Nine Months

A few days ago I reached the nine-month mark of my sobriety: if it was a person, it might be a newborn. And indeed, it is not unlike an infant: squalling, blinking, occasionally overwhelmed at the sharpness and speed of everything going on . . . also, prone to napping and crying.

If my sobriety was a newborn, I would be sending out announcement cards. The proud parent, bubbling with pride and hope and dreams.

Except that I am not the parent. My new sobriety is a soft, tender being, and it is not someone else. It is me, it is my self. Sometimes unutterably fragile, sometimes strong as a dragon, sometimes just being. And learning, learning, learning. I am nurturing this self—shifting patterns of feeling and thinking in order to a have a new way of moving through the world. It’s good work.

I don’t know if it is easier doing this while we travel the world or not. Some alcoholics “pull a geographical”—they move to a new place, or take a long trip. The odds aren’t great. Some need to get entirely out of toxic context to rehab. Generally, the advice is not to make major life changes in early sobriety, and to have constant, vigorous support from other alcoholics.

On reflection, though, I understand that I am in my core, in my “real life,” as long as I am with Brian and N. I am not walking away or hiding until I come back looking better. I am healing with them.

They protected me when I had absolutely had it up to the nose with goddamned wine barrels and beer joints and sake-soaked tourists in Osaka.

They held me steady when our Newari hosts offered traditional raksi for toasting (with an egg and a fish in the other hand) as part of the Mha Puja ceremony, and I felt torn asunder by the compulsion to participate and the terror of putting alcohol into my body (guess what? you can fake sip and no one cares because it tastes horrible anyway).

They comforted me when I took a good slug of a virgin mojito on a hot day, found to my horror that it wasn’t virgin after all, then demanded my child confirm the finding (mother of the year award?), and finally burst into tears at the notion that all my seven months had vanished in one unfair instant (no, it hadn’t).

They covered for me when I took a walk instead of joining the tour group visiting the rice alcohol maker in a Cambodian village (they’ve got 80-proof WITH A BABY COBRA IN IT!).

In short, they’ve got my back. And we are quietly, rather undramatically, re-weaving the fabric of our family as we go. We talk together in a way that I don’t think we would if we were still in our routine at home. We can’t. We are together all the time, and we talk about increasingly complex subjects: political, cultural, socio/historical, and very personal ones. There is no squirming away, no rush to get out the door to school, no sidestepping. We just talk. When she asks me about drinking, I answer my daughter’s questions as honestly as I can, and tell her how vulnerable I feel as I do. When we have a quiet coffee, I can reflect with my husband, feeling not only remorse and sorrow, but also gratitude and deeper love.

I feel such support. My larger family, friends... And my women, my women! They held space for me with love and kindness as I shared my news, feeling sheepish and raw. Now, even far away, I reach out when I need it, and feel them standing beside me, right here with me. My sponsor, my alcoholic peers, and a great, widely flung group of ladies who are the most compassionate “normies” to be found.

I am under no illusions, there are many challenges ahead—and some days, perhaps, my sobriety is more sullen teenager than fresh infant. But, as with raising a child, “it takes a village.” And thank god for the village.