MARIA MACKENTY
Then I would wake up the next morning and do it all again. Ground Hog Day. When I compare that life to the life I have today, I laugh at the thought of ever going back. Never again! But I cannot take this for granted. I have to enter each day with the crystal clear awareness that if not for sobriety, I would not have this life. I hold my sober rituals close, I reach out to other sober women to give and receive support, I express my gratitude to my God for this insanely amazing opportunity to live fully, no matter the circumstance. Without the incredible gift that sobriety is, I wouldn’t notice the seasons changing. The flowers breaking through warmed soil, the buds on trees opening into blossoms, the fragrant smells that fill the air. Spring turning to summer. I would be filled with anxiety and consumed by the relentless pull of the bottle. So everyday I start with gratitude that I get to be sober, that I have a life filled with love and support and that I have the strong and powerful universe to guide and sustain me. My life is a miracle.
I went through the motions of living, without feeling alive. I was lost, alone and afraid. I drank to quiet those feelings, only to wake the next day and feel them more acutely. I wanted out of that cycle. But that was my secret. I never told anyone that I was in trouble. Few people in my life had any suspicion. I surrounded myself with friends and family that drank like I did and would never question my drinking patterns. But I knew. And I wanted out, I just didn’t know how to stop. My path to sober spaces feels like a story of divine intervention. I was looking, but I was also led. There was no Google, so no Google search. Just a sincere desire to not have to drink everyday. I wound up in the company of a sober woman who recognized me without my having to say much and gave me her hand. It was not a planned intervention or me looking for and alcohol treatment center, it was a happenstance meeting. Yet it did not feel like a coincidence, it felt like it was meant to be. When her hand reached out, I took it and I haven’t had to drink since. The life I’ve built in sobriety is a beauty. It’s real and messy and full of love and support. I have NO doubt that if I were to make the stupidest decision of my life and pick up a drink again, ALL of what I have would disappear. Because I would disappear. I would be consumed by the daily cycle of regret, determination not to drink, doubt, angst, negotiation, inevitable succumbing, relief (lasting 30 minutes, tops!), compulsion and finally stupor.
I drank for 17 of my 66 years. Only 17. We can all do the math and deduce that for the vast majority of my life I have been alcohol free. How then could I make such a bold statement as, without sobriety there is nothing? How could I know, down to my toes and deep within, that if I were to drink, I would loose everything in my life that I hold dear? Well, because that is addiction. The only thing alcohol ever did for me was quiet my anxiety; my inner disturbance that began early in my life and that I was not able to resolve. When I was young, there was no support for children and families in crisis. No Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, no child psychologists, no school counselors, no peer support groups. There was no help for children who were struggling. Perhaps in a family of better means, rather than one with single mother of eight children, I would have been seen and recognized, but that was not my experience So when I found alcohol, the relief was immense!! All I wanted was as much as I could get, whenever I could get it. I was 13 years old. My experience was not one of a social drinker, with fancy glasses in elegant environments. There was nothing romantic about my drinking. In hindsight, I think this is a blessing. I don’t own a pair of rose colored glasses. My life was on and extended pause during those years that I drank. I did not mature, I did not develop healthy skills for living, I did not create the relationships that I longed for.
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