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Shame.

The large rubbery bubble that builds in my lower abdomen and rises to the bottom of my diaphragm.

When it visits, it begins small – if I can feel it at all, I know it’s too late.

If I don’t distract my mind or my physical presence it will consume me entirely.

When that happens, the bubble grows and begins to rise into the back of my throat until my arms feel nauseated.

When that happens, I don’t know how to make it stop until it naturally dissipates, but it will freeze me.

When that happens, it’s fetal position and close my eyes until it’s over.

When that happens it is gasoline for the hate I feel because I am wrong.

I am wrong.

I don’t want it to be real.

It isn’t real.

Having a word to associate with this feeing is new. I only discovered what this feeling was after getting sober and learning my feelings. Shame.

You know how you speak your thoughts in your mind and those are the ones you can somewhat control? I’ve always felt two channels of thinking within my mind (as I’m sure most humans have). One is not conscious, but rather just how you are guided or driven to behave or feel. The other is more of a conversational mind flow. I have always felt as though I were having a conversation with another person in my mind and this was how I controlled my subconscious thoughts. Jiminy Cricket really resonated with me. I always assumed it was my conscience I was mentally speaking to. Not like a voice, per se, but more a way for me to work out what I was dealing with at any moment in conversation form.

I did not ever allow these thoughts I knew were percolating below to come to fruition within my conscious thoughts. If they surfaced I bashed them away with the force of a tsunami wave – leave me now this isn’t real I am normal. I’m not that way. Other people are that way, and that is okay, but I am not that way.

If I did not actively participate in the thoughts, consciously, then they weren’t real.

It isn’t real.

My actions and biological urges proved otherwise. I was and am consistently drawn to the same desires. I have always known the truth, but I have never allowed myself to consciously reveal that truth to myself. I don’t know if that makes sense to someone who has not experienced a similar internal conflict.

Now that I have allowed myself to embrace this truth, why do I feel the need to share? Why is it a big deal? (It shouldn’t be)

Because I’m pissed. I am mad as hell.

I have spent my life feeling inherently wrong, feeling hatred toward myself, feeling broken, feeling like a pervert, feeling like I can never reveal my true self to anyone, including myself. I have been living uncomfortable in my own skin. I have spent so much time trying to prove to myself that men want to be with me because if they don’t it will mean it’s true. I have put myself in unhealthy situations and I have unintentionally used others in order to feed a myth I was taught to accept as truth by society. I have misunderstood my own sexuality because I have been bombarded with arbitrary information about what sexuality is supposed to look like for men and women alike. I have harbored biphobia for so long that even when I finally allowed the subconscious thoughts to enter my conscious thoughts two years ago preceding a panic attack, I still brushed it off as though I was broken, told two people and continued the familiar repression until recently.

I am bisexual. I have always been. I have always been afraid of it. I have always been afraid of myself.

I don’t think I need to tell you why I felt this way, I think you already know. Aside from the fact that any non-traditional sexual preference is viewed as something which is less than, regarding bisexuality there are specific stereotypes.

Why does it matter that I share this information publicly with friends, family members, clients and strangers? Because I am privileged, safe and I am certain (generally speaking) people will applaud me for “being brave” or welcome me with a “who cares?!” but I still feel shame.

Imagine those who are not privileged, who are not in safe spaces, who will not be received with open arms by those who still most likely harbor their own versions of bi or homophobia.

People are dying. People are so consumed with shame they are drowning themselves in substances so they can hide in one way or another. People are hiding in bottles – medicinal or alcohol. People are leaving, they’re seeing themselves out with self-inflicted deeds. People are being murdered in public and in private. People are being abused, physically and emotionally.

Until it is no big deal at all in any way for people to express their sexuality openly or privately and not feel shame, guilt, fear, confusion there will still need to be people who “come out”. I don’t think I need to create a list to prove the existence of violence and hatred still spewed at the LGBTQ+ community. I’ve witnessed it with my eyes in real life and I have seen it in the news. Homophobia is alive and well.

