Lucky Charms

Lately when I look at myself in the mirror, all I can see is that I have this big belly that is spilling out the top of my jeans. I have realized since at least December that I would like to do something about it. The only way to conquer it, really, is to abstain from alcohol, specifically beer. In fact, in December I went 3 days without any alcohol, but then I gave in when I was hanging out with my crew during a blizzard, and someone smacked a 12 pack down on the table at the hotel. And I’m okay with that. I’m glad I joined them.

Today is my 7^th day without having gluten or alcohol. On February 22^nd, I slid my “lucky coin” into my pocket, and told myself, “Let’s go. Let’s do this thing.” And I did. Two years ago I didn’t know that I could do that. The thought of not drinking terrified me, and I did not think that I could not partake of alcohol in my own power. I remember saying as much, on a miserable day in December. Saying it out loud was scary. Saying it out loud with a witness was even scarier.

Within a week of that day, I found myself in an AA meeting. I had thought of attending AA (or Al-Anon) several times over the years – I had a morbid curiosity of it. But I also had a fear of it – that is not the type of person I wanted to be, and I imagined a room full of losers. If I was honest with myself, it is the last place I wanted to be. Going in that New Years Eve was terrifying – I was literally shaking from head to toe. An exceptionally good friend (who is to remain anonymous ha ha) went with me. I remember being so wound up I thought I might vomit, and I prayed no one asked my anything. But then a thing happened: as I listened, I heard myself in some of the words – both the words of the people speaking and in the passages they read. I felt some camaraderie and less alone. I found myself going back, and in short order, I fell in love. I fell in love with the people, the stories, the similarities, the laughter, the honesty, the willingness to be introspective. It was like church, in a way, but in a better way - it became my church. Even though we were not the same in age, color, religion, political affiliation or socio-economic status, I had found my people.

I went 7 months without drinking, for the most part. There was a week I took off – we were skiing in Colorado and I had some beers (gluten free!) on that trip, but when we came home, I went back to abstinence. I was learning that it can be like a faucet, and I can indeed turn it off and on. I didn’t regret my choice to drink on that trip, except for the fact I never did get a 6 month chip. It’s okay though – the 90 day chip is turquoise and beautiful and I loved it.

After 7 months, I went back to drinking, with a newfound respect for alcohol and a better understanding of my own relationship with it. While I enjoyed AA, I could not bring myself to call myself an alcoholic, and so I felt like an imposter of sorts. To me, step 1 is admitting you are an alcoholic, and I just could not do it (my exceptional friend points out that what it actually says is that you admit you are powerless over alcohol, not an alcoholic, and my brain says ‘Tomato, tamata’ to him).

I have thought about it like a toggle switch that only has two options – either you are an alcoholic or you are not an alcoholic. I have spent hours and days and months trying to decide if I am one or not, trying on the words when I am alone, having them spit out of my mouth like sawdust. This morning it occurred to me that maybe it could be more of a sliding scale – like introverts and extroverts. I have always been on the line between introvert and extrovert, where Edith is at 110% on the I-E scale. As I have evolved, I would now place myself at the 75% mark (toward extroversion). What if alcoholism were a sliding scale? Where would I be? I think I would be at 60%.

I told one of my pastor friends last week that I could see alcohol in my mind – that it was a real, live thing. He asked what it was like. I told him it is hard to explain - it is like a viny fog that is alive, almost like in a super hero movie or even Scoobie Doo. I finally told him, “It’s like a fog in the streets of the city that’s alive. At first it’s just a haze, I can hardly see it. Maybe it isn’t even there. And then it is there, but I think, it’s not that bad. I can live with this. But then before I know it, I can hardly see. It wraps around me, like tentacles. It suffocates me. It seeps into everything. It becomes everything.” And then later I told him, “It’s a demon.”

I told my therapist (and we have talked about it a lot over the past two years), that it just takes over. At first, you just have a drink someplace where everyone is drinking – an outing. And I tell myself, okay, I am going to drink, but only at functions – and only once a week. I am not going to bring it in the house. But then it is Friday after a long week, and I think, I deserve a drink, so I buy a 6 pack and I bring it home. I say then, just on the weekends. But then, soon, I have a bad Tuesday, and I tell myself, no more than 3 a night. Then I have one at lunch. Then 3 becomes 4 a night. And then it is 6. And then it is 10 am on a Saturday and I am the only one home, and I think, who cares? Does it really matter? And before I know it, it has seeped into every corner of my being, and I start scheduling my life around it – where it will be or will not be. In short order, it makes me its slave.

When I stopped this week, this time, to lose weight, I was told by many people that I am overreacting and that I am beautiful the way I am. I am not obese, by any means. I am between a size 6 and 8; after 6 months of not drinking I was a sub-4. What they do not understand is (and I do not generally tell them) that it is not just what it does to my outside, it is what it does to my inside.

In the past two years there have been several sections of time that I refrained from alcohol use. It is interesting looking back – I mostly do not regret when I did or did not drink. But there are a few situations of both extremes that I regret. I regret times when I did not drink? Yes. One in particular is when a friend came down to Texas to visit that I had not seen in 20 years, and I think she expected us to have a drink, and I did not. I wish I had. That might be the only time I regret. There are only a few times I really regret drinking, too – there are just a few isolated incidences. It is more the big picture than the details.

My therapist doesn’t think I am an alcoholic, because I’m hyper aware of what it does to me and I know when it’s time to stop. I also go slow and steady when I drink – a beer an hour. I don’t run off to Mexico and go to donkey shows or drink and drive. I do my chores and go to work and do the things I am supposed to do. But he also cautions about the sign that hangs on the AA hall wall, just over the righthand exit door that reads, “Not Yet.”

