When Things Fall Apart (Again)

It is November! Let's Check-In.

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Are you ready?

“When we talk about hopelessness and death, we’re talking about facing the facts. No escapism. We may still have addictions of all kinds, but we cease to believe in them as a gateway to happiness. So many times, we’ve indulged in the short-term pleasure of addiction. We’ve done it so many times that we know that grasping at this hope is a source of misery that makes a short-term pleasure a long-term hell.

Giving up hope is the encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, not to run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what’s going on.”

Cool. It’s gonna be okay.

Let’s go to the Check-Ins.

For anyone unfamiliar with our Check-In format:

All the Anonymous writers in the below portion are credited collectively as 'The Small Bow Family Orchestra.'

The ***** separates individual entries, as do pull quotes.

And, of course, TSB looks fantastic because Edith Zimmerman drew everything. 

And thanks for your continued support of The Small Bow. If you love what we do and believe we have provided some value to you or people you love, please try out a paid subscription and access our complete archive and the Sunday newsletter. Now, let's trudge. — AJD

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There Is Still Peace Inside of You

by The Small Bow Family Orchestra

I'm currently sitting on the guest room bed, in the room where I've lived since telling my soon-to-be-ex husband that I wanted a divorce back in May. I can hear him in the master bedroom right now, moving around, getting ready for a calm work-from-home day. I haven't told him yet that in 24 minutes I will learn if I'm getting laid off. A suspicious early morning meeting with HR was placed on my calendar for today, and there have been rumors of layoffs, so it makes sense that the end is coming. Today. In 23 minutes. Plus, I hate this job, and they really like me but are so totally disappointed in my performance that it would make total sense to say goodbye. I've been looking for a new job for two years and have had zero success. I used to be successful. I used to be in demand, but now everything seems to have evaporated. Is this because I'm 51 now and age discrimination is real? Or is it because I was never really any good to begin with? Or is it something-something, the economy-something? I am not sure, all I know is that I'm being pushed off this cliff and relying on faith I don't really have to keep me calm as everything falls apart around me. 

There are 18 minutes left until the HR call. I'm hoping for a good payout and that they will let me keep my laptop. 

One night I gave a foot massage to another sober person in the office chair section of an Office Depot in a city neither of us lived in. I learned a lot about life that night. The one thing that really stuck with me is the idea that hitting five years sober, which I will do next month, is a turning point in our ability to be in relationships. 

She didn't actually say it was a "turning point" or a "level up" or anything definitional like that, she just said that five years was a milestone when things change, but she didn't use those words either. She basically said with her eyes that we'd never get past whatever base giving someone a foot massage in a destitute mall was but that at five years of sobriety I'd be ready for more with someone who was also ready for it. She was younger but had been sober and divorced for longer, so I was getting paid in wisdom for grinding my thumbs into her arches and waving off the store help when they circled. 

I don't really experience much in the way of excitement or anticipation or forward-lookingness, but I've been holding my breath just a little bit about seeing what's on the other side of five years. The closer I've gotten, the more it seems less like an oasis that will pop up in the distance and more like I'm more present, more aware of my surroundings, more honest, and more in touch. I won't lie and say I wouldn't, that night, have traded a year of sobriety to have ended up with more than a rainbow of Sharpies and some oversized Post-it notes in my hotel room, but, coming up on five years, I also know that I wasn't ready then. But I will be.  

*****

Yesterday was Diwali. The celebration of light on the darkest day of the lunar year, of good over evil. I lit a small candle and said goodbye, for the millionth time, to a relationship that has haunted me for more than four years. We tried recently for a last stab, but it's all so twisted I'm not even sure who is the specter and who is the creaky house, and I realize that our relationship has been so much more diseased than I've realized. So, my status is that I feel like a mold, inherently incapable of good love and a destructive force in the life of the person I love the most. I resign myself to it that nothing changes no matter how much I know, seethe or strain. The ache is always there, and I feel responsible for keeping it together (i.e., us apart), though mostly it feels like sitting on my hands, that I might be sitting on them forever.

It’s grotesque, this monster of us, and still, uninvited in silence, it stays. I wake up and make it coffee. The gross mundanity of being desperately sad. I have mostly been thinking about all the times I wasn't there, and I won't be there. When he was recovering from top surgery, I should have been the one to adjust his pillow, bring him food, and make him grimace cuz he was trying not to laugh. It was also Halloween yesterday, so I watched a show about the apocalypse. Everyone calls up their loved ones and always says the same things. I love you, I’ll be home soon, please stay alive.

It feels utterly crazy. Like, actually, fully unhinged. To know it’s his voice I would want to hear it at the end of the world and instead choose a world without it. 