I am small and I do not have a platform to be shouting it from the rooftops, but I am in a place where I can openly share this information in an attempt to normalize it. I am breaking my lifelong promise to take this information to the grave. The fact is that sexuality is non-binary for many people and we need to stop feeling the physical and mental affects of shame, guilt and fear. We need to stop being met with violence and misunderstanding because people are uncomfortable.

If you are wondering what coming out means for my life, you are one of the ones who does not understand. I do not fault you, but I will be honest with you – it would behoove you to get uncomfortable and educate yourself on the various nuances of sexuality that are not a choice we make, but an inherent natural part of who we are as human beings.

The shame comes less often these days, but living openly in my truth helps to diminish those feelings more and more. Living in this truth is a work in progress, just like everything else in my life, but I am doing the work and no longer living in the dark.

-roxii

If you are struggling with your sexual identity and need help, please check out these resources:

The I Am Woman Project

The Trevor Project

PFLAG

*There are many more, these are just a few.

It hurts to have your heart let down
It hurts more to be isolated

Watch while I continue
To expose my mind

Does it make you sad
Because
There is a part of yourself you are denying

What happened to our friends
Was the cost of consciousness too high
What a price to pay
To get through each day

I need to know I’m not alone
I need it for my soul

What happens when you die
I wondered

Emotional atrophy

• • • •

 

What I Wish My Sons Teachers Knew About ADHD 

This post was written as a reflection after reading the above article.  Please take  the time to read the article before reading this post.

“He can’t determine what is important and what is not important right away. Everything he sees and hears is of equal importance to his brain.”

When I learned this about the ADHD brain and thought about it (for, like, months and still think about all of it every minute of every day) so many things began to make so much sense to me about my life.

This piece is written from a Mom of a boy with ADHD, but I can take almost every single line and apply it to my school experience.

The blurting out in class part is something I did not struggle with, but was the polar opposite. I now know that my “shyness” was due to how well I mask my impulsive brain when I’m not in an environment where I can let my guard down. Which is, basically, anywhere new with more than one or two people – so lots of places. However, when I am in my comfort zone – admittedly – I’m never quite sure what is going to come flying out of my mouth. (just ask my co-workers )

**This is one of the major reasons ADD/ADHD goes undetected in females. There are many, but this is a big one. Again, we are conditioned (by society – not particularly by our immediate guardians) to be seen and not heard. But “boys will be boys”, so oftentimes they get a pass (not that an eyeroll towards their behavior is any better for their development, I’m specifically referring to the detection of ADD/ADHD in boys vs. girls) for being the “class clown”, while girls are reprimanded for being “unladylike”. Masking your impulses requires a lot of energy. Being exhausted after a day of seemingly doing nothing because you slept through a lot your classes, came home, slept and then stayed up all night seems absurd, but it is very real.  More on this and why I share about ADHD here.

Now that I’m aware of how my brain works, I’m much better able to recognize when I need to stop. breathe. think. before I react. I don’t always do that and a lot of the time I end up overthinking something so I end up not doing it anyway (story of my life). However, when I remember to remind myself what I’m working with upstairs, I’m better able to get through things without berating myself internally for being lazy, stupid, insane, annoying, not good at anything, etc. The anxiety dissipates.

-roxii

…for about 5 years.

When I was contemplating writing about this topic, I sat down, got out my writing paraphernalia and wrote one thing:  I decided God wasn’t real.

Then I was like, well yeah, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Well, a few months have gone by since then – even though I discovered my spiritual side about two years ago – and I’m just now being able to articulate what Atheism meant to me as I learn more about the modern view of Christianity and why I feel it was an essential step in my personal beliefs.  I’m sure my thoughts will continue evolving, but this is where I’m at right now.  

When I declared Atheism, I meant it in the truest sense.  Nothing.  We are all just happenstance.  Specks of dust flying around aimlessly.  There was no Divine, no Spirit, no greater force.  It took me awhile to fully admit I felt this way because I had to break through the barrier of the immense and all consuming guilt of being a non-believer.  If you don’t believe in God you will not go to Heaven.  That’s what we learn, yeah?

