We want to stop the overwhelming sense of what is the point of it all anyway, who am I, who cares who I am, I need to get a handle on this, mind-altered with hormonal explosions month-in-month-out viewing the world through the prism of quiet drunken madness. It’s a swirling mess in our heads, we know this, but we don’t know this. We want to stop drinking but we don’t know how to stop drinking. We want a life of peace and simplicity but the sheer boredom of that prospect paralyzes us from ever actually doing something about it. We justify. We deny. We are at war with ourselves and the world, the bottle and the glass but do little to change the status quo because it’s a crutch, a coping mechanism, it’s safe and unsafe ground.
One of the many gifts of being a Hola-Sober- card-carrying-non-drinker is the sheer freedom from the permanent internal dialogue, the endless wine conversations in my head that littered every evening for a decade-plus. Bloody hell, it was singularly the most soul-destroying line of self-questioning, self-analysis and navel- gazing since Adam and Eve studied the God- forsaken apple. Not drinking means “I understand myself differently now,” I am no longer wedged between the “I could have been and I never will be - sober.” What does not drinking say to me this sunshine morning, it shouts with a loud clear call saying “Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.” – Glennon Doyle Go out into your Monday and be powerfully indulgent of your sober promise to yourself and DO NOT bend to the ways of those who disapprove of your choices. It's not their life that needs saving…..
We love it. We hate it. We loathe it.
We despise it. We shop for it. Plan to have it. Plan to not have it. An endless round of promises, broken promises, broken Mondays, broken Sundays. An endless exhausting cycle of chucking wine down the sink and regretting that act of defiance hours later. It’s stopping at the wine store, parking the car, having an internal dialogue to not go in, to then go in, to have another internal dialogue in the wine aisle “One bottle, no two bottles, no one bottle, no two bottles. No bottles. This time no bottles. Yes, just one bottle." Regret that decision. Be grateful for that decision. One is better than two. Dysfunction. Wild-eyed dysfunction with lipstick and heels on but dysfunction nonetheless. The wine years, blind and utter chaos.
Please join me in the sober dawn chorus as we say not today lady, not today.
Susan xxxxx
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