Nothing For Us to Do But Watch the Sky Fall Into the Sea
Our readers write in about the current state of their recovery.
It's a warm Tuesday in April and I'm still shoegazing my headlines but I'm trying to sync it with Edith's illustration this week. I don't know why I was so moved by it, but it hit me in all the right spots and instantly became one of my favorites. Anyway, enough of me. You ready? Let's go see it.
Below, our readers bring us inside their lives for a minute and share their hardest parts in the most humbling and heartbreaking ways. There were several this month that I won't ever forget so thank you for that.
Usual formatting rules apply: All the writers shall and will remain Anonymous but are credited collectively as "The Small Bow Family Orchestra."
The ***** separates individual entries, as do pull quotes. Some of the shorter entries will be one big pull quote. (There is one this month.)
And, of course, TSB looks amazing because Edith Zimmerman drew all of it.
Thanks for your continued support of The Small Bow. You're doing great. — AJD
The Sky Is Falling So Let’s Enjoy the View
by The Small Bow Family Orchestra
*****
We're both too young and too old to do this stuff.
Last month, I had a week-long relationship with a guy I met in the rooms. He immediately relapsed after the first time we had sex, and I smoked crack and fentanyl with him, something I’ve never done before and will never do again. He OD'ed twice in my apartment, and I Narcan'd (proper verbiage?) twice and called the paramedics once. We're both too young and too old to do this stuff (29/30). I had been sober for 4 months before that, from alcohol, my DOC. Now he's dating another girl from the rooms, one I'm friendly with. I feel like he stole my sober time, although I'm obviously the one who made the choice to enable him and paid the price. So now I'm a month clean, for the millionth time, and he and this girl are happily dating cleanly and soberly together. I still have to see him at meetings, and we both pretend we don't know each other and act like strangers even though I held him while he cried and called me an angel over and over again and he held me while I cried when he said he couldn't see me anymore because we had relapsed together. This feels like some high school shit, except this time people die. Either way, I'm still sulking about it.
*****
I am not young. Not glamorous. I am no longer drunk and it’s not often I find myself laughing loudly and hysterically.
I had dinner this week with a friend who told me the story of the first time she saw me. We didn’t actually meet that night. She was having dinner in the restaurant where I was a manager. It was the end of the shift late, and I was sitting at the restaurant's bar, laughing uproariously with some fellow workers. She relayed how she thought I seemed like so much fun and appeared to her as very glamorous. She promised herself that we’d become friends, and we did become friends. I don’t see her often enough in that way that busy New Yorkers don’t. She’s ten years younger than me and caught between the sandwich of geriatric parent care and teenage children. Of course, I was flattered and could vividly see that version of myself. I can even see that version of me and think fondly of her.
The only way I could make that job work for me was by showing up every day and night and pretending it was just another night of partying. I did it for 12 years, and the restaurant, now closed due to the vagaries of commercial leases in this town, has become something of a legend in the annals of New York restaurant lore. It also reminded me that I am no longer that person. I am not young. Not glamorous. I am no longer drunk and it’s not often I find myself laughing loudly and hysterically. When I do, I will draw breath for a second and note to myself that I am actually laughing. But I am happier and more content in a quiet and very private way. It is something I am learning to guard fiercely.
*****
I’d rather sit in the shit and resent the hell out of myself.
My husband and I decided to be polyamorous, and he fell madly MADLY in love with somebody who lives on the other side of the world but is considering moving closer, perhaps even to the same town. This other person is also married, so it’s not about losing him so much as losing parts of our relationship to this new one. I have so much resentment towards her for existing and being awesome while I exist and…am not.
I just spent a weekend with my hard-drinking family and wasn’t very tempted because I knew I’d go straight down the hole with all of this stuff going on and then tell them all about it, which we’ve agreed not to do. I have a great therapist and maybe a new life coach, but I would actually need to want to move forward and learn how to be ok with this new life, and I don’t. I’d rather sit in the shit and resent the hell out of myself for getting here in the first place.
*****
Growth means new and exciting ways to screw up.
ADULT CHILD ADVENTURES: It's been nearly 4 months since I got unceremoniously dumped from my first real romantic relationship in over a decade. The shame (it was, in a shocking twist of events, completely my fault) is still overwhelming, still lacerates me every day, and is still utterly unprocessable. Somehow, my therapist is happy, even proud of me for getting into a real relationship in the first place. "Growing pains," she said at the end of our last session, and maybe I nodded my head and kind of believed her. But growth means new and exciting ways to screw up.