The teachings of Christianity impart fear and guilt.  It is not taught in a scary way, it is subtle (well, I can only speak to the Presbyterian ways).  It is in the way questions are answered with abstract responses.  It is in the way God is personified.  It is in the way the stories are told.  Inadvertently instilling fear and guilt into children is not something I get down with.

Let’s start at the beginning:

Church going child, my Mom was my Sunday school teacher, played the bells and was a deacon.  Grandpa sang in the choir.  We went every Sunday.  

Age 8, I experience the death of my uncle who also happened to be my best friend.  I started asking questions, but I still can’t remember if I asked them out loud.  That’s the thing about little kids, we don’t give them enough credit for the shit that goes on in their heads that never reaches the sound of day.  I answered my questions about death with the things I learned in church, after all you can’t answer an 8 year old’s questions about death in the public school system.

When you die you go to Heaven.  Your body goes in the ground.  Your soul goes to Heaven to live with God.  Unless you were a bad guy, then you go to Hell.  (it was my experience that everyone who dies is actually a good person once they die, oh the hypocrisy is so rampant)  If I did ask questions, they were answered with biblical responses, so that wasn’t helpful.   I actually began reading the Bible cover to cover at one point, my plan was to read the entire thing and then make an informed decision about what happens.  My thirst for logic was already rearing it’s ugly head. 

Well, this 8 year old wasn’t buying it.  My nights were spent lying awake, contemplating the complexities of life, the afterlife, eternity, reincarnation and the whole shebang.  It went a little something like this:  if you go to Heaven and live with God, then are you consciously aware that you are there?  So, does your soul have memory and consciousness?  If so, that’s fucking terrifying.  The idea of living (in consciousness) for eternity is scary as fuck.  If your soul does not remain conscious, that’s really fucking scary also!  The lights go out?  You’re just in blackness, but unaware?  The stream of consciousness as I know it ceases to exist?  What if you continue being reincarnated?  So, you continue to have consciousness but are unaware of the previous consciousness you may have had in other lives?  What if you do remember past lives?  (I think I’d remember if I were a shark or a dinosaur)  What about if you DO go to Hell, what is that about?  Billy Joel said he’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, so does that mean all the fun people go to Hell?  Is it more desirable to go there?  Could I put up with Satan’s shit and the heat to be able to at least enjoy an afterlife of fun?  What if none of this is real and you just cease to exist?  WHAT THE FUUUUUCKKK.

So, my sleepless nights began at an early age.  My brain was on overdrive.  I loved reading, so I dove head first into the literary world and as music became more accessible to have with you at all times, that became a haven as well.  The 3-disk CD player was a game changer.  Put that shit on repeat and it never stopped playing, you didn’t even have to get up to hit play or anything because, remotes.  Escapism.  That’s what this is called.  (What I’m still unclear about is – was my addictive personality innate and this spurred it on at a young age?  Or was this an event that caused my addictive ways?  I think the jury will always be out on that one.)

Eventually we fell away from the every Sunday church, life moved on and continued.  My sleepless nights, while still filled with random musings about the universe which led to what I now know to be mild panic attacks, became a haven for reading, listening to loud music or watching so much Nick at Nite I had crushes on boys who were adolescent ghosts frozen in time forever on film.  Anything so my mind didn’t wander into the depths of the unknown.

As an older teen, I began considering more the idea of rejecting religion completely.  I really resented the fact that I had to choose.  No one explicitly tells you that you have to choose, but the guilt presented by the church implies that you must believe or else.  The introduction of AOL profiles, Myspace and Facebook were also pretty instrumental in reinforcing the idea of placing yourself into a category (stay tuned, as I intend to write about the life-changer that was the internet and how I’m 100% a product of having an arbitrary social life artificially through the internet – how fucked it is and how useful I think it has the potential to be now).  What do you put in the religion category if you really aren’t sure?  I don’t want to be a liar, but if I put anything other than Christian and I’m wrong and if there IS A MAN IN THE SKY I will go to Hell forever.  Whatever forever means.

