October 27th, 2019
365 days.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve had a drink. One year sober today. And let me tell you, it has not been easy.
There have been many times I’ve wanted to drink because life got overwhelming. Like when it was three weeks into the new year and I had just gotten back from a wonderful beach vacation then found a lump in my breast. Thankfully it wasn’t cancer- it turned out to be a nasty abscess that over the course of 8 months came back not once, but twice. I am extremely fortunate and grateful for things panning out this way because a lot of people aren’t that lucky. I was told that if it came back again they’d have to go in and cut out a gland. I don’t know if I’m in the clear, but every day I ask that my good health prevents that from happening.
I was put on Bactrim (an extremely strong antibiotic that wreaks havoc on your body) and went from a healthy weight of 118lbs to under 100 almost overnight due to the medication and an increasing amount stress from the situation. If that wasn’t scary enough, it put me back in the frame of mind I had in high school when I had an eating disorder. However, I don’t want to be skinny to look ‘hot’ for anyone and to not jiggle when I dance. This time it’s different because I physically couldn’t eat for weeks and today still have a hard time nourishing my body in the right way. My body doesn’t handle food the same way it did at the beginning of the year before all this took place. I look at my body now and feel disgusting because I’m so thin and bony. I’m glad to have lost all the pregnancy weight but I feel like I look like a skeleton. At least my clothes from ten years ago fit and I don’t have to buy an entire new wardrobe, so I guess that’s considered ‘looking on the bright side’ (…maybe). It’s taking a long time to love my body because I never have, but I’ll get there if I continue down the path I’m on. Every moment of every day is a new opportunity to act out of love.
On top of all that I was diagnosed with Major Depression and Bipolar II disorder that morphed from postpartum depression, which had reared its ugly head four years earlier. For about four or five months I rarely left the couch and didn’t go a day without crying for hours on end. It was a vicious cycle of negativity and horrible thoughts that haunted and taunted me every damn minute that I was awake and alive.
And my body hurt. The pain was getting unbearable. I felt like someone was stabbing me in my right side and twisting the knife. There were days I couldn’t move, let alone walk or dance. I almost hung up my tap shoes for good, thinking there’d be a slim chance I’d be able to dance again in the foreseeable future. I had blood tests, procedures, ultrasounds, and saw several doctors, but no one could seem to figure out what was wrong with me. There were days I thought I was going to die from my insides exploding and there were many days that I just didn’t care to exist on this awful planet anymore.
Then one day it all changed.
I told myself that I couldn’t live like this anymore. At least I was self-aware enough to get to that first step. Even though I’d had bouts of suicidal depression, I knew that was NOT an option for me. Something HAD to change. And fast.
That’s when I made the decision to do something about my situation. I realized that if nothing was helping from the outside (doctors, medication, and the like), something had to be changed on the inside.
I decided to try one more doctor, just to try to get my depression under control before my therapist sent me to be put on medication. I ended up with a naturopath who suggested some vitamins and supplements. Long story short, I’ve got that part of my life under control, things have leveled out over the past few months, and for the most part I can say I feel good.
But I also knew from reading literature by Louise Hay and several other authors, teachers, and healers that a lot of dis-eases are caused by energy blocks. I figured if nothing else was working that perhaps I should start digging in a lot deeper to the energy work than what I was currently doing. If I could change my mind, I could change my life, and I had to do it one thought at a time.
I’m not going to lie- it was a lot of work. I didn’t think I even had more tears to cry, but they found their way out. I discovered a lot about myself that I didn’t know existed. I managed to completely unravel the ‘thorn in my side’ and quite literally one day all the pain disappeared. I couldn’t believe it! It was completely gone! I kept thinking to myself that it was a fluke and that it’d come back, but I soon realized that kind of thinking would indeed bring it back. A friend told me that my healing had begun and to just accept it. So I did.
Then, miraculously, the painful periods stopped. Just like that, completely out of the blue. Maybe I ‘scared’ myself into this healing by setting up an exploratory surgery a few months out. Even my doctor said, ‘perhaps by some miracle you’ll get better and we won’t have to do it’. Every day I asked the universe to bring me a miracle for a pain free life, and I truly believed that I might be able to heal and not need the surgery after all.
My old self would have probably drank myself close to death or serious illness at this point, I mean, how could someone trying to stay sober actually get through all this? Sure, I have other vices but they won’t kill me like alcohol could. I’d been numbing my pain for so long that I didn’t even really know what I was numbing anymore. But once I stopped, all the demons came out from the darkness for me to face, one after another after another. It seemed like it would never end.
But I believed that there were better days to be had and that I actually COULD get through this. I HAD to because I wanted those better days more than I wanted anything else in this world. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to get healthy. I wanted to have a clear head so I could put my art out into the world with a solid purpose and understanding. I wanted to stand in my power like the fierce warrior that I am. I didn’t want to be a slave to my addiction and constant numbing anymore.
So I slayed the beast. I say ‘bring it on’ because now I know how to deal with what life throws my way with clarity, strength, wisdom, and love. No matter what happens, I believe there is always a way through, and that what is served at the table of life always has a side of lessons, kind of like mashed potatoes at the holidays. This is the massive accomplishment I’ve had in my life.
And I didn’t do it alone. I had (and still have) the most incredible support system of friends and family who have stood by me this entire time, even when I was acting like a complete asshole. I couldn’t have done it without them. The love and gratitude for all the help I’ve received can’t even be expressed in words, only expansive vibrations of a form of love that comes from beyond this world. Life is a collaboration with everyone you meet and are surrounded by, and the saying that it ‘takes a village’ never rang a truer tune with me.
The decision to get sober was the best decision I’ve ever made. And if it weren’t for the events that went down on October 25th, 2018, I’d have never been able to make that decision. Many of us have said after a night of going too hard ‘I’m never drinking again’, but I decided to hold myself to those words. At least for now.
I hope that someday I’ll once again be able to enjoy a nice glass of full bodied Cabernet or a smoky shot of whisky on ice, but I’m also ok if that day never comes. I’m not in any rush to ‘enjoy’ alcohol any time soon because I know that if I have one, I’ll have four. Or at least that’s what I think will happen. And as long as that’s what I think, there’s no chance in hell I’m picking up a glass. Perhaps it wouldn’t play out like that, but as long as I have the pen in my hand, that’s the story I’m going to write.
For the first time in my life I’m finally in control. I am able to make choices from a calm place of conscious awareness and I am able to deliberately choose my thoughts, words, and actions. I’ve reached the place I only dreamed of being at for years and years while my nose was in books, learning how to go about doing it. I look back on this year and am amazed at how my life has changed. And it’s all my doing. That one choice of deciding to take my life back for myself was the turning point I’d been waiting for from the outside. It was only when I turned inward, with love in my heart, that I was able to see for myself everything that I had to do to get to where I wanted to go. And it was the promise I made to myself to do it one small step at a time that got me to the top of this mountain. I’ll keep climbing too, every single day, because there is so much more that life holds for me that I can’t wait to discover.