What My Recovery Means to Me

Today marks 13 years since I smoked the last of my weed (July 1st, 2010) and decided to try spending 90 days entirely sober (July 2nd, 2010). As it turned out, being completely substance-free suited me really, really well – eventually. 

When I got sober, I didn’t really think I had a problem with alcohol. I didn’t know what alcoholism was and certainly didn’t think it applied to me. I just knew that I didn’t like what happened when I was drinking, or who I became, or how I sometimes would wake up and have to ask other people what had happened. But I did know that weed had stopped working for me – stopped “fixing” the undiagnosed anxiety and ADHD I’d been using it to compensate for. And trying to just smoke weed and not drink hadn’t been working either.

An uptight, type A, people-pleasing perfectionist who was constantly on edge about everything all the time, I’d found weed when I was 18 and starting college. It made everything so much less stressful. I’d learned in high school that I had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol but that it left me feeling out of control. So, for many years, I stuck to weed instead. But growing up in Vegas had its effects on me, and the binge drinking picked up after I turned twenty-one. 

There were a lot of blackouts, a lot of stupid choices, a lot of damaged relationships and friendships that didn’t survive my drinking years. And I thought most of that was just Vegas. I didn’t know what normal drinking looked like. Or what actual friendships looked like. Or how to feel okay in my own skin.

Then, in 2010, three years into my graduate studies in Austin, Texas, my inner emotional landscape finally got so unbearable that I realized something needed to change. There was a traumatic break up that helped me see that drinking just made me cry more. There were a few months of noticing how social situations made me deeply uncomfortable, and the only way I knew how to cope was to reach for another glass of wine. There was a rather miraculous series of events that led me to a twelve-step recovery meeting at midnight in the middle of the woods outside a folk music festival in the Texas hill country. And then there was a dear friend’s wedding – where, thankfully, nothing horrible happened. But I did keep telling the bartender that this one would be my last drink and then going back for another, and another. Then I got in my car and drove, and only by the grace of the universe managed to make it where I was going without killing myself or others.

My last drunk was that wedding. And a little over a week later, I smoked the last weed of (hopefully) my life and tagged along to a twelve-step meeting with a friend of a friend who was in recovery. And I decided to really give it a try for ninety days – because that felt manageable. Forever seemed overwhelming and soul-crushing, but I could handle ninety days without weed or alcohol.

Thirteen years later, I feel unrecognizable from the person I was at that time. And I also can’t fucking believe it’s really been that long.

Recovery Makes My Life Better

When I started going to meetings, my life got better immediately. If it hadn’t, I don’t know that I would have stuck with it. To be clear, I was still a stressed out, overwhelmed, crying, emotional wreck for most of my first year! But I had a place to take all of that and people who understood and were rooting for me – and it made it easier to cope with the daily challenge of just being a wounded human in an overwhelming world.

Sobriety in a world designed to get people wasted is still really fucking hard sometimes. But it’s gotten easier. And I couldn’t have done it without a lot of support, without a sober community to lean on, and without a set of instructions for how to show up for myself and be a better human in the world.

I work a program of recovery, and I sometimes wish it didn’t feel like so much work. In the last thirteen years, my level of engagement with my recovery has waxed and waned. I’ve sometimes felt incredibly connected and often felt isolated and alone. But I haven’t gone more than three weeks without hitting a meeting, and frankly that’s probably the only reason I haven’t picked up. 

I still miss smoking weed. Still miss the way it let me set down all the things that felt overwhelming or stressful or too fucking hard to cope with. But I also know that those things were always still there waiting for me when the high wore off, and usually checking out for however long just made those things even worse.

I generally don’t miss drinking, except on days or under circumstances when I’m really depleted. Or, when I’m around other people who can drink normally and have a good time without blacking out or going too far. But that voice in my head usually isn’t very loud, and I’m grateful for that.

Life Is Still Hard – Even in Recovery

Perhaps the biggest takeaway I have to reflect on today is how hard life is – no matter what our circumstances. There’s always something to worry or stress about. Always too much to get done and not enough time or money. Always something I want that I don’t yet have. Always people who don’t act right and things I wish were different. But recovery makes all of that bearable, and even, usually, not all that bad. 

You’ll hear people in the rooms say that their worst day sober is better than their best day drunk, and most of the time that feels true for me, too. I did have some really fun times when I was still drinking, and I’ve had some pretty fucking bad days since I sobered up. But if I take the long view, the sort of stock-market/investment style view of things – I’ve been on an upward trajectory for 13 years now. Which is a big shift from the flatlined, if not downward trajectory my life was on before I sobered up.

Anniversaries are opportunities for reflection. For me, that often comes with a lot of ambiguous grief. Sorrow for the time lost, for the sad and deeply insecure person who I once was. Nostalgia for the early years of my recovery, the people that helped me stick with it, and the community I got to be a part of. 

