To live in this world
I got sober in early November, 14 years ago, and those first few weeks were dark, literally and figuratively. I had given up Plan A—nightly drinking—and was exploring Plan B, namely recovery. On my first sober weekend, I took my university roommate and her two grown daughters up north, where they chose not to drink—in solidarity. At cocktail hour, I felt like a monkey trying to tie her shoelaces: all was awkward and uncomfortable. But they set me up well. We walked among the radiant fall leaves, laughed the knowing laughter of old friends, inhaled the fragrance of wood smoke, spending hours by the fire. We ate well, slept even better and bear- hugged hugged goodbye. After they left, one day at a time, I protected my sobriety. I went to meetings, under the tutelage of my wise sober friend. At her suggestion, I would go to bed early to outfox the end-of-day cravings; I would turn to my journal on waking, to metabolize all I was feeling. I sent her a daily gratitude list. My breakup with alcohol was so new, and my nerve endings were raw. There were days when I felt so many feelings that I wished my life were over. I didn’t yet trust the process, as they say. But my life wasn’t over. Far from it. In fact, it was just beginning. Come that first spring, six months sober, I found myself with renewed friendships, a re-invigorated relationship with my son—and a rekindled writing career. My sister and I were close once more, I had new sober friends, life was good. Fourteen years later, life is richer than I could have imagined. The lesson? Never mistake the quiet season for the end, the messy middle for an unhappy outcome. We are all in transition. Day by day, we shed old habits and evolve new ones. When we protect our sobriety, when we say no to numbing and yes to the adventure known as living, the outcome is assured: eventually, spring will come. And when it does, all things are possible.
you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it
against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
--Mary Oliver
I am putting away my garden for winter, raking the radiant yellow leaves into the ravine, tidying up the hydrangeas and the hostas, bidding farewell to my magical patch of green. Soon will come the darkening of the November light, and the first fluffy snow, heralding the beginning of a long Canadian winter. I love living in a country with seasons, and I savor the mystery of what lies below. Buried under the mounds of white will be the tulip bulbs and the bleeding heart and the snowdrops—first harbingers of spring: invisible beneath the surface, actors preparing their parts for another season. Never mistake their silence for inactivity. The same holds true for us. As we bid farewell to old habits, and create the new ones of health and connection, there is no telling what is taking root below the surface, flourishing in the quiet. Years ago, in new sobriety, I remember lamenting: all is lost, there is nothing new. How wrong I was: what a lie I had absorbed. For me, alcohol was glamorous, and then an exit—a way to numb. When I gave it up, I was sure that my life was where fun had gone to die. That was not true. In the liminal space between quitting and sure-footed sober living, many new gifts were appearing in my life. New friendships, new creativity, new zest. A new love of quiet, a return to reading and writing. Above all, new self-respect.
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HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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