Ten Years Sober

July 4th is an incredible milestone for our country- every year but especially this year. I am proud to be an American. But tomorrow is important for another reason and this year (a few months before I turn thirty) I am also proud to be ten years sober. 

For those of you who math, yes that means I had a drinking problem when i was underage. I got into it when I was sixteen but it really escalated when I was seventeen. This became a problem for two reasons: 1) I did dumb, risky shit when I was drunk. 2) I began to use it to self-medicate. I had diagnosed OCD and anxiety but I also had bipolar type 1 and I was dealing with crippling mania and depression. When I stopped drinking (in the wake of drinking so much I vomited blood) I thought it would be temporary. If someone told me it would be forever, I don’t think I could have handled it. I literally had to take it one day at a time. Drinking meant so much to me. If I thought I had to give it up forever, I would have been devastated. 

Not drinking (that is to say, sobriety) maybe has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I am aware of what I say and do. I don’t make mistakes (okay I do make mistakes. But they are smaller and happen significantly less often). I can remember what I did the night before and safe to say, it’s not cheating on my boyfriend (I don’t think I cheated when I was drunk. But I would flirt outrageously and make everyone in the vicinity uncomfortable). 

Being put on medication for my bipolar disorder really helped me manage my moods. I won’t lie; it hasn’t been easy. I have been hospitalized six times, the most recent being three years ago where I spent my sobriety date watching fire works from the window. But I also had to learn coping mechanisms and skills to deal with both my addiction and my disease. I began to write poetry eventually getting involved in slam poetry competitions. I started getting involved in collaging and scrapbooking and soon A.C. Moore became my mothership. I started (and finished) writing my memoir which is as yet unpublished.

I still do get urges to drink, usually at parties or when everybody else is drinking. This happens during jello shots at New Year’s parties. It happens at pub crawls on St. Patrick’s Day. I am generally very comfortable being in an environment where everyone else is drinking. All my friends know my situation and even if they don’t and they offer me a drink, I haven’t been in a position where I feel pressured. But sometimes I miss that warm feeling I used to get that I associate with being tipsy. Like people love me, like I’m flying, like I can never mess up, that everything I do is the right thing. For someone with anxiety that is confidence I usually can’t obtain. 

But for every year that goes by, it just gets easier. And I know people love me, I don’t need a beverage to tell me that. And it is because I am with the right people, people who respect and value me, I feel confident even without liquid courage. I used to be terrified that what I said would come off sounding dumb and socializing sober was very difficult before I got to college. But I’m a different person now. I’m a sober person. And I am perfectly okay with that.