Nowadays I have this blog that I care deeply about, the self assurance to write in my own voice, and the willingness to write more openly about the shit that I struggle with – and that feels really fucking good. And as I contemplated all of this during my 10 mile run yesterday (something I never imagined possible, let alone thought I would ever even want to do), I realized there was a lot I wanted to say here, to share with whoever might benefit from hearing what it’s like to celebrate thirteen years of sober living.

So, here’s what recovery means to me today – who and what it has helped me become.

I Actively Practice Self-Awareness, Self-Compassion, and Self-Care

This phrasing – self-awareness, self-compassion, self-care – is something I just picked up recently in my coaching training. But it describes a cycle that recovery has allowed me to offer myself. The more I’ve gotten to know and see myself, the more I’ve been able to offer myself compassion and gentleness, which has then allowed me to take better care of myself – because I have a better understanding of what I actually need. One thing leads to another, and the result is a much deeper capacity to cope with, well, everything.

I’ve Quit Going to Home Depot Looking for Milk

It took a long time, but somewhere in the last thirteen years, I finally learned that people are all different. Some people are really good at problem solving. Some people are good at laughter and lightness. Some people are good at coming through in a pinch. Some are good at financial advice, while others are great at interpersonal relationships. Some people can hold space for crying. Some people offer wisdom and hope during difficult times. But nobody’s good at all of that shit, and expecting them to be what I want just because I feel like they should be only leads to a lot of disappointment. Some people are Home Depot and some are the grocery store, and it’s my job to head to the right store based on what I need at the time.

I Can Usually Recognize that It’s Not About Me

This will be a whole post of its own at some point, but if I could gift everyone out there with one concept to fully internalize it’s that whatever other people are doing (or not doing), it’s probably not about you. People aren’t doing things AT me. They aren’t unable to show up in the ways I want them to because of me. And when I don’t get a job or a relationship ends or people aren’t able to give me what I need – it’s not really about me. It’s about alignment and timing and whatever is going on in their world (internal or external). The more I can embrace that concept (which I’m able to do 83% of the time these days), the more I’m able to find peace and serenity on a daily basis.

I Trust that the Universe Isn’t Fucking with Me

Before recovery, I didn’t have any sort of connection with Source/the universe/something greater/a higher power/god. I felt deeply alone in the vastness of everything and was pretty convinced that nothing was ever going to work out unless I made it happen. All of which felt pretty shitty. These days, I fundamentally believe that the universe has my back. Even when things don’t work out the way I want, even when I’m hurt and disappointed and confused, I trust that I’ll find my way forward and come out better on the other side. I trust that all of the hard shit I have to go through makes me better equipped to help others going through tough shit, too. I trust that I’m on a path of growth and healing, always taking steps that move me further away from fear and closer and closer to love.

I Genuinely Like Who I Am

It’s hard to put these things in any kind of order, but this is probably the most important gift sobriety has given me. It unfolded slowly, but I can look myself in the mirror today and genuinely like the person staring back at me (her body included). With the help of twelve-step recovery, a lot of therapy, and a lot of work on my part, I’ve finally let go of the self-loathing that drove me to drink and smoke weed in the first place. There are still aspects of being me that I struggle with, still things I wish I could change, but I’ve finally become my own friend and advocate. I finally feel worthy of love and care and belonging in ways that felt completely beyond comprehension for the first several decades of my life.

Progress Not Perfection

All of that being said, I still just have today. And I still have a long way to go. I’m continuing to come to terms with the idea that there’s never going to be an arrival; when it comes to my own evolution, I’m never going to look around and say, “ahhhhh. I’ve done it.”

I’m vastly more patient than I used to be, but shit still doesn’t happen on my timeline.

I’m much better with practicing healthy boundaries, but they’re still really hard sometimes. 

I’m a lot more willing to slow down and take care of myself, but I still agonize about canceling plans and letting people down.

I’ve learned to accept people for who and how they are, but that’s not a skill I can always access. I still wish people were able to show up in the ways that matter to me even then I know they just don’t have the capacity.

I have a lot more access to hope than ever before, but I still get depressed and frustrated and sometimes want to just throw in the towel on everything. (I just don’t act impulsively on those thoughts anymore – I’m more prone to eating my feelings than burning my life down).

It’s not as hard as it used to be to stay sober, but I’m not immune to the siren call of checking the fuck out. I still think about drinking sometimes. Not often, but that makes it all the more scary and destabilizing when it does come up. 

That’s why I keep coming back to the rooms. Why I keep my service commitments and maintain relationships with other sober people. While today might mark 4,748 days of sobriety, it’s important for me to stay present with the reality that all I have is today. Time adds up, but it’s not a guarantee of anything more than today. 

So, I’m really fucking grateful for today. And for all the amazing, courageous, kind, vulnerable, messy, supportive people who helped me get to today. More than anything, recovery means asking for an accepting help, in setting aside the idea that I can or should do any of this shit alone.