The more sober I get, the more disillusioned I become about the "Rave" scene. From high school in my headphones to college, to now. Constantly wasted in college on MDMA, I discovered the feeling of sound waves while standing directly in front of the speaker, watching the stars swirl above me like they were hanging from marionette strings. In my 20s, we'd conspire on porches after the party, waiting for the liquor store to open at 10 a.m. to get another rack. During long Rave weekends, I'd try and find my way through the sound and smoke, playing that 'Fear & Loathing' game of alternating from uppers to downers in a steady stream of substances. One year in Detroit, I slept a total of 9 hours over a 72-hour period. I was so proud of that. Honestly, part of me still is. A true machine.

Those weekends always had the same arc. It starts out like a silly little party, 36 hours later it turns into what I called "The Scaries" which is when you start confronting that stuff you don't want to confront. It's dark and feels ominous, and the drugs start to get on top of you a little bit. Then, a surrender followed by Raving bliss. The last ones standing were peak party professionals, still on no sleep, still licking bags. Whippit cartridges scattered around like some tripped-out battle scene. But this is utopia, right? The dancefloor is freedom, right??

The Rave tells you it's TAZ and political. 'It's healing. You're safe here!' It feels like I got sold a dream, and it was a scam and an enabler. I loathe the industry. I'm 15 months sober from alcohol. Doing drugs on these long Rave weekends with no alcohol brought existential freakouts; I haven't touched anything since. I at least feel creative catharsis when I DJ sober now. Every once in a while, I get a glimpse that the world I built was hopeful. But most of the time, the four walls of a club feel like a box trapping both my dead Rave self and present sober me in one room, and I become that resentful, judgmental, jaded, sober Raver.

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My longest sober stint was two and a half years. That ended about a year ago, and since then, I've been stopping and starting, telling myself and everyone else I was in control. I even started a relationship this year and managed to keep my drinking under control. Until I couldn't. October has seen the days getting shorter here in northern Europe. And it has seen me drinking alone, hiding my drinking, the usual. Blacking out and starting emotionally charged debates about politics and exes that fill me with the deepest, darkest shame the next morning. 

I saw this relationship as a Christmas cake we occasionally poured a hearty glug of booze onto to make it richer. But I've poured so much onto it now that it's bitter and starting to fall apart. I thought I had made massive progress during my two and a bit years sober, but I realized I wasn't walking forward; I was just doing laps on the same track I've always run. It's a never-ending cycle of relapse and shame and trying again. But that's all I can do, is to keep trying.

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I am working on my food addiction extra hard this month, as I was diagnosed with diabetes two months back. The diagnosis followed a nearly 3-month bender after my father died. I became a human sinkhole. It was a horror, not gonna lie. The diabetes is going to wear me to a nub before it takes me, and I'm constantly checking my eyesight and my legs to see if the disease has started eating me alive yet. But the real damage won't be visible yet. My girlfriend and I are barely speaking—she is tired of my incessant illness. She suffers with food, too, but has managed to wrangle some concessions from herself. I've had no such luck. I miss my Dad and my old relationship, and I can't stop losing the things that mean something.

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I feel my heart breaking over it, but I can't bring myself yet to say, "You shouldn't drink because every one of your relations is a drunk, including me." 

I am the mom of a 22-year-old kid who struggles with Substance Use Disorder. A lot. But also with whatever is available, including sports betting, screens, etc. Recently, after a mostly terrible summer, he started at the new fourth facility after getting kicked out of the third place for drinking. The fear and the guilt (I must be at least partially responsible for this) are overwhelming sometimes, as is the sadness. With this last admission to a facility, I finally understand how sick he is and how much this will be a part of his life forever and also, then, kinda mine. It feels unfair: Why him? Why me? But then, of course, why NOT me?

I do a lot of support meetings that the facility offers. I tried, but I am not a fan of Al-Anon. I guess I’m beginning to understand what working on my recovery means. I do most of the things. I struggle with thinking I should be sober too (alcohol) — in support of him and also because I know it’s not the healthiest thing for me. But I don’t know. And I don’t want to. I also find it funny and curious that I didn’t start a separate document for this. I had cut and pasted my colonoscopy prep instructions into a document to make the font bigger, and I added this at the bottom. Coincidence? Probably not.

