Back in January, I celebrated five years of sobriety. It was a quiet affair, much quieter than I always assumed a five year milestone would be. But it was perfect in its simplicity, and I found I didn’t need the fanfare in the way I once did.
When I first stopped drinking, the milestones held a lot of significance for me: one month, three months, six months, a year without alcohol. I was moving in the opposite direction of a life I no longer wanted and every day logged was one step farther from that life. I was moving away from hangovers, from drinking as my only form of relaxation, from the guilt and shame of waking up and not knowing how I’d behaved the night before. I was drifting further from social connections that were only based on a shared love of drinking, from believing that every activity was automatically made more enjoyable with a glass of wine in hand.
I had an app on my phone that tallied up the days; I remember logging in multiple times a day and staring at the two digit numbers, imagining them growing to three and even four digits, a tangible reminder of what I was accomplishing. I’ve always been like that, someone who needs tangibility to feel the weight of accomplishment. The grade on the paper, the faster time on the stopwatch, the compliment on the job well done. Like so many people do, I was living more for the milestones than the ordinary moments, which is sad, of course, since milestones make up such a small percentage of our actual lives.
I don’t remember when I stopped using the app, probably when I got rid of an old phone and forgot to reinstall it on the new one. It wasn’t an intentional choice, at least not that I can recall. However it happened, I stopped counting the days, which was probably a step in the right direction for someone who has a complicated history with achievement. I knew my sobriety anniversary and marked it in some small way each year, but gone were the days of knowing my exact down-to-the-day count.
The way I engaged with my sobriety changed over time too. In the beginning, I wrote a lot about the act of abstaining from alcohol. I’m not ashamed of that now—it’s just where I was at the time. My life had become so rooted in drinking, and I had to process how it felt to yank those roots up one by one. Lifestyle, friendships, identity, fun, self-esteem, relaxation. Each time I ripped up a new weed, I held it up to examine it, marveling at how deep and widespread I’d allowed the roots to grow. But as I got further into sobriety, I found that the act of ripping up old roots had become less interesting to me than deciding what to grow there instead. There would always be weeds to dig up; I understood that I wasn’t done with that part of it. But I was tired of living my life in opposition to a cultural choice. I just wanted to grow something new and enjoy the fruits of that growth.
It would be impossible to calculate all the ways in which sobriety has changed my life for the better, to discern what would have bloomed naturally and what was a result of all that intentional weeding and pruning. It’s probably better that it’s no longer discernible. It’s just one big mess of flowers and weeds, blooming and dying in endless, asynchronous cycles. Every now and then when I make a bold decision or confront a long-held fear, I wonder if I’d have made the same choice if I was still drinking. And it’s always impossible to know for sure. I wouldn’t even be in the position to make some of those choices if alcohol was still in the picture. I wouldn’t be the exact version of me that I am now, which is really all I know for sure.
Over the years, my sobriety has evolved in ways I never anticipated. The early years felt aggressively radical, fiery, a little bit angry. I was mad at the alcohol industry, mad at myself for living that way for too long, mad at other people for still living that way. I’m not ashamed of that either—it was a phase I needed to move through. But five years in, a lot of the fire has died down for me. I can look back on my drinking years with self-compassion and a lot more clarity; I can even admit that it was really fucking fun at times. I can look at other people enjoying alcohol and not feel like it’s my mission to stop them from enjoying it.
Last night, my girlfriends and I went out to celebrate my friend’s birthday. We spent the night on the dance floor at a casino, surrounded by people in various states of intoxication. As the night wore on and the people around us seemed to get a little sloppier and more glassy-eyed, I realized it didn’t bother me one iota. We were sober and we were having an incredible time. Most of the other people were not and they also seemed to be having an incredible time. There was plenty of room for both experiences on the dance floor.
After four hours of dancing, my friends and I walked barefoot through the empty hallways, our tired feet protesting with every step. It was 2 AM and we headed for the car, which was parked roughly 200 miles away in the parking garage. “That was everything I wanted for my birthday,” my friend Michelle remarked, an exhausted but blissful look on her face. Each of us agreed it had been the perfect night, recounting all the forgotten 90s songs we’d gotten to dance to. “It feels really cool that none of us needed alcohol to enjoy that,” I said. “Like I don’t think I ever had that much fun dancing in my entire life, even when I was drinking.” My friends nodded in agreement.
It occurred to me that, for once, sobriety had delivered me something clear and tangible: a uniquely perfect moment I’m positive I would have experienced in a very different way had I been under the influence. I don’t get those moments much anymore since I’m not as interested in seeking them out, but it’s still kind of lovely when one of them appears. The constant weeding gets so tiring sometimes; there’s always more shit under the surface than what meets the eye. But every now and then one of those rare and exotic blooms comes pushing right up through the soil, and it reminds me that the outcome is well worth the work.
With the exception of my first book, I have never sought payment for my writing. It’s something I’ve always given to the world free of charge. But it does take time and energy to produce, and I’m getting (a little) better these days at better valuing both my time and energy. If you enjoy my work and you can afford to contribute to the expansion of my career as a writer, I would humbly ask you to consider a monthly or yearly membership, at $5/mo and $50/year respectively. These funds will help me to continue to make space for writing in my life and also grow as a writer, particularly as I embark on my pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing later this spring. As a paid subscriber, you will receive both my free Sunday newsletter as well as one just for paid subscribers on Wednesdays.
Thank you to all of you who have supported my work in all its forms throughout the years. I am so deeply appreciative.
Beautiful metaphor and story, Melissa. Thanks for sharing all of that. Grad school is exciting! Congrats!