Enter the term Agnostic.  A word for people who just aren’t sure.  There were actually categories for people who didn’t want to be categorized by standard choices.  Amazing.  Admitting that I just don’t know for sure.  What a relief.  [still finding a need to place myself in a category]

Well, 2009, age 23 rolls around and here comes another death.  This time a friend who was younger than me and probably the best person I’ve ever met to date (anyone who knew her would wholeheartedly agree with that statement).  The church even had an explanation for her death.  “Some people are too good for this earth” – that part I can agree with – “God needed to bring her home…”.  

In times of grief we need explanation, we need to feel that there is a reason for everything.  We need justice and answers and someone to blame.  We need a reason to ease the pain in our hearts because it feels so bad, it feels like sin.  We need to know that our loss is a gain in some way because the reality of loss is too much to bear.  Enter God.  God giveth and God taketh away, and you better not need a logical explanation because then you’re just admitting a shaky faith – and losing faith?  You better not lose faith because then you won’t be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Fear and Guilt.

My Grandpa died that same year.  This only reinforced the practicality of death for me and how there was no bigger meaning.  He got sick and he died.

Well, at this point I let go of fear.  Probably for the first time ever in my life.  Holding on to this fear was causing me so much internal conflict it was draining and difficult to maintain. I let go of fear and guilt and all the shit that gave me so much anxiety.  I decided I could be undecided no longer.  I decided there was no God, no Spiritual realm, no Heaven, no Hell.  Logic prevailed and I clung to that logic like I’ve never clung to anything else before.  Guess what, the pervasive existential clamor finally ceased.  It stopped.  I was no longer afraid that the Man upstairs would condemn me to Hell (or consciousness) for an eternity.  I was relieved of the constant anxiety and fear.  I began reading more. Was I doing Atheism correctly?  Who is allowed to be Atheist?  Is Sam Harris the only authority on the subject?  I need to get all of his books so I make sure I’m doing it right.  Am I intellectual enough to be an Atheist?  Are Atheists intellectuals or are they just people who think they’re intellectuals?  (my constant need to know the why of things – it is exhausting, but something I cannot escape and now try to use in a productive way)

I became resentful of the fact that although now I rejected the binary terms of Christianity, I was still identifying in a category.  I still had to fill out that box.  The social conditioning of having to choose a label runs so deep.  I’m not good at labeling myself and I resent every time I have to.

2012 – another friend dies.  Good thing I don’t have to worry about if she’s going to Heaven or Hell because she was a heroin user.  I know she was a good person, she just got caught up in some bad shit.  I was more at peace knowing that she was no longer suffering here on this planet than trying to decide whether or not she was going to Heaven or Hell.  Losing someone you love is hard enough, do we honestly need the added suffering of thinking they went to live in damnation for eternity?

Atheism to me meant comfort.  It meant a major release of anxiety.  It meant not having to figure out really difficult answers to really difficult questions.  Everything could just be as it is.  It meant not constantly feeling guilty or afraid of every little thing I was doing.  It meant the spirits or ghosts I saw/felt were no longer scary or real.  Just my imagination.  What Atheism did not mean for me?  being morally unsound.  I think a lot of people feel that Atheists have no morals or have tossed them aside in favor of anarchy.  I mean, maybe that’s true for some, but some Atheists have more sound morals than some Christians and are, by far, less hypocritical.  Freeing myself from the idea that terrible things will happen to me if I sinned allowed to me to have a more solid understanding of my own moral compass.  I stopped doing some of the bad shit I was doing when I declared Atheism, not all, but some.  I believe it was this act that allowed me the space to understand spirituality as I do now.  If I had not been so disenchanted by the concept of Christianity, I may have never experienced the freedom of an open mind that, I feel, the fear and guilt instilled in us prohibits our minds from experiencing.

Our western culture hinges on the idea that Christianity is the true way.  If the majority of the population in America were no longer Christian – where would our foundation stand? (fear)  After all, the forefathers were seeking freedom from persecution due to their unorthodox beliefs for the times. (guilt)  They built the foundation of the United Sates on the basis of their rebellious view of religion.  This “progressive” view meant it could stand the test of time, right?  (This particular topic requires an entirely separate discussion on the colonization of religion and spirituality and how I cannot see any type of Christianity as “progressive” considering how it has been used historically to oppress groups of people through gentrification.  I don’t feel I’m qualified to speak to that, so do some research if you’re not sure what I mean or curious.  Though, I do feel it’s worth mentioning.)