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I drank a little this weekend. It felt like normal-person drinking, a thing I am not sure I've ever experienced. I ate first. Then I sipped. I forgot where I put my glass and didn't quite finish a beer. That's what people without problems do, right? Drink booze like it's just some other liquid? I'm over a year into trying to quit drinking. I'm 10 months clean from cocaine, which has been easy after getting through withdrawal. The appeal is just gone. Staying sober has been... more complicated. There have been lapses and a lot of therapy and even more quiet time with my dog and my journal working on accepting the many things I can't change. Lately I've been focused on re-parenting myself, with the following successes: routinely brushing my teeth before bed. Dealing with the onset of a stomach condition meant changing my diet overnight. Texting my mom about family medical history even though she’s ashamed she passed a minor heart defect on to me and therefore gives one-word answers. Maybe that's why I wanted those drinks: it was a way not to be the parent for a minute. To not consider the implications of my suddenly not-so-great health. Maybe this wasn't a sign that it's OK to drink again. Maybe this was another lapse—a mellow, easy one, but one nonetheless. I'm just trying to take it all in stride.

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Twelve years of stumbling through these rich neighborhoods on Halloween with other drunk parents, and last night, I did it sober. Tiger moms booming out from the darkness, shoving their kids toward each door, masked people pushing masked people in strollers, and a Macy’s Day parade barrage of inflatable costumes clearing everyone off the sidewalks. The miasma noise and children wearing adult costumes and junk and small talk that was so easy to ignore before is killing me.  And our group reeks of tequila… they've saved their bombings for nights like these when reality needs spackling over. I used to do that. But I wasted those nights when I didn’t need them. I envy their self-control. Watching the chaos and ruined lawns and realizing every fucking parent out here is drunk except me, I really don't love sobriety tonight.

***** 

I am closing in on 60 days sober, and so far, being an alcoholic might be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’ve realized how often I’ve been scared or been the problem and with some simple—if difficult—steps, I can be better. I find myself cherishing the bad days just as much as the good.

I’m finally showing up and being of service at AA meetings, at work, for my friends, my family, and my partner. I’m taking risks and working to grow. Despite my fears, I’m still silly and fun without alcohol and weed, and probably more. And I’m still an asshole, but now I remember to thank my mom and tell her I love her even when she grates on me.

I’ve realized I’m Pinocchio, and maybe, if I can follow the path and resist my baser instincts, I can learn to be a real boy.

*****

I have a tarot card reader that I found through Instagram (no judgment, please). She will do different types of card readings for me when I know the answer to a question but need reassurance. She doesn’t know me, but the cards scream to me this message: fear and anxiety are holding you back. The final card was strength, whispering to me that I can do this. One day, the alternatives to fear and anxiety will outweigh letting things be. 

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Sometimes it seems like the entire neighborhood is smoking pot. I walk my dog, and it’s omnipresent in the air. My eyes dart around trying to find the culprit: the cool young parents, the basketball teens, the yardwork guy. I fantasize about sitting on my own porch after a day of hard work, blowing my own smoke into the tapestry of neighborhood smells. I know where that leads. I’ve been there before. Before long, it’s 8 am, and I’m sitting on the porch drinking coffee and smoking pot before work, telling myself the caffeine cancels out the THC. I quit drinking 5 years ago, but the pot thing is more recent. I’m wondering if it will ever feel as empowering as quitting drinking did because right now, I mostly just feel sad.

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I’m a little over six thousand days at a time and really feeling everything: the promises, the bumps and grinds of life experienced straight with no chaser, and the isms that are still there. Putting my recovery first is the base-level action that keeps those isms in my back brain and away from the rapid destruction they cause when I act on them. But base-level isn’t enough. I came out of my foggy bottom, having lost decades and everything I had. I’ve regained most of it in the intervening years and am just getting started in earnest, a little past middle age and with a rocky road behind me.

I feel overwhelmed with gratitude every day and relieved that I survived to make it to recovery. Overwhelm and relief aren’t great feelings. They disorient me on some days and depress me on others. Thankfully, I’ve discovered that the more recovery work I do, the better I do and feel. And I’m an addict. I will crawl over broken glass to feel good. More recovery looks like daily prayer, meditation, meetings, and service, and being kind and easy on myself when I do it imperfectly or can’t get out of the shits. Of everything I’ve learned and experienced in recovery, the capacity for self-compassion is the greatest, most hard-won gift.

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This month /over the summer, I really just had to hit rock bottom and try to start to face my addictions that I immediately used to replace drinking: food and shopping. Now I’m overweight and in a lot of debt. But I’m seeing a nutritionist who is helping me reframe all of this. I cleaned out the pantry and threw away an entire trash barrel of expired food, I didn’t buy the dresses in my online cart yesterday, I’m going to debtors and eating disorders anonymous meetings, kind of attacking from all sides. It doesn’t make me feel better right NOW, feeling like I’m back at square one/those first hard days, but I know in my brain that it takes time, and that’s just hard to accept on the day-to-day.