This is a subject that is taboo. This is a subject that makes others uncomfortable to talk about. I am not “supposed to” talk about it. I certainly should not publish it under my name. Some people worry that if I share it, it will hurt my business. But I find when I share my story with my friends, many of them identify strongly with it. One friend said she had the same issue with both wine and sweets. It is not just alcohol. It is addiction, which comes in many forms.

I am certain I will not go for forever without alcohol. I know I am just on another pause. But the pause feels good – like a demon’s claws lost his grasp on me. There is some mourning that goes with it too - and drinking dreams, night sweats, digestive changes and sugar cravings. I am currently working my way through a pack of Sweet Tarts Ropes.

One thing I struggle with is attending meetings when I know I am not doing this for forever. Can you say, “Hi, I’m Ami, and I’m 60% alcoholic”? The Blue Book would call it a heavy drinker. The Blue Book has a lot of wisdom in it. It feels a mockery to attend meetings when you are not 100% on board. Not 100% on board at all. I probably put way more thought into it than anyone else does about my being there or not being there. Sometimes I miss my people.

Lieutenant Dan!!!!!!!

 

Running my own company has been the most difficult thing I have ever tried to do. I hide most of my heartache about it, except from my 200 closest friends. I am definitely one of those where for the most part, according to Facebook, I have the picture-perfect life. But behind the scenes, I am often crumbling.

When I broke off from my brother’s company in 2016, I felt like Alice falling down the eternal rabbit hole. I was scared out of my mind. And when I am scared, I often turn to the wrong things – and it ain’t Jesus. My blood pressure skyrocketed. I ended up in my doctor’s office, curled in a little ball in the corner; she turned off the lights and just let me try to find myself while she went and saw other patients. This was when I was first prescribed medication for anxiety. My, how those sweet little, tiny pills have saved my life.

Over the next 4 years, I saw 3 AM more often than not. In 2017, my CPA made a $500k error that I struggled to recover from. I am actually still recovering from it. At one point I consulted with a bankruptcy attorney but chose not to declare. Cash flow has kicked my ass. There are weeks when I do not know how we will survive, but we always seem to, somehow. Recently I discovered one of my employees was embezzling from me throughout this entire time. And another pursued me to try to bankrupt me on purpose. The sense of betrayal has been a force to be reckoned with.

There have been so many times where I have considered giving up, but when I consider what else I could do, I cannot think of anything else I want to do. I love what I do. And I am good at it – except the cash flow part. I have prayed so many times over the past few years to God to let me know if this is not what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I continually get the unspoken affirmation that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. “But God, why are you making it so hard?” It seems I can never catch a break, and I am just so tired of struggling. I have struggled to see God’s purpose. I feel like I have a target on my back. Is it a punishment? All around me, I see people succeeding, while I am failing.

In this journey I have learned some recovery speak, as my pastor calls it. I am sure most people have heard, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” Another is, “Let go and let God.” I have tried so, so hard to turn my burdens over to him. In my mind, I visualize physically giving them to him, along with my anxiety. Yet it does not work - the next 3 AM comes along, and there I am again, brain spinning. Yet every day brings new blessings and mercies, and every day I survive that day.

I worry my expressing this will make me look weak. Maybe I am weak. I constantly ask myself what is wrong with me. I am smart, educated, capable, kind, generous – but life just keeps kicking my ass, over and over and over again. There has to be purpose in it, surely. So I search myself – what is the lesson I am supposed to learn in this? What am I not grasping? What am I supposed to be doing?

There have been times I have been angry with God, but then that faded away. Obviously, I have something to learn. I trust Him in that, even though I do not understand what it is or why it has to be this way. I can see my blessings and have gratitude – a beautiful daughter, a house, pets, a sense of humor, an amazing support system filled with tons of friends. I can see all that and I can appreciate it.

I realized yesterday that I have mostly stopped waking up at 3 am. I guess some might say I have become resigned to my fate. That’s true – somehow, I have accepted it. The world might take that as a negative, a loss of hope perhaps, but it is not that. It is actually a well seated knowledge that no matter what happens, I will be okay. I am taken care of. I trust in God that whatever the path is, He is going to be there with me. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” I do not know when it happened, but at some point I transferred a good amount of my anxiety burden over to him – maybe just in the action of trying to turn it over so many times, maybe each time I tried He took a small percentage of what I was handing Him. There is an eerie, exhausted peace in the wake. Sure, sometimes I take it back – but it is not every 3 AM anymore.

This morning’s sermon felt so spot on for me. Our pastor spoke about Peter, who bumbled everything. He was outspoken and arrogant, always putting his foot in his mouth. After Christ died, he chose to go back to fishing, because that was what he knew – it was his career – it was what he was good at. He was disillusioned with the fact he had spent the last three years of his life following someone who he thought was God, but who was now dead. As he casts his net, he catches nothing. I so know that feeling – the despair, the self-criticism, the shame. Then some dude shows up and tells him to cast his net on the other side of the boat, and they get more than they can handle. Peter realizes it’s Jesus and pulls a Forest Gump when he saw Lieutenant Dan on the boat dock.

Peter had denied Christ three times prior to his death. As Peter sits with Jesus on the shore over a fire, sharing a meal of fish (where did Jesus get those fish?), Jesus asked him exactly three times if Peter loves Him. Peter gets insulted because Jesus keeps asking. I know the story well, but I have never noticed it was three times to match the three denials. Peter was a hot mess, yet God built His church on him. Peter was ready to give up. Peter was dead wrong. Peter was weak.

It just fit. I am that. This is me.