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: Road Recovery
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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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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…