The thing about Atheism is that, as a child of western culture, you have to choose that title.  You first have to reject the idea of Christianity and choose to be Atheist.  I believe this is what makes it seemingly scary.

2015 – more death.  Now, in 2015 I was beginning to really consider whether or not I was a full blown Atheist.  I mean, how presumptuous of me to declare that I know one way or another?

In 2015 I was 29/30.  I started not being such a fucking know-it-all shit head.  Someone who I assumed was Atheist and someone I felt was very in line with my perspective on life, said in a group setting one time that she felt sadly for anyone who was Atheist because they were so rigid in their beliefs they were shutting out an entire realm of possibility in life.  (I’m paraphrasing here)  Had she said this directly to me, I may have been defensive, but it was said as a general statement, I just happened to be in the room to hear it and I got curious.  I was already on the fence about my stance as an Atheist and hearing this from someone I aligned with in a lot of other ways just kind of pushed it over the edge.  I re-entered the world as an agnostic, once again.

In 2016 I had some pretty undeniably spiritual experiences.  This was the year I got sober. These experiences began before I quit drinking, so I cannot directly attribute it to the absence of alcohol.  I can tell you, that once I no longer had alcohol running through my blood – the spiritual world blew wide open and I can no longer deny the existence of intelligent design and the vibrational field of energy that surrounds us and is within us all the time.  I’ve seen it, I connect to it, I feel it and I know it is real.

Had I not gone through the phase of Atheism, I believe I would be terrified of some of the things I experience now.  Any scary movie that I have been terrified by has an underlying basis of Christianity.  Christianity takes a fear-based view of the spiritual dimension.  It is entertaining, but I have to say – I still don’t buy it.  Remove the fear factor of evil and a dark figure is just a dark figure.  Remove the guilt of sin and mental health becomes a very benign topic, making it much easier to accept as a reality and much easier to resolve or at least cope with issues.  We all have shadows within us, but do we really need to be so afraid of them?  Some of my best exploring has been done in the shadows – literally and figuratively.  If we are afraid of and deny the darkness, it becomes the embodiment of fear and evil.  Human beings are who created the concept of Heaven and Hell.  We created the binary.  Spirituality is anything but binary, it is everything and it is nothing all at once.

I haven’t reached a point where I’m completely unafraid of death.  I’m still afraid to die, but I don’t want to live forever in this consciousness, that frightens me too.  I will always and forever be a work in progress in that respect.  I no longer lie awake in bed panicking about infinity, however.  I now think of it with curiosity and peaked interest.

At the end of the day, none of us can really know what the deal is, but I can no longer deny the existence of a realm beyond our understanding of consciousness.  I’m having fun learning about all the different ways to interact with those energies and aligning myself with them as I have found truth and peace in the guidance of the unknown.

Now, this is just my perspective, to each their own.  I just can’t morally or logically get down with any organized religion, particularly Christianity.  I do not hate Christians or people who practice organized religions, I simply do not find it to be a way I can live my life.  Atheists get a lot of shit, so as someone who identified as Atheist for several years – I figure I’d try to shed some light on my experience.  Who knows, maybe someday I’ll study Theology at a College level?

-roxii 

Preface: On Septemeber 19, 2018 I turned two years sober. Prior to that, I was a blackout drinker for approximately 12 years. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve blacked out because it happened so frequently throughout that time. I am intimately familiar with the effects blackout drinking has on a person. I am not a writer or a mental health professional, the things I write are from my own perspectives and experiences.

● ● ● ●

“Wellllllll, I’m not really a religious person soooooooo…”, I said as I sucked on the butt of a cigarette way longer than necessary to get a good hit. This was the same night I fell into my bathtub, ripping down the entire shower curtain in the process. I woke up the next morning to find it and shook my head, smiling to myself. I assumed my friend had done it who had been over the night before. He had gotten “sooo drunk” I remembered, I was smiling because it was okay, I’ve done things like that too many times to count. It was totally cool, he was in good company.

