Sharing my recovery story to a group of 100 middle school students was a little intimidating. While I’ve done lots of public speaking on the topic of addiction, the audience has always been adults who were somewhat interested in sobriety or mental health. I worried that these kids would be bored by the 33-year-old woman telling them not to do drugs. I remembered being their age, bored as hell by D.A.R.E. and rolling my eyes at adults who told me to “Just Say No”. I thought about what 12 year old me would have wanted to hear; what would have made the idea of getting wasted sound like a bad idea even though celebrities glamorize it and post InstaStories of themselves popping champagne and Xanax while hitting a vape pen.
Tag: mental health
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three. years. sober.
My last drink was on November 29th, 2015. It was a pint of delicious Paulaner Hefeweizen from the historical Fanelli‘s pub in SoHo. I drank this pint with two dear friends and their pints, after work. Our four-hour conversation shifted from New York City madness to what we want to be when we grow up to complaining about annoying customers and their demands of high-end yoga pants. I whined about not having enough time to write - the reason I moved to New York City. As we bonded over more pints, time seemed to stand still - until it didn’t. Our plan was to have one beer. Four hours later I was enjoying a beer buzz that can only be achieved from several beers as I navigated towards the PATH train.
I think of this day often. Sometimes I wish my last drinking episode consisted of more booze and more drama so I could have gone out with a bang. A few beers over four hours was tame for me. It’s not the story you see on TV or in movies where a person loses everything, has a dangerously low rock bottom, and then they decide to quit drinking. I’ve grown to appreciate what us sober folks call a “high bottom”. It’s important to share these stories, too. I’m thankful that I didn’t have to lose everything to wake up and see that alcohol was a significant roadblock - a roadblock that I kept putting in my own way - for more than a decade.
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19th Nervous Breakdown
I’ve always sung along to The Rolling Stones 1966 hit, “19th Nervous Breakdown“, because it’s a catchy song. These last few weeks I’ve learned to appreciate the lyrics on a personal level. Especially the chorus:
“You better stop, look around
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown”
I was forced to stop and look around because it finally happened. I had a nervous breakdown. I say finally because I knew it was coming but I ignored the warning signs for months:
Tight chest
Difficulty breathing
Exhaustion due to being overworked
Several smaller meltdowns
Extreme anxiety
Weight loss
Burn out
I kept telling myself to push through because that’s what a successful writer and entrepreneur should do. THIS IS WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE, RIGHT?!? Wrong. I don’t want my version of success to sacrifice taking a breath.
So I surrendered. I finally stopped denying my pending breakdown and let it wash over me. I released the tears I’ve been holding in for way too long. I curled up in my bed and sobbed, not because I’m weak. Because I’m strong.
The photo I used for this blog post accurately depicts how I felt: blurry, imperfect and full of rage because my suppressed emotions were pouring out of me.
This is one of the most common questions that I’m asked. Looking back, I’d say that I knew I had a drinking problem when I started questioning my relationship with alcohol. The years leading up to the day when I quit drinking were filled with sporadic breaks from booze…just to prove to myself that “I didn’t have a problem”. Those years were also filled with Googling questions like, “Am I an alcoholic? Do I have a drinking problem? Should I quit drinking?”. I did a series of mental gymnastics in an attempt to convince myself that since I didn’t NEED alcohol every day, I was fine. I looked at how the media and Hollywood discuss addiction. I didn’t relate to any of those stories, so again, I was fine.
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Kate Spade’s Red Scarf
Kate Spade’s tragic suicide is a stark reminder that even women who appear to have it all can be suffering, often in invisible ways.
As a wealthy and successful designer who built her career on all-American designer handbags, Kate Spade is not the type of person one would imagine could do something like this. And that’s a problem. Society has an ideal image of what things “should” look like.
Click here to read the full article on A Women’s Thing.
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We’re Award-Winning Filmmakers!
During the holidays last year, B. Rae and I made a documentary about our recovery stories. We named it Fixed Up after Chip & Joanna Gaines’s show, Fixer Upper, that takes place in our hometown of Waco, Texas. B. Rae and I have been social media friends for over a decade, and are both reformed party girls working to make a change in the recovery world while living on the East Coast. But we never met in person until the day we started making this film. We thought the idea of making a movie about this might be interesting…and clearly it was. Last night, we won an award for “Best Hope Film” at the New Jersey Recovery Film Festival!!! The presenter/festival director, Chris Capaci, said our film provides hope and progress in the recovery community. 🙂
But let me back up a bit to describe how our magical day began…
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Living with Agitated Depression
The last two and a half years have been an emotional roller coaster. I moved to New York City, got sober, lost both of my grandmothers, and my mother was sick. I spent much of that time in denial about my depression. I subconsciously chose to stay busy in order to avoid processing the emotions that came along with those big life changes. I lived in “go mode”. Often prioritizing others’ needs. The more time I spent helping others, the less time I had to deal with my own emotions. While there’s nothing wrong with helping people, there’s something wrong with why I was so eager to help.
*This blog post was sponsored by Workit Health. All of these opinions are my own. Please note that I am not a licensed medical professional nor addiction specialist. If you’re interested in trying Workit Health, you can use the discount code workitrocks for 25% off.*
The recovery world has evolved quite a bit over the last few years. Society has accepted that if someone has a drinking problem they must admit to being an alcoholic and begin working the 12 Steps in an AA meeting. Or check into rehab. That school of thought wasn’t inviting to someone like me: a young party girl with a social binge drinking problem. I went to one AA meeting. It wasn’t for me. I was lucky enough to find sobriety through yoga, writing, therapy, and supportive loved ones. If I had found Workit Health when I was in early sobriety, it would have made my transition into sober life quite a bit easier.
Over the last few months, I’ve compiled a list of “notes to self” in my phone while sitting on the subway. I wrote these reminders for my own sanity. They help me calm down when I feel a spiral of self-loathing coming on. This list isn’t always pretty, but it’s grounded in a reality that I’ve learned to accept. Call them mantras. Call them affirmations. Call them maybe.
Like many rock fans, I’ve liked Audioslave’s song “Doesn’t Remind Me” since it came out in 2005. The lyrics didn’t fully resonate with me until I heard it again last fall - AKA one year sober. In the song, Chris Cornell sings about finding pleasure in mundane activities to avoid thinking about the heavier things in life. I can definitely relate. For me, a life of sobriety means being tuned into reality more than I’ve ever been before - and it sucks sometimes.