*****
This sobriety thing is a big deal.
Who knew such a thing was possible? The fact that I no longer drink has at last settled into my life so thoroughly that when my how-many-days app rolled into 1,000, my first thought was, “Been that long, huh?” And then, as I sat down to write about it, the significance walloped me. This sobriety thing is a big deal. The biggest deal. What a change for my family, my friends, myself. I could feel my heart swelling, emotion rocketing through me. I escaped something. My eyes glistened with – what is this? Pride? Gratitude? Some holy mix of both?
Quitting took years of attempts. I spent a decade on the shame circuit. I still wake up feeling lousy, but due to chronic insomnia rather than hangovers and regrets. I still make mistakes and have immature responses to situations, but I no longer have to sort out what is because of my own brain and what is because of drinking. I have had to learn new ways to bear anxiety's weight now that I no longer banish it with alcohol. Life is a lot, really. But eliminating drinking made room to feel love for myself, to see this shimmering gold thread that winds through my life, a handhold to steady me through all of it.
*****
Resentment has been simmering inside of me and it is now a flood that has burst. Today I wrote five pages in my journal about how much I resent someone and my own contributions to that….which means that as someone who has avoided AA during my time so far in recovery, it may be time to do the damn steps.
*****
I did some dumb shit in my active addiction, but it's mostly just boring retread bullshit over 20+ years, with the net result being that at 41, I'm broke and living with my parents.
I'm rounding the home stretch towards a year of sobriety, this being the first time I've actually worked a 12-step program after rehab, and only dabbling in AA predictably resulted in only intermittent stretches of stopping and staying stopped, and it feels different now. Good, but not great. At times, I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin, waiting for this positive change to manifest itself throughout all facets of my life. Ha.
There was maybe a brief pink cloud bounce for a while, but lately, I can't help feeling bogged down by the sheer length of the road back to respectability, whatever that means. I did some dumb shit in my active addiction, but it's mostly just boring retread bullshit over 20+ years, with the net result being that at 41, I'm broke and living with my parents as I try to cobble together a career and life that never got too far off the ground in the first place, writing this to get a month of TSB Sundays because I need to save a buck.
But there is hope, which is more than I would've said a year ago, or four years before that when I knew I couldn't stop my daily intake of substances, and I couldn't live without them either. That's such a despondent place to be, and I'm past that thanks to the program of recovery. I can actually picture a life where I don't drink and I'm kind of ok. Whether or not I can do that quickly enough to find someone and start a family remains to be seen. Until then it's the next right thing, one day at a time, until more will be revealed.
*****
I’m scared to learn what I’ll be like without my anxiety running the show.
This month, I’m prioritizing rest, ease, program tools, saying no, and caring for myself and my little family.
March brought some wild Alanon tests/situations, and I’m amazed by and grateful for my spiritual strength and boundaries. I had another panic attack, again on a Friday, again with dinner plans at my house happening that day. I decided to give SSRIs a try after many conversations with friends and care providers. I’m scared to learn what I’ll be like without my anxiety running the show - will I suck? Will I be numb or blah? I am trying to keep an open mind and consider that I may learn more about myself if I’m not constantly battling, anticipating, creating lists, and living in the past/future.
My main qualifier (Dad) had a medical emergency last month, with acute alcohol use as the root cause. He had a similar episode in July 2023, but this time disclosed to the doctor his actual alcohol consumption (in addition to his daily oxy intake). I was added to a text thread with my older brother and (estranged as of 5/2023) twin brother. I spoke on the phone with my estranged brother, hearing his voice for the first time in years, and was struck by my peacefulness and calm.
And then, if that wasn’t enough, I was heading on a weeklong trip with two back to back al anon field trips, with the second part of the trip in my hometown with my parents. The timing was wild and the time with them was another opportunity to practice boundaries. I spent time taking care of myself and tried to lower my expectations. Returning home was sweet, and I’ve spent time going slow, recharging, and getting ready to spend April with a continued focus on my health (continue acupuncture, schedule appointments, daily walks), mental well-being (starting SSRIs, boundaries, and detachment, program tools), and saying no (at work, with my parents’ sobriety and management, to social obligations). I hope April brings fewer extremes and fears, but I know that I have the tools and support to get through and maintain my inner peace.