I sent him a text to say “hey, did you somehow rip down my shower curtain? Haha, it’s totally cool! I do stuff like that all the time. Just curious :-)”. He responded with, “actually, you did that, we figured it was probably time to head out after that happened.”

It was not unusual for me to assume someone else did or said something that I actually did because generally speaking I didn’t have any recollection of said event or conversation taking place. The above is a mild example of a casual evening blackout at home with friends. For approximately 12 years, this is how I accepted life. Some blackouts found me at home the next morning and some found me in unknown places; some were mild (shower curtains) some revealed hysterical sobbing or altercations with friends (generally in public). This was normal. This was just what people did. I could brush it off and laugh at myself about the ridiculous and embarrassing things I did when I was drunk/blackout. I felt this was just part of my easygoing nature.

The thing about laughing off the things you do when you’re blackout drunk is that you’re laughing at a version of yourself you’ve never met. You’re brushing off the actions of someone you will never know. You are belittling and ridiculing a stranger. That’s mean. Being mean and demeaning to people you do not know is unhealthy, dangerous and goes against my own moral code of conduct. I was a hypocrite. I was being hypocritical of my own self – a stranger I could never meet.

A lot of people in recovery discuss the relationship between ego and self. When you’re living life as a hypocrite of your own self, imagine the fucked up relationship between ego and self living in one human being. I was aware on some level, though I did not have the vocabulary to articulate what exactly it was that I hated about myself so much. I knew if I stopped drinking I would actually have to figure out what it was that I hated with such scorn. That didn’t seem feasible or enjoyable, but avoiding your shit perpetuates things and eventually leads to worse things.

Worse things: there was an emptiness that slowly crept into my mind, a small space at first, but one that eventually grew. Living with two different personas, one you never really quite figured out and the other a stranger, creates a major disconnect within the soul. The emptiness expands between the ego and the self, figuring out what to do with that emptiness is difficult. When I was actively drinking, I realize I was trying to fill that emptiness with alcohol. I was killing my mind and my body and for a long time I really wasn’t into giving a shit. Giving a shit would require admitting that my perception of myself was incorrect. It would be a blow to my pride, my ego. It would require me to get honest and uncomfortable with the way I had been living my life for 12 years. It would be admitting hypocrisy. The ego is not easy to fuck with, but once you start tearing it down, it does get easier to put it in it’s place when you need to, not always, but most of the time.

A person in a pattern of addiction attempting sobriety is essentially a person attempting to take down their own ego, which has been loaded with artificial nourishment and grown to supersonic proportions with whatever substance that person has been abusing.

Whether you see life from a spiritual perspective or not, I think we can all agree on the existence of the ego. Everyone has some defensive layer of their being that keeps them in their comfort zone. How was your ego, in this life, shaped? Was it shaped with love, hate, abuse, support, warmth, negativity? I genuinely feel, more than will-power, more than the tools you find to combat addiction, more than how bad you want to be sober – the foundation of your ego will be your biggest hurdle when attempting sobriety. If you can face the things which shaped your ego once you stop nourishing it with a chemical substance, you may be able to dismantle it, or at least try to. In no way is this process ever easy, but for some it may be easier – relatively speaking – than others to face, accept and begin to shed the layers of the ego.

For some, it isn’t bearable to tear down the layers and contend with the ego face to face. Maybe that time hasn’t come for those who aren’t ready, but it doesn’t mean you can’t put down whatever substance is going to kill you and keep going until the unknown calls for your examination of your relationship to your self.

How did I get on the ego/self bandwagon?

Good question. I’ll save that for another time.

**I’m also a firm proponent of allowing yourself to find sobriety from whatever it is that’s killing you (physically or emotionally) by whatever means you can. Just because this is my perspective, does not mean I feel it is the only way. However you find a way to do the work sobriety requires and dismantle your version of the ego, that way is the right way for you, as long as you are not harming yourself or others.

