Today with five days until book launch, I celebrate FOUR YEARS of sobriety.
Cheers, they say.
But not really.
Because no one really knows how to congratulate someone for not being an embarrassing, unhealthy, money-wasting, regret-filled, two-bottle-of-wine (at least), people-pleasing yet functioning, “inspiration,” lawyer, IRONMAN …and drunk.
All those adjectives? A perfectly acceptable way to describe me four years ago.
I can admit these now because I am full of the Truth these days. I can see. I can see exactly who and what I am. I can also see who and what I was. I can see the hell I have traveled, the money and friends I have lost, and the way that I am thrilled to be right here–right where I am–right now.
The problem with sobriety–if there is one–is that when you quit drinking literally none of your problems go away. Not in the way you might think, at least.
For example, I literally lost no weight. Which was confusing to me, because how can one go from ingesting an extra 1500+ calories a day to not, and fail to lose weight? Well, the answer is simple: I replaced booze with ice cream. So that explained that.
I was also extremely tired. Despite staying up until midnight and beyond while drinking (and then waking up at 5am to workout), I seemed to have energy. Now, stone cold sober, I was suddenly going to bed at 9:30 and sleeping until 6:30. And yet, I was wiped.
The weariness that comes with sobriety is inexplicable.
Perhaps because my body was, for the first time in a really long time, repairing itself versus trying to just get ahead of metabolizing all the shit in my system. I slept hard and deep. I woke up in a state of confusion. What is this clear-headedness I am experiencing? Do I really like this?
The answer after a few days was a resounding, YES! Oh, my goodness, I felt like a zillion bucks after a few weeks and months of sobriety. Is THIS what ‘normal’ people actually feel like in the morning?
There is no doubt that the physical positives are real. Eventually, the mental and emotional effects followed. But really, the emotions were difficult. Because all of the things that I used alcohol to soothe? Well, those things still existed. Yet I found myself without the warm blanket of drunk to help me get through. I was at social gatherings without the numbing mechanism. I was a writer without booze–that was also difficult–like learning to walk again.
Yet, I had no drinks. I was doing it.
I traveled along for two years, feeling that I had cracked the code on my drinking. I was sober. I was doing this thing. I was leading a group of others who wanted to be sober (www.GratefulSobriety.com), and life was happening at a pace that made sense to me. I was experiencing new adventures and finding myself less capable of entertaining BS that I had previously entertained.
I was able to leave the practice of law after a year of sobriety. Despite working for a firm and people who I adored and respected, I knew that I wanted to escape the profession, in general. I made plans, and I stretched my family–and I leapt.
At Year Two of sobriety and the end of 2017 (a year which didn’t go as I meticulously planned, by the way), I nevertheless had two book deals, and I was hopeful. I knew that things were going in the right direction.
That is, until I rounded the corner to Year Three.
We made a difficult decision to move out of Georgia. We moved to Kansas for the Expert’s shiny new job. This was not a choice we made lightly and without eyes open.
But it was a choice we made wrong.
One of the things I have learned in sobriety? Pull the damn rip chord the second you know you can’t win. And for many reasons, we knew that we couldn’t win in Kansas–not under the circumstances. (Sidebar: I really, really loved Kansas. Which was part of the sad.)
I told The Expert: Pull the chord. We’ll figure out the rest.
I watched the snow fall, alone with two kids in our giant rented house at the end of January. My husband gone and moved to Massachusetts. No, we had not split.
But he had left his job that moved us to Kansas in the first place. The new job was located back on the East coast, in Mass. We realized we were short-timers in Kansas and headed for Massachusetts–only a few short weeks after moving across the country to Kansas.
(We had four rent and mortgage payments at this time, by the way. Four. That’s another story for another day.)
But as I sat in the giant suburban rental house in Kansas in January–alone with the kids–thinking: How did I get to the midwest? And how am I here alone? I began to uncover more about myself, my sobriety, and where the foundation of all that addiction-talk came from.
I received a call from The Expert on February 6th.
He was on the side of the road, having driven home in a snow storm, and his car been hit and then thrown into a FedEx truck on the shoulder. On the other end of the phone, he was choking back tears, saying, “I am so sorry, Mere. I am so sorry that I did this to us.”
I said, “It’s just a car.”
He said, “I have no ride home. The cops said I can’t get a ride from them. And the highways are blocked and I can’t get an Uber.”
I looked at the picture of the car he sent me. “Um. You need to get a ride in the ambulance, hon.”
So, thus began his first few days in Massachusetts–an ambulance ride and severe whiplash and superficial burns from the air bag. I looked at flights. I couldn’t get to him. We were snow-locked in Kansas at the same time as Boston was. Not only that, but I had no one to watch the kids in Kansas. We had no family there. I had friends who I trusted, but I am too much of a stubborn ass to actually ask anyone to watch kids. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t fly in to see him. Luckily, he was not severely injured.
Luckily he was alive.
And there we were. That was our status.
Alone. Snowed-in. Fairly broke. All our best-laid plans? Smashed to bits, along with the first car we had ever paid off.
I continued to be positive about everything. But I was angry. I was sad. I was scared.
