The End of Fun

Dear God,

My sponsor told me the other day that it would be good for me to journal. Honestly, I’ve never been very good at consistently journaling unless I had to do it for a class. You know how I am about getting good grades—I won’t let my distaste for journaling get in the way of my ‘A’. Well, this time no grades are involved, but my sobriety just might be, so let’s give this a shot. Maybe I’ll suck, maybe I won’t, maybe I’ll grow to like it. I’m pretty sure that you’ll like it better than the fractured prayers that come your way from me. I know, I know…every mom just wants her kids to talk to her, any way they can, for as long as they are willing. I get that. Still…good relationships depend on communication, and communication is not usually done in bullet style brief memos meant to reduce time spent reading and maximize ‘effective content’. So…

I’ve made it to 18 days sober so far.  I made it to 21 days sober a few months ago, and actually spent five months sober back in 2017. Back then no one knew that I was trying to get sober, so it was easy to start drinking again. This time I’ve gone public with family and a few friends. I’m trying to close down my escape routes. I really want to make it this time.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about how I pissed away the time that I had to drink, not appreciating how lucky I was to be able to drink all that I wanted to, especially when my husband ‘P’ wasn’t home. He used to go away for business or to go to sporting events, and some of those events are coming up again this fall. My addict wants me to believe that I have ‘screwed’ myself out of this fun now that I’m committed to sobriety, and that I didn’t truly appreciate how much ‘fun’ I was having while I was still able to drink.

I know that my addict is full of bullshit but that isn’t the point here.

I kind of got stuck on that concept of ‘fun’.  According to my addict, the weekends when P was out of town and I could drink non-stop, I was having ‘fun’…lots of it…and now that is going to be lost to sobriety.

I’m not really sure that my addict has any grasp on truth here.

Yes, I really liked drinking. I liked the taste. I liked the way it made me feel (while I was drunk). I liked the way it helped me relax.

I also like the taste of a good cup of coffee.

I like the way that dancing makes me feel.

I like the way that time with a friend or watching a cooking show helps me relax.

And you know, I never wake up in the middle of the night with crushing anxiety because I can’t remember what I did while I was drinking coffee, dancing, hanging with a friend or watching a cooking show. I never have embarrassed my husband or my daughters while drinking coffee, although I will cop to making my youngest daughter blush and roll her eyes when I dance like a ho, or making my husband shake his head at me when I’m re-watching an episode of my favorite cooking show for the, like, 40^th time.

But none of those eye-rolling, head shaking moments have ever caused my husband or my children pain, or made them afraid for me, or made them wish I would STOP.  Only alcohol has ever done anything like that.

And what is this FUN thing that my addict keeps talking about? When was drinking FUN?

I had to think a very long time about the FUN thing because as an adult, I don’t have fun as often as I would like to. I don’t play as much as I would like to, and even my hobbies involve some level of work. Dancing is actually a thing I do to exercise. So is cycling. And while I love being creative, my chosen art form has so many variables where things can go wrong that it can be frustrating at times, which is more often than I’d like to admit.

On the other hand, I remember the last concert that I went to, and how joyful I felt afterwards, especially since my husband P was with me and he had enjoyed the show as much as I did. Our shared love of music and our joy at living in a city where we can see live music led to me feeling light and airy, filled with happiness and contentment with my life. THAT was fun, actual fun—fun that did no damage and left no regrets and added to the good in my marriage.

My guess is that fun is actually supposed to be a concrete good at all times, a good where no one gets hurt or endures damage for the sake of what is supposed to be fun.

So what did I actually think was FUN about drinking?

I thought about that for a long time. What did I look forward to on those weekends when my husband was away?

I realized that it all came down to a few small things, that when examined came down to one thing only:

FREEDOM.

When P was gone, I could start drinking at 10am if I wanted to without fear of being caught or being judged. I was FREE to do what I wanted to do.

When P was gone, I could drink as much as I wanted to, nap when I became too drunk, skip meals because I wasn’t hungry with a stomach full of alcohol. I was FREE to be drunk.

When P was gone, it didn’t matter if I snored because I went to bed drunk; no one was there to be disturbed. I was FREE to avoid how my drunkness impacted others.

When P was gone, I could hide the amount of my consumption and then throw the empties away in public dumpsters so that no one would ever know just how much I was drinking. I was FREE from shame from others.

You know what else I was FREE of?

• Memories of what I did on those weekends, because at some point I blacked out.

• Time to do activities that I wanted to do because I was too busy drinking and reducing my ‘effective’ time, which was limited by how drunk I was. (After enough drinks you can’t drive, can’t be truly creative, etc.)

• Lack of self-loathing, because the more I drank, the more I hated myself.

• Health, because drinking always, always, always reduces the overall quality of your health, even if you don’t end up having truly negative consequences like liver failure. Drinking heavily reduced my kidney function, and I am looking forward to finding out if my kidney function improves with long-term sobriety.

So my addict says that drinking when P was gone was FUN because I got to feel FREE of negative consequences, judgement, and shame…none of which would have occured if I wasn’t drinking at all.

That’s right: I can be free of negative consequences, judgement, and shame if don’t drink.

The same things my lost weekends of drinking brought me are also available in equal quantities in sobriety, and I don’t even have to wait for P to be gone for me to have those things, and as a side benefit, I get to keep my memories of the weekend, my time to be productive and creative, and to keep my self-esteem and ditch the self-loathing.  Oh…and my body is loving me for choosing sobriety as well.

It turns out that my addict is a fucking liar who doesn’t care what she destroys of my life, my marriage, my family, and even me, as long as she gets to keep drinking.

I hate that lying bitch.  I’m sorry to say that God, because I know that you love her just as much as you love me. I know that you never judged her for being a drunken, fucked up mess. I know that you don’t even judge me for hating her and everything she did to me, to my husband, and to my daughters.

In the end, though, I’d still like to keep her out of my life. I’d like to keep my life for me, and leave my addict out in the cold. Help me to let her on board just enough to be able to remember her story so that I can share it with others and help them get sober.  Never let me forget that she is always waiting for me to let my guard down so that she can hijack my life (she doesn’t have her own life…her life is alcohol.)

And God, please…help me remember that you and everyone in AA is right there if I need them, right there for me when I suddenly feel like alcohol is the best answer and the route to fun and relaxation. Help me reach out to You and to the fellowship, because waking up in the morning and remembering that I’m still sober and that I like myself feels very nice.

It feels very nice indeed.