– roxii ✌🖤

If you feel you may have a problem with drinking, please do not be afraid to reach out to someone – anyone – and talk it out.

Find Recovery Resources I find helpful here

“I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert

A lot of people reach out to me to ask me what I did to get sober. The answer is not simple, nor is it unique. I will do my best to share here most of what I can put into words about my sober story.

I used to do a lot of reading whilst intoxicated. One of the books I read toward the end of my relationship with alcohol was Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It more than likely had an influence on the finality of the end of my drinking days. She writes about the creative process in a way that made it feel accessible to me, a person who has never felt that I had permission to be a creative individual, yet felt an intense drive towards creativity.

Just short of a year after getting sober, I came across the quote I have posted at the top of this page. My reason for getting sober written out in a simple, yet extremely profound statement from the mouth (hands?) of a woman whose opinion I heavily value.

I cannot explain why I finally came to the decision to quit drinking. I experienced “the pop” or whatever you want to call it. I was done. I had had enough of the abuse I was putting myself through via alcohol consumption. I’m grateful that I was not chemically dependent on alcohol yet, but I was certainly headed in that direction. Mentally and emotionally, I was very dependent.

For years I was uncomfortable with the idea of getting to know my sober self because I was certain I hated her. I didn’t have the vocabulary to understand the reasons why I hated her, so it was difficult to get to a place where I was willing to strip away the comfort of ignorance alcohol provided me. I now understand a great deal more about what it was that I hated so much about me. Gradually, it started to become alarmingly clear that my drunk self was someone I didn’t actually know.

I spent a lot of the year of 2016 trying to understand my place with myself. I had spent a lot of time in my 20s finding myself and figuring out what kinds of things I valued, yet I was not able to implement most of these things into my life. I used a lot of excuses as to why I just couldn’t make things fit. My biggest excuse was alcohol. I knew the person I was deep down inside. The exterior, surface of myself had a very misguided idea of how to navigate the world as my inner self was in direct conflict with the choices my outer self would make on a daily basis.

Finally, one day, after waking up in a sweaty panic (not unusual) not knowing where I was (in a hotel, next to my husband, right where I was supposed to be) and not knowing how I got there (walked), I quietly decided that maybe this was it. (For the record, typically when I woke up in this manner, I was at home in my own bed.)

The previous day had been my cousin’s wedding. It was a lovely, chill affair at which I promised myself I would not blackout (ha). I did my normal routine the night before, which was to get just drunk enough that I would have functional hangover the day of the wedding.

(Functional hangover: the type of hangover where you can keep drinking to keep it at bay, but more than likely pass out before the blackout hits. The sweet spot. This was my go to type of hangover for events like this where I had to work, be professional or just be present. It was becoming much harder as the years went by to control achieving this type of hangover. Sometimes I would hit the sweet spot, but more often than not it was becoming harder to avoid the blackout and stop the consumption before it left me debilitated the next day.)

I ended up blacking out at the end of the wedding anyway and didn’t remember walking back to the hotel with my husband and another couple. My blackouts were unpredictable, yet typically I was mild-mannered and fun loving, so often forgiven and becoming more frequent. As I laid in bed the next morning with my husband, asking him the standard routine series of questions (did I say anything offensive to anyone? was I mean? did I fall? how hard? where is my phone? where are my keys? we went where? etc.) he revealed that I had asked him to take a video of me while I was blacked out. We watched the video, laughed, yet I was utterly and completely fear-stricken. I didn’t recognize the person I was watching in the video. I had no idea who she was, what she was saying or why she was acting so absurd. I was immediately suffocated with the idea that this was the person most people knew as me.

It was not okay.

I was tired of my own bullshit.