And thus, Year Three of sobriety, as I sat alone in Kansas, I was deep in the throes of revising the manuscript of my second and upcoming book, The Year of No Nonsense.
This is when I uncovered what I like to call: The Shit.
What is The Shit, you might ask.
Well, The Shit is the reason that we are thrown into destructive behaviors like drinking in the first place.
After interviewing my friend, Britt Frank, on The Same 24 Hours Podcast, I learned of The Shit. I guess I can somewhat blame thank Britt for helping me.
The Shit is the reason that you do the behavior you do–perhaps the behavior that you wish you don’t do, or hadn’t done.
The Shit is the reason you drink, over-shop, self-soothe with cutting and drugs, sex and affairs.
The Shit is the trauma, the reason you are a perceived “hot mess.”
The Shit is the backstory.
The Shit is the PRIMAL WOUND.
The behavior–in my case the raging drinking–was the self-created band-aid that I applied in order to deal with The Shit.
So I joke when I think about my sobriety as being the “fix” for all of my problems. Because the drinking? I did that for a real reason. The drinking did not help my problem, but it was a way that I dealt with the pain.
In the first draft of The Year of No Nonsense, I had missed out on the joy of understanding what is called in psychology–the Primal Wound. During this time in Kansas–during the quiet, the time alone, I uncovered it. I learned it through some work and some therapy. And there it was: clear as day.
Once uncovered, then I had to deal with it. I had to stay sober. Then I had to scramble and fight to then deal with the real reason for all those years I thought I was broken, messed up, “addicted” and ungrateful.
Nope. None of which is true.
I simply had The Shit. That was what I had.
And for twenty years, in order to deal with The Shit, I drank like a fish.
Drinking exacerbated many, many things–this is true. Drinking made me make a mess of things. Drinking harmed my relationships, my body and beyond.
But drinking? I did that for a reason.
Which is why I loathe–really freaking loathe–the stigma that people who struggle with drinking are weak or are less than someone who doesn’t struggle.
On the contrary, I say. People in recovery are some of the strongest, most resilient people on the planet. I am stronger than many, many sober people I know. Why? Because I survived. I survived a special secret brand of hell. I tried to survive by drinking. In fact, I did survive by drinking. Drinking allowed me to forget the pain for a time. Drinking allowed me to disappear. Drinking allowed me to not think about the fact that my foundation was built on shambles.
Alcohol, as does any “addiction” serves a purpose.
Sobriety doesn’t cure anything.
Only we can cultivate the ability to move forward. To get past the past. To choose life over drink, to chose life over death.
When I talk about my suicide attempt, I don’t talk about dying and my desire to die. It’s not that I didn’t want to Live. I just didn’t want to Live like that anymore. As I continued to fight the suicide demons–for years–I can now see that I wanted to Live. I wanted to really Live. I wanted to Live without the pain of my past. I wanted to Live without The Shit.
But I didn’t know about The Shit.
Because when you are in a cycle of self-destruction, you are not able to see The Shit.
And that, my friends, is precisely why people get stuck in a cycle of drinking and drugs. Because we do not want to know about The Shit.
Who wants to know about that stuff?
Who actually wants to uncover the depths of their sadness?
Who wants to look abuse and Fear and dysfunction in the face and own their story?
The answer is no one. No one actually wants to do that.
In the middle of the knowing, however, something happens. We begin to see. Once we see the Truth about something, then we can move forward. We have no choice but to move forward. Because once we know the Truth, then forward is the direction that makes the most sense. We then see the good in the pain. We see that we have choices. We can make decisions. We have power where there was no power before.
For years, I fumbled around–even sober–no knowing why I was experiencing such pain, such suffering, and such intense sadness and loneliness. Now? Now, when I feel that way, I know why. I can talk to myself kindly. I can talk to the eight-year-old version of myself… which is the age that I feel somehow I got lost in it all.
I can speak to eight-year old Meredith, and I can tell her things that make forty-year old Meredith feel safe.
I can recognize why four-year old Meredith clung to the safety of Mister Rogers and the mystery of a neighborhood.
A place of belonging. A place of kindness and safety. 
All of these things were uncovered in a Life of sobriety.
But sobriety alone did not uncover them.
I had to stop drinking in order to find The Shit.
And as the name suggests, The Shit stunk to high heaven.
But after some work, I knew what to do.
Because once I found The Shit, I knew that I could scrape it off my shoes.
And I could begin to walk forward.
So, today on my Four Year Sober-versary, I can say that stopping drinking did save my Life.
But not in the ways that we often think of sobriety.
The path of a sober journey is brave. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
And guess what? You are brave.
I choose LIFE.
I hope you will too.
And if you ever think you can’t go on, remember that I, too, have known that feeling.
You are not alone.
Reach out any time.
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For those of you who might be struggling, please feel free to reach out or get help, and ask for help.
I’m also here if you want to chat or confess or just need someone to talk to. And I really do mean that.
Suicide Prevention Hotline
Suicide Prevention Chat
1-800-273-8255
Other Resources:
Grateful Sobriety Secret Facebook Group
http://www.drinkerscheckup.com/
http://www.aa.org/
http://al-anon.org/
https://www.na.org/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/addiction
http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/what-is-addiction.html
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