Playing Hooky

Tuesday, April 8, 2015
I'm playing hooky from work today. Not because I'm hungover, for a change. You see, I'm 10 days sober today. I'm kind of celebrating. I am committing my day to my new addiction: my sobriety.

Let me give you a brief background; more to be expelled in future postings, I'm sure. I'm a 34 year old wife and mother of 3. I work full time at a university, my husband owns his own business. I'm smart, attractive, generally healthy...but I have what I like to call "an addictive personality".

I recall several years ago, I was living alone as a single mother, about 23-24 years old. I had been visiting my dentist regularly (after not visiting for a while) and was having some significant work done. I'm a self-proclaimed "woosie" so she prescribed me Vicodin, often. I found the Vicodin didn't work well for removing the pain of my dental work, but it did have this wonderful side effect of making me want to clean my house, and do it with fervor! I would take a couple extra on Sundays and scour the place!  Then I realized how much it helped lessen my anxiety...in social situations...in non-social situations...in every situation. I began hoarding them, and hiding them, then popping them like gumdrops when I needed the boost.

One day, about 9 months into this affliction, I was perusing a magazine, presumably Cosmopolitan - since that taught me everything I needed to know - I read an article about this very thing: young mothers, young single mothers even, were turning to narcotics, alcohol and even the big guns: tranquilizers or crystal meth, to get them through the daily grind of motherhood, wife-hood, and mundane chores. A personal recount of one single mothers addiction to Vicodin spoke to me - it was me, and I knew something had to give. How can I raise my daughter to be a strong, independent, successful woman, when I cant cope myself? I was addicted. That part was easy. Quitting? not so much.

More recently, and certainly less trivial, I can recall little things, like trying Vanilla Chai tea for the first time: it was delicious! I drank it obsessively every day for months. We joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) so we could try cooking with vegetables we hadn't tried before. I tried beets. they were amazing. I ate them every day for an entire summer. My poop was purple!

As a young girl, as early as fourth grade, I can remember being obsessed with a boy, Tom. I chased him around the playground, I rode my bike miles to his house in hopes of catching a glimpse, I took pictures of him playing baseball on my 10mm camera with a Minnie Mouse insignia, and plastered them to the walls of my bedroom. I was in love with him. He barely knew I existed.

Over the next 8 years of school I did this often - obsessed over boys. I wasn't the prettiest, or very popular, but I was funny, and I could "hang" with the guys. And if they didn't want me around, I would make them want me around. A blow job, a handjob, Id let them feel me up behind the shed in the parking lot of the high school. Id sneak into the woods, into the back of friends vans and fool around during football games. Id conveniently "show up" at places where they hung out, and put on a show. (god, I feel sick thinking about this, and the fact that I'm now raising two girls of my own)

My parents smoked like chimneys when I was growing up. The baby of the family, "the forgottten one", the one they hardly had energy to pay attention to after raising 2 other girls nearly to adulthood, I wanted to try everything, and I pretty much had carte blanche to do so. I stole half smoked cigarettes from ashtrays and smoked them, hanging out the window of my second floor bedroom. Then I got brave and stole a whole one here and there. I started smoking with my friends, even though they didn't, I was clearly the cool one. Twenty-two years later, I'm still a smoker. Hey, I gotta have at least one vice, right?

But it hasn't been just one vice, ever, has it. I've always had a little bit of something I was "addicted" to. Barbiturates, boys, beets, butts...booze.

I could never consider myself an alcoholic - the "A-word". Even now, somewhat clear minded I look back and never really thought of my drinking as "problem drinking", although I can certainly remember many more than one shameful moment growing up. And many, many more which I cant remember, I'm sure. Its the more recent stuff that I can and cannot remember which makes me cringe with guilt and disgust, and shame. (That word, shame, its so painful, yet so accurate)

Anyway, Im not delving into each story now. Im not sure I can even tell you what specifically made me stop. None of these stories are a one-off, easily shared in a few sentences or paragraphs. They each have an emotion surrounding them, usually not the same, but the all end the same: guilt and shame.

What I DO want to share is today, day 10 without alcohol, I feel NO guilt, no SHAME. Not for today. Not sure I can even say I regret what I've been through to get here, because, in fact, I got here. I am here. And today I'm enjoying it, I'm celebrating it. Remembering today, yesterday, and the last 10 days. Not hurting my friends and family, myself. Going to meetings (my medicine), talking about it, sharing my experiences, enjoying the feeling today.

Thanks for letting me share it with you...

"I have the only illness which tries to convince me that I don't have an illness"
~AA Member