It was time. I knew it was coming, I had been contemplating it for so long. I had tried stopping completely before, but never got further than a week or two. I could not regulate, I had been trying to quietly regulate my drinking for years. If you don’t tell anyone you are attempting to do something at which you know you will fail, then you can’t really fail, can you? (The impact personal failure has on your mental state will be a post for another time)

There are some things I can laugh about now, that I couldn’t for a long time. One of these things is when I tried to seriously, for real, regulate the previous week, I had done it alone, during the week. Those are two pretty significant red flags and it’s quite comical to me that I felt the need to be alone to really focus on regulating the amount of alcohol I was ingesting. It was very normal for me to drink alone after my husband went to bed. The first night I bought one bottle of wine to have one glass in the evening, like a normal person. The bottle was gone within an hour and I was seriously pissed that the liquor store was closed and I could not get more (Pennsylvania still has archaic laws about alcohol, which I now don’t think are that terrible). The next night, I got two bottles just in case I drank the first bottle completely – two bottles gone that night. Standard Wednesday evening, though typically there was whiskey involved, as well. Then, the wedding.

I knew it would be very difficult and I didn’t tell anyone except my husband for awhile. I tried to figure out what exactly I would say. What would I say when I was met with resistance from friends I normally drank with? How would I stop? Would I need rehab? Would I still have friends? Would I still have fun? Would I find out I can’t feel emotion because typically the only time I felt emotions was when I was drinking? Would I find out I was actually a piece of shit human being who has nothing good to offer society? Would I hate everything I had so proudly chosen to do in my life leading up to this point? Would I decide that I actually do want to live in California and be super pissed that I bought a house in PA? How would I present the fact that I was no longer drinking?

The questions were LOUD in my mind. They consumed me on a daily basis. I had began a few weeks earlier working out with a trainer (I was no stranger to working out with a trainer – more on body image in a future post) so it was already in place. A lot of my energy was channeled into fitness and health, which was really positive. My trainer is now one of my closest friends, the universe truly does give you what you need even if you can’t see it clearly in the present. I also found a wonderful therapist (everyone should seek therapy NOW, substance abuse or no). I discovered astrology which eventually got me in touch with a spiritual side of myself that I had been denying, well, pretty much for as long as I can remember (I began questioning organized religion when I was a church-going child). I found meditation, yoga and connection to a more Buddhist/eastern way of thinking about life. I had a very important friendship connection that allowed me to discover things about myself I had always been unsure of, the universe puts important things in your path when you need them, inexplicable as they may be. I began working the Refuge Recovery program and still work this daily. AA saves a lot of lives and I’m grateful it exists, but it was not the right fit for me and my journey (and that’s okay).

I was lucky to have had all of those resources. I am privileged to have been able to so easily access these tools and allow them to consume me completely and still remain steadfast in the life I had somehow made for myself. I married one of the most understanding and patient human beings that exists on this earth and I am grateful every day that he gives me the space I need to maintain sobriety.

I now have a much better balance of these elements. In the beginning, I do believe it is necessary to do whatever it is you need to do to get things in place for long-term sobriety, as long at you aren’t harming yourself or others. Not everyone has access to these things and not everyone has the luxury of time and money to be able to regularly partake in the things they find helpful.

I still read a lot. I’m definitely a “I’m currently reading 2-4 books right now” type. I began to reread Big Magic recently with a clear head. It gives me the same feeling I had when I read it drunk, only this time – I remember most of what it says. In early sobriety, when I began looking into Elizabeth Gilbert and discovered her online presence, I happened upon a website called hipsobriety.com. Admittedly, at first, I scoffed at the idea of someone labeling sobriety as “hip”. Seemed gimmicky to me (because I was a cynical asshole at the time – sometimes still am), yet as I began reading I couldn’t stop. I devoured everything she wrote on this blog. I related so hard to what she was saying. I began following her on Instagram and it was one of my main sources of sober connection I had in the early days. I still follow her and she still posts things that stop me in my tracks and I think, “well, shit. yeah. same.” and my shitty negative self-talk turns around for the moment. She also introduced me to this book: Eastern Body Western Mind by Anodea Judith which I essentially treat as a life study-guide/bible and reference almost daily.

I was tired of my own bullshit. That is the bottom line. You will find more realizations and stories from my alcohol-laced days to the more full and simplistic life I now lead here on the blog.

Thanks for taking the time to read my sober story. If you are struggling with substance abuse please find resources here to guide you in a direction towards sobriety.

-roxii

This blog is currently under construction.