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I've stopped drinking many, many times — and I usually only last a week. Two, at most. This time, I’m at 67 days. It would be great if I’d keep going to the point where it’s just who I am, no longer counting the days. But that will be a while. Plus, I’ve got to get through election day here in the US, which may just push me over the edge. And honestly, I don’t think I’d feel too guilty if I yielded to temptation that night. Still, I stayed alcohol-free through a friend’s three-day wedding weekend last month — in Italy, no less — where booze flowed as if from a faucet so I could do difficult things. 

Mostly, I don’t have any cravings. Or I can get past them fairly easily with some kind of small distraction, a crossword puzzle, or some mind-numbing TikTok videos. The other night, my partner’s overindulgence reminded me of my many past mistakes and how it’s so great to wake up clear-headed and ready to be productive. I sometimes forget that when I wonder why I don’t feel any better than I do. I mean, I’ve not had a drink in more than two months. Shouldn’t I feel perfect or something? 

But I have to remind myself that after 50 years of drinking, I’ve skirted drunken catastrophe more times than I deserve. My and others’ lives could have been so much worse had any of those close calls been the catastrophe it could’ve been. Reason enough to be satisfied and keep on keepin' on.

*****

I've been fixating on the U.S. general election longer than I care to admit. Now that it's finally here, I feel like someone is pulling a lever, and we're all dropping into a pool like in that swim-gym scene in “It's a Wonderful Life”—except the water might be filled with electric eels. Of course, I'm genuinely terrified of the stakes, yet at the same time, I'm aware that I'm using it as an excuse to bypass my grief over a relationship that ended before it started. We danced around my addiction for months, an intense bond forming more quickly than either of us was prepared for. I smiled at his morning texts at 7:00 AM sharp, knowing they'd be there every time. Like a serotonin-dopamine drip, "good morning," followed by a strong dose of flattery, chased with an easy conversation that would get me through my day like a sneaky little sumn-sumn in my morning coffee. Every time I got an itch, he awaited me with a scratch. "Gorgeous," he'd sigh when I reached for my phone after a hideous day. "Brilliant," he'd cheer after I spent the afternoon banging my head against the wall over words that never quite came together. "Having a drink, you?" he'd offer, a clear invitation, then pretend to listen and understand as I self-identified again as an alcoholic, only to "forget" again and text me his poorly-lit wine porn within three days.

I am still trying to resist the impulse to check my phone long after I blocked him. Other than that, I'm swell. No one has offered to lasso Earth's moon for me, but I'm alive. Isn't it wonderful?

I'm 42 days sober (my umpteenth attempt to get on that damn wagon). While the initial euphoria has worn off, and it's not quite so thrilling to "reward myself" with NA mocktails as it was a few weeks ago. I still think, "Sobriety is my superpower,” as both encouragement and unexpected observation.

I started a new job this month; it's going well. I've made it through a handful of social situations. Now Thanksgiving is looming large, with a group trip to Mexico to follow (No margaritas at sunset? Perish the thought!)... But I'm so much nicer to my kids and partner, and I sleep better, and I have more free time in my day and in my mind when I'm not hungover/beating myself up for drinking/calculating how many drinks I'm allowed to have/etc. I read a great Oldster recently where Alice Kaltman summed up the feeling so accurately: "No one seemed to understand that a controlled addiction was still an addiction, that it preoccupied and distracted me...until I satisfied my craving." Unrelated/totally related: my dad is almost 12 months sober after 50+ years of alcohol abuse. Chins up, demons! 

fin

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OTHER RECENT CHECK-INS:

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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.

You can also get a Sunday issue for $8 a month or $60 per year. The Sunday issue is a recovery bonanza full of gratitude lists, a study guide to my daily recovery routines, a poem I like, the TSB Spotify playlist, and more exclusive essays.

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ZOOM MEETING SCHEDULE

Monday: 5:30 p.m. PT/ 8:30 p.m ET

Wednesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET

Thursday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Women and non-binary meeting.)

Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET

Saturday: Mental Health Focus (Peer support for bipolar/anxiety/depression.) 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET

Sunday: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET

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If you don't feel comfortable calling yourself an "alcoholic," that's fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, DEBT, codependency, love, loneliness, depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.

FORMAT: CROSSTALK, TOPIC MEETING

We're there for an hour, sometimes more. We'd love to have you.

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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:

For My Daughter In Reply To a Question

by David Ignatow

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We’re not going to die,
we’ll find a way.
We’ll breathe deeply
and eat carefully.
We’ll think always on life.
There’ll be no fading for you or for me.
We’ll be the first
and we’ll not laugh at ourselves ever
and your children will be my grandchildren.
Nothing will have changed
except by addition.
There’ll never be another as you
and never another as I.
No one ever will confuse you
nor confuse me with another.
We will not be forgotten and passed over
and buried under the births and deaths to come.

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ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN