Today is the new moon in Sagittarius and I’m listening to a friend’s sad Christmas playlist and thinking about drinking. I’m not really considering doing it, it’s just on my mind because I’m getting close to my sober anniversary. It’s close enough actually that I posted a close friends story poll about which of these two fun, fancy anniversary tokens I should get myself. I’ll give it another week before I actually order one, but picking one out — despite the close vote, there was a winner — felt like a little extra motivation to get there. I’m only kind of kidding when I say one of the best parts of sobriety is the little prizes, and I was thrilled to find this site last year where you can get snazzy coins.
Something else that’s great about sobriety is that you get your feelings back, as folks in AA like to tell newcomers. But, as they say next, something that sucks about sobriety is that you get your feelings back. And baby, they’re back!
I’m a girl who drank to not feel, to stop feeling. My drinking was at its worst in fall 2020 right before I quit, when I was: unemployed and bored out of my mind; in pain because of the foot fracture I got from a skateboarding accident; physically restricted due to the pain and the boot I had to wear for a couple of months; isolated because I was living alone for the first time in the worst possible time to; lonely since my relationship had become long-distance and was falling apart for that and many other reasons; and, of course, scared for my own life and all of my friends’ lives because of covid. There was so much then that I didn’t want to feel, so I drank so much wine.
Now when I (frequently) don’t want to feel things, I can only go for walks, journal, take naps, and do other boring healthy shit like ~talking about my feelings~ to process, instead of drinking two bottles of wine. I’m currently feeling a little shakier in my commitment to just doing the boring shit that doesn’t feel as effective, now that I’m about to be a whole additional year sober. I think a big part of that is because the alcoholism is telling me I don’t actually have a problem if I can go without drinking for literal years now; and since I don’t actually have a problem, I can just drink two bottles of wine because that’s normal drinking done by people who drink normally, right?
Plenty of folks in AA feel like too much emphasis is placed on anniversaries. I definitely see where they’re coming from in the weeks before and after mine each year. It’s this big looming date, and before it there’s a sense of I’d better not fuck this up and throw all my time away. I feel as though a relapse is just going to spontaneously happen to me somehow. And after it, there’s a comedown and a feeling of Okay, now what? Your soberversary feels all good and celebratory until the realization hits that you still have to get through the rest of that day sober and another 364 days after it until your next one — days with who knows what challenges and temptations, and full of who knows how much shit you don’t want to feel. But! It’s possible! It’s so doable because I — and maybe you too — have been doing it and have gotten through a lot of hard days already.
That’s a reason to celebrate sober anniversaries — an acknowledgment of all the hard work for so many days in a row and a chance to reflect on all the positive changes that have resulted from sobriety. And also because you can get a little prize for it.
An exciting update — because god forbid anyone think I was only an alcoholic and not also a dyke — is that one of my dilemmas from a month ago has been resolved in the best way possible: she texted me! I saw her a third time a couple weeks after the day I saw her twice randomly around town, and we made long eye contact and smiled. It felt like we both knew who the other was. I decided that was a sign and reached back out on Hinge after our brief chat had gone quiet in early summer, like I initially decided against. I felt like I was being pushy as well as a little delusional for thinking it was a sign from ✨the universe✨ as opposed to a sign that we live in a city that isn’t that big and I’m just attentive of pretty women out in the world. I gave her my number in the message, and she texted a couple of days later! We have plans to meet up next week :)
Maybe something that feels like a sign can simply be a sign if you want it to be. And maybe seeing signs and synchronicities — stay with me — is a little prize in its own way: something small and special that might have gone unnoticed without some openness and attentiveness to the world, and to the ways we weave in and out and in each other’s lives.
A sad Christmas classic.
Here’s the previous new moon post: