, I was sure that nobody would miss me. How self pitying is that?

When I got sober, my life started to get big. And shiny. I got a sense of hope that I hadn’t experienced since I was very young—the feeling of believing that your dreams are possible, that you can do anything and that there are no limits to what you’re capable of.

I realize that’s all kind of abstract. Did I mention that my ability to think abstractly came back, too?

What was your childhood like? Teenage years?

That’s between me and my therapist.

When did you first think you might have a problem?

I didn’t think I had a problem until after I had stopped, honestly. I was newly pregnant and doing the intake exam at my doctor’s office. The midwife asked all the usual questions: Have you ever been sexually assaulted? How many times? Have you ever broken a bone? Have you ever used illegal drugs?

It was my first time being completely honest with a medical professional. She was shocked. Then she said, “Why don’t you go home and make a list of every bad thing that’s ever happened to you, and put a check mark next to it if alcohol or drugs were involved.” Every entry had a check mark, of course. That’s the first time I saw the correlation, and I felt a deep fear for myself and my baby.

When I told my midwife, she said that knowing I had a problem meant that I could find a solution. She also told me to eat more avocados, so I am pretty sure she was an angel.

How did you rationalize your drinking?

Nobody knew. Well, the people who noticed didn’t care, which is kind of the same thing. I was very careful about drinking the way I wanted to, and I set up my life so that I was either drinking alone or drinking with strangers. For the record, these are both surefire methods for getting into serious trouble.

As the bad experiences piled up, I was able to rationalize using those: I wouldn’t drink if I hadn’t been raped; I wouldn’t drink if my relationship wasn’t abusive; I wouldn’t drink if I wasn’t scared all the time. All that stuff. It was a compound disorder for me, because every negative experience was “proof” that I needed to drink, even as my drinking set me up for more and more trouble. I felt messy and vile, and kept people away.

If I felt troubled by my drinking—and I’m not colorblind, I saw the red flags—I just shrugged. After all, I was a writer, and writers drank. They were lonely and angsty. As far as I was concerned, I was playing my part. It wasn’t my fault that everything went to shit as soon as I picked up a drink! I was drunk at the time!

What do you consider your bottom?

My drinking and drug use took me to the bottom very quickly. I scraped along for at least five years—working menial jobs, lying to everyone, going into debt, fucking around. I got comfortable at the bottom.

I didn’t seek help until after I’d stopped drinking. Over two years after I took my last drink, I was living in a beautiful home in a nice neighborhood, a spoiled stay-at-home mom with nothing to do except cook vegan meals, do yoga and change my baby’s organic cotton diapers. I was so fucking lonely, and of course the urge to drink returned. When I felt the impulse again, I picked up the phone and called my one close girlfriend. She put me on the line with her partner, who’d been sober for eight years, and he helped me find my first AA meeting. But that took time—I tried everything else I could think of. Those two-plus years were really hard, and I’m glad I had the experience. It’s taught me not only that I can tolerate intense discomfort, loneliness, and unhappiness—but also that I don’t have to.

I always say that my sobriety started when I quit drinking and using; my recovery started when I got to AA.

Did you go to rehab?

Nope.

Did you go to AA?

I went to my first AA meeting in the winter of 2009. I’ve been a member ever since. I wasn’t all gung ho about it—honestly, it was a foreign country to me, with a new language and strange customs. I kept an open mind. I wasn’t there to quit drinking, since I’d already done that. I was there to learn how to never start drinking again.

Anyone who’s done the alcoholic two-step knows what it’s like to “take some time off,” whether it’s a year or a month or a day or an hour. I took time off all the time. The idea of closing the door on alcohol and drugs permanently was really scary to me. In the rooms of AA, I met people who’d successfully done this and who weren’t weird and bitter about it. They were chill. They didn’t preach to me about the virtues of the program.

I took their suggestions because I finally realized that aside from not-drinking, I knew nothing about sobriety. There had to be more, right? In AA, I found a limitless source of free, honest, caring people—and I learned how to be one of them.

Have you worked the 12 steps? What is your opinion on them?

I’ve worked the steps eight times with eight different sponsors. My opinion is that they are different every time, because I’m different every time. It’s not a prescription or a solution for my alcoholism, just like my relationship with my sponsor isn’t a marriage. The spiritual tools of AA can help anyone, in my opinion, although they certainly aren’t for everyone.

What do you hate about being an alcoholic?

If I accidentally taste alcohol—like, if someone hands me a spiked drink, or I take a bite of fruitcake that’s been soaked in rum, eww—I have an immediate physical reaction. It’s horrible. My cheeks turn red, my skin prickles and I get a nasty adrenaline rush. Once, I took an accidental sip of someone’s white wine and I broke out in hives.

Being vigilant about what I eat and drink is part of contemporary womanhood—that’s real fun, always watching to make sure nobody gives me a roofie. I don’t like having to be careful all the time, especially when I’m with friends and family who respect my recovery. I would like to be able to taste a sauce without worrying about an allergic reaction.

What do you love about being an alcoholic?

Aside from not being covered in hives? Alcoholism simplifies my life, believe it or not. I have a better understanding of myself and my behavior now than before I got sober. If I feel crazy, or impulsive, it’s probably related to my recovery. I no longer have to deal with the symptoms of active addiction and I can work on living the best life possible.

Also, some people pretend that they “don’t understand” or that “alcoholism isn’t a real disease.” It’s convenient when they say these things, because then I can be certain that they are assholes who don’t belong in my life. Thanks, alcoholism!

What are the three best tools you have acquired to stay sober and happy?

Courage, faith, and hope. They’re intertwined, in my mind. My courage was a gift from the people around me—the ones in AA who supported me, my friends and my wonderful Grammie Anne, who has always encouraged me to keep going.

My faith showed up unannounced, and I’ve fed it daily by taking care of myself and doing my best to help other people as much as possible. Being a helper has made me see how connected we are, how reliant on each other. It is humbling to me, when I see how many people have helped me on my journey—and when I reflect on how I might have helped them.

Hope, Emily Dickinson says, is a thing with feathers. I believe that as long as I have hope, the world is open to me. I’m free as a bird. Hope protects me from disappointments, pain and failure. It’s helped me see my potential. Hope was the ultimate gift of my recovery. I think it can be experienced but not described—like love.

What is the most valuable thing that has happened to you in recovery?

I’ve learned to enjoy success instead of fearing it.

If you could offer a newcomer or someone thinking about getting sober any advice, what would it be?

Being sober is not going to magically make you “good.” It will not transform you into a wholesome, pure, faultless person. For me, sobriety let me be human again. My advice is to embrace your messiness. Say what’s in your mind, be honest about your struggles and be fearless. Pretending to be perfect or, God forbid, cured, is a recipe for disaster. Let your hair down.

Click here to read all our How I Got Sober stories.

Photo provided by Claire Rudy Foster; used with permission. See Claire’s AfterParty stories here.

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About Author

AfterParty Magazine is the editorial division of RehabReviews.com. It showcases writers in recovery, some of whom choose to remain anonymous. Other stories by AfterParty Magazine are the collective effort of the AfterParty staff.