How many nights can you spend pushing the muscle of your heart to the brink before it gives in, tells you it’s time to exit stage left?
I’m going back home soon for the memorial of a dear friend who died out of the blue, way too young. We spent many hours and late nights using together when I was in my 20s, and had both cleaned up our acts to some degree. I’m hung up on how cruel and arbitrary the universe’s calculus seems to be: who gets to come out the other side of years of treating your body like a dumpster and carry on living, and who doesn’t? Selfishly, his death terrifies me and I wonder what it portends for my own longevity. How many nights can you spend pushing the muscle of your heart to the brink before it gives in, tells you it’s time to exit stage left? How many more years do you get once you finally give that faithful organ a break? Settling into the lack of reason, and hoping I can use the ones I’ve got left with the distilled clarity you only cultivate after years of being ambivalent about whether you live or die. I’m doing my best to stick around.
*****
Let it begin with me, for fucks sake.
Having an alcoholic husband in active relapse has been tearing up the lawn of what I thought was my happily ever after picket fence proud sober wife life.
I'm just so angry and I know I'm being a smug asshole but this disease is cunning and exhausting. I've been trying to detach with love, not question if he's drunk nor demand that he not be. I've been hands-off, not insisting or even so much as hinting at him returning to meetings. I'm furtively, furiously clawed at my fear, anxiety, and control addiction to put the focus on me. Let it begin with me, for fucks sake. I've been trying to work my own program as the spouse and daughter of alcoholics. But can the family disease kindly fuck off?!?
Today I am sober, and angry. But angry sober is better than not. I don't want this anger anymore. For now I'm staying. I'm seeking peace. I'm trying so hard.
*****
I have cried and hyperventilated in some of the most gorgeous mountain vistas in North America.
I have been working with a therapist for the past year and a half for an eating disorder, and it turns out I’m an extreme people pleaser who often has buried my own desires so deep they are a mystery even to myself.
Anyway, it turns out I hate skiing. Fucking despise it, actually. I discovered this while standing in the middle of an intermediate slope at a luxury resort in Lake Tahoe. I’ve spent the majority of spring breaks for the past 20 years skiing with my husband and kids. We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on timeshare trades, ski schools, equipment, flights, and the occasional expensive plate of nachos at the slopeside restaurant when we got sick of eating trail mix and clementines packed in our ski jacket pockets. Everyone else in the family loves these trips, and I’ve been going along to keep everyone else happy.
But every year, as soon as I hit the first slope on Day 1, my brain turns on a faucet of resentments that I can’t stop from flowing no matter what tools I use. Skiing is hard, and it scares me. Even when I’m skiing my best (and I’m not a bad skier), I am not having fun. At my best, I’m going through the motions trying to get back to the chairlift so I can sit and look at the views. At my worst, I have spent frustrating days on steep icy slopes, lacking confidence in my ability to turn and having rolling panic attacks throughout the day. I have cried and hyperventilated in some of the most gorgeous mountain vistas in North America. Vail. Aspen. Breckenridge. Lake Tahoe. Beaver Creek. Park City. Deer Valley. Alta. Everyone in my family seems willing to pay this tax, this mom meltdown tax, so they can spend their spring breaks chasing that mountain high.
Midway down a blue slope yesterday, my calf muscles screaming at me and my lower back spasming, I announced that I am not doing this anymore. My family laughed; they think I am joking. I am not. Today, they are out skiing and I am eating pancakes at “The Best Breakfast In Lake Tahoe.” Tomorrow we head home, and the day after that I may sell all my ski stuff.
*****
fin
OTHER RECENT CHECK-INS:
This is The Small Bow newsletter. It is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio. And Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday.
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*****
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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
What I Like and Don’t Like
by Philip Schultz
************************
I like to say hello and goodbye.
I like to hug but not shake hands.
I prefer to wave or nod. I enjoy
the company of strangers pushed
together in elevators or subways.
I like talking to cab drivers
but not receptionists. I like
not knowing what to say.
I like talking to people I know
but care nothing about. I like
inviting anyone anywhere.
I like hearing my opinions
tumble out of my mouth
like toddlers tied together
while crossing the street,
trusting they won't be squashed
by fate. I like greeting-card clichés
but not dressing up or down.
I like being appropriate
but not all the time.
I could continue with more examples
but I'd rather give too few
than too many. The thought
of no one listening anymore—
I like that least of all.
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN
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So many great stories especially the family skiing story. Finality the best.., sell the skis.