Back On the Wagon
In more ways than one
November 2021 I ended my two years stint with sobriety. I also ended my two year stint with writing. Hindsight cannot tell me if the quitting was correlated. What it does tell me is that I was doing both for reasons other than what I believed them to be.
In 2019 I quit drinking because I felt the way one feels after drinking for a decade straight. Exhausted, bloated, a little bored with it as well. One week turned to two, then a month and then I started discovering all of these firsts that I’d never experienced before. Those — for me — were right reasons.
But then those firsts became less motivating and instead I found myself trying to impress the only person who mattered to me — my Daddy. He would say, “I wish I could,” or “ I don’t know how you do it,” or “I could never,” and I took those expressions as “I’m proud of you,” and so I continued to abstain for him.
But then he died.
And then his family quit talking to me.
And then I quit talking to my mom.
And then I remained sober for 8 more months after that alone in France.
In September, 6 months after he died, I got a dog from the SPA — the humane society in France.