December 29: My Vulnerableversary

December 29, 2017

I’ve become that stay-at-home mom who can’t get through the witching hour without a glass of wine (which inevitably leads to more) and that needs to change… My heart is pounding at the thought of posting this and appealing for help, but I need it.

December 29, 2018

I have defeated the wine witch. She may never completely disappear, I know. But she is vanquished. She will continue to try to tempt me but she will only continue to waste away.

I am still fighting other foes, and I am still a work in progress. But I have already slain my fiercest enemy. I have already won the war and claimed my prize: self-love.

December 29, 2019

December 29 has become a benchmark for me, so I could not let the day pass without reflection. On this day two years ago, while floundering at the nadir of my gray area drinking (my own personal gray-dir), I finally got up the guts to appeal for help. On this day last year, at almost exactly half-way through my One Year Alcohol-Free, I felt triumphant, focused, and energized with my eyes on the prize of reaching 365 days without booze.

And here we are again: December 29. I have not had a drink in 543 days. Alcohol freedom is now my reality. It is no longer an impossible-turned-possible goal. Any temptation to drink passes faster than a skunk smell on a highway as I continue to live on sober cruise control.

Sobriety is easy, but life is not. I feel mired in the real work. The work that I drank to avoid for so many years. Since vanquishing the wine witch, I have gotten to know myself again, and grown to respect and love myself again. I have also come to understand that there is deep work to be done in order to move forward with honesty into the next phase of my #AFlife: mid-motherhood and my fierce, give-fewer-effs 40s. Now that both of my kids are in elementary school, it is time to reclaim the hours of care and pieces of me that they rightfully hoarded as babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. It is time to decide if I really have the guts to write a book. It is time to face the reality that alcoholism exists in my family. It is time to conquer my emotional eating and reliance on sugar that I drowned out with alcohol for two decades.

Easy peasy! No problemo! Ha. Not so much.

I wish I felt last December 29th’s glow today, but I don’t. I am no less grateful for the incredible support I received from my #sobersisters on Connect, without whom this December 29 would not be my 544th day of alcohol freedom. I am no less in awe of the fact that in two short years I have completely changed my once inescapable and abusive relationship with wine. I once felt as if I were standing at the foot of a mountain, empty sauvignon blanc bottles littering the ground around my feet, unable to discern any hint of a path to even start my ascent. I somehow managed to find those first footholds and some strong branches to grasp, and I climbed. But now I can see that what I thought was the summit was just a plateau. The next stage of the climb had not been visible through my gray area fog.

One of the greatest gifts of alcohol freedom is clarity – and I can see clearly now, the fog is gone. I can see some big-ass obstacles in my way. I can see that I still have a steep climb ahead. And on this December 29, I am feeling a little wistful and a little out of my league. Can’t I just climb that first part again? It was so much fun (once I got the hang of it)! What if this next stage is too hard? What if I don’t have the discipline or the stamina or the ability?

What if I don’t make it?

I think it’s safe to say that I’m a little bit terrified.

I was terrified on this day two years ago, too. I may have a long way to go, but I am a long way from where I started. I have no choice but to believe in myself, because I have already proven that I can achieve the impossible-turned-possible.

It’s time to gear up.