Month: May 2016

How to be Sober at a Wedding

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I was worried about being sober at a wedding, especially in my hometown where I spent half of my life in a drunken haze. My former self saw weddings as a guaranteed path to intoxication and finding a hook up. Everyone else is going to be hammered, you can be, too! Make sure you get a bottle of Jack Daniels in case the reception is beer and wine only. Oooh…we can pre-game with the whiskey!

While most of my blog posts are written for a general audience, this one is specifically written with people in recovery in mind. Here’s a list of tips for attending a wedding sans booze:

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Addiction to Personal Development

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I have an addictive personality. I don’t just like something…I LOOOOOVE something. And I want everyone to love it, too. I’ve been told that my excitement can come across as pushy, aggressive, and judgmental at times, so I’ve been working on scaling that back a bit. But to be completely honest, I’ve been “working on” a lot. From being more vulnerable to being less judgmental to communicating more clearly to improving my running pace to having a flatter stomach to writing more often to being a better listener to eating less sugar to blah blah blah. You get the idea. It’s f***ing exhausting and I don’t know how to give myself a break. Continue reading “Addiction to Personal Development” →

The Parallels Between Bulimia and Addiction

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Obsession: the state of being obsessed with someone or something; an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind

Perfection: the condition, state, or quality of being free from all flaws or defects

Until recently, when I heard the word bulimia, I visualized a teenage girl or a young woman in her 20’s. I thought bulimia was overeating then throwing up the food. After chatting with Stevie, I realized how little I knew about this devastating disease and how similar it is to drug and alcohol addiction.

Stevie is not your stereotypical “girl” with an eating disorder: she’s a 54 year woman and she’s not alone. Eating disorders among middle-aged women are more common than we realize. When a woman goes through menopause, her body goes through dramatic changes similar to puberty. Perhaps if our society didn’t see menopause as taboo, we could hear what these women are actually going through. A 2012 study shows that 13% of American women over 50 show symptoms of an eating disorder, 60% of them state that they allow their size to negatively impact their lives, and 70% are actively trying to lose weight. Continue reading “The Parallels Between Bulimia and Addiction” →

Contributor Piece: A Mother’s Battle with Addiction by Rose Lockinger

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The two greatest days of my life were the days that my children were born. Unfortunately, my disease cast a long shadow over those happy events. My disease knew no bounds; it didn’t care if it destroyed everything that I love.

At times, I believed that a mother’s love for her children would be enough; that it would keep me from tumbling over the edge of oblivion and into the chasm of addiction. Believing this lie kept feeding my guilt, forcing me further and further into the abyss. When everything inside me was screaming “Stop for your children!”, I couldn’t. I hated myself for this.

I pretended that I was superwoman. I thought I could do it all: work full time, go to school, take care of two small children, and keep a marriage that was doomed from the beginning. He and I were toxic together. His emotional and physical abuse had taken a toll on my ability to cope with life. Eventually even my love for my children was not enough to hold my addictions at bay. Continue reading “Contributor Piece: A Mother’s Battle with Addiction by Rose Lockinger” →

Ten Years Towards a Bachelor’s Degree

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On this day in 2014, I finally graduated college at the age of 28. I took the scenic route, to say the very least. I lost sight of my destination, so I stopped to explore as many parties, concerts, and intoxicants as I could.

For as long as I can remember, education was something that I always wrestled with. I was fighting some internal demons so learning the Pythagorean Theorem and the Periodic Table of the Elements seemed like a waste of time. I got expelled from high school in my junior year because I passed out in science class due to a dangerous mix of 5 bars of Xanax and copious amounts of weed. The school nurse had to revive me and carry me to her office. She found more drugs in my backpack, hence the expulsion. I had to attend an alternative education program where I finished my GED within months. In a brief moment of sobriety, I took advantage of being able to start college earlier than most of my friends.

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My Reflective Conversation with Mom

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This Mother’s Day, I decided to celebrate it in a unique way: by having my mom interview me. This all started when Mom mentioned that even though she reads my blog, she still has some questions about my issues with alcohol.

I’m an only child and she raised me as a single mom, so we developed a very tight bond. We are more like sisters than mother and daughter. From politics to religion to health to dating to sex, no topic has ever been off limits. She even bought me my first vibrator when I was in high school. She wanted me to know that despite what society projects, there is nothing wrong with female sexuality. She raised me in a progressive household, creating an interesting juxtaposition in a predominantly conservative community of Waco, Texas.

The following conversation took place on a drive from Waco to The Woodlands. We discussed addiction, feminism, homosexuality, Texas conservatives, and much more…

Mom: Do you think you’ll ever drink again?

SobrieTea Party: I would love to be able to have a beer, but one drink could lead me to internally justifying a night of partying with my friends. I don’t want to risk that.

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Shout Out: Lauren Stahl of SPARKITE

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Meet Lauren Stahl, the founder and CEO of SPARKITE. After receiving treatment for an eating disorder, alcohol addiction, and drug addiction, Lauren left her job on Wall Street to follow her passion for helping others in recovery. Her mission is to enhance addiction treatment by enabling accountability, support, and communication after treatment. This is how her app, SPARKITE, was born. This revolutionary app provides a tech based aftercare support platform to Addiction Treatment Centers to help keep patients accountable to their recoveries and connected to their support communities.

She and I crossed paths at a Hay House event in November 2015. After just a few moments of chatting with her, it was clear that she was passionate about helping people in recovery achieve their goals. We met while I was coming to terms (silently) with my own drinking problem. Shortly after meeting Lauren, I decided to stop drinking and start this blog.

She’s been featured on Huffington Post, ABC News, SPARKITE was selected to be part of Blue Print Health’s Winter 2016 program, and now she’s been interviewed on SobrieTea Party:

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Back to My Roots

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I went back to my natural hair color. I’ve been searching for beautiful metaphors to create an epic transitional essay. I’ve been trying to read into the fact that we used a clarifier to lift the eccentric colors from my hair, hoping that it represents clarifying other things in my life. This research felt so forced, so inorganic. Maybe I was grasping for meaning in something that defies meaning.

A few weeks ago, I looked in the mirror and for the first time, I saw beyond the rainbow. I saw the level of damage I had done to my hair and I no longer identified with the color.

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