Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. I’m eight. They say that when you start drinking alcoholically, you stop growing emotionally. Since I started at 13, I guess I now have the emotional intelligence of a 21-year-old. (Hey, I’m finally an adult.) 

I quit drinking right before the holidays — the masochist in me. I went to meetings, called my sponsor, read the Big Book, prayed, and remembered that I didn’t want my child to grow up with an alcoholic mother. That’s how I did it. I remember making it through that first year and thinking I was home-free. The first year of anything is telling. A new marriage, a new job. You go through all of the holidays and birthdays and ups and downs of daily life. Once you have a year under your belt, you can look back and say, “I can do this; I did it last year.” But four years into my sobriety, my 20-year-old nephew was killed. He crashed his car into a semi-truck after drinking all day. All I wanted to do was drink. I went to an AA meeting and it was someone’s first birthday. She talked about how good it felt to get that first year behind her. When it was my turn to talk, I broke the celebratory mood with my grief and, through my sobs, I said, “Don’t get comfortable.” Never pretend that the party is over.

Recently, I was having a bad day and I told my Little Darling, “I think I’m just going to smoke and get drunk.” (Joking, of course.) She said, “I can’t even imagine you doing that. It would be as out of character as a kitten weilding a machine gun.” At that moment, I realized that I had succeeded. I wanted her to have a stable, loving, nurturing, sober mother and that is how she sees me. Wow. It’s amazing when life works out the way you want it to — so far.

Of course, eight years of sobriety have taught me that you are not home-free once you make it through the first year. That’s why AAers are always saying, “One day at a time.” That’s the key. If you try to imagine that you will be sober for the rest of your life, it seems daunting (and unfair). So you just say, I will not drink today and that is good enough. I don’t have to think about whether or not I will drink tomorrow or November 4, 2009 or ten years from now. What matters is today. That’s enough.

Recently, I had a health screening through my place of employment. You fill out a questionnaire and they take your blood, weight, blood pressure, and so forth. The questionnaire had all sorts of questions about alcohol and tobacco consumption. I proudly answered zero when asked how many alcoholic drinks I ingest or how much tobacco I consume. When I received my results, I was low risk in every category (except I am six pounds overweight — all those sweets). Other than advising me to eat a little less and move a little more, the report said to just keep doing what I’m doing. It didn’t say, you are healthy, so go ahead and start drinking and smoking again. It said, keep doing what you’re doing. In other words, “Don’t get comfortable.” I won’t. Someone pass the cake, please.