Checking In: January 2022
Our readers let us know how their lives are going.
illustration by Edith Zimmerman
Checking In
by The Small Bow Family Orchestra
Thank you for letting me puke all over my laptop. I also need a pedicure.
*****
“I had this realization — ha — the other night: some people experience existence as pain; some do not. (I'm one of the former. Obviously.) Also it is possible to love life, to not want to die, and to hate the moment-to-moment sensation of being alive. The desire then is to feel nothing while retaining consciousness & so no wonder I catch myself thinking thoughts like I wish I could be drunk all of the time. The only help for it is learning to stand the pain, or to understand this feeling as something other than pain, maybe. Anyway. How am I feeling? In pain, as usual; trying to ride it out.” – ANON
*****
"Teetering between 'successful return to low-risk drinking' and 'needing a drink every couple of hours since New Year's.' The latter is winning out." – ANON
*****
“I have this mental list I keep thinking about–” things I need to achieve in the near future.” I need a car I need to do something about my teeth falling out and I really really need some new friends. I am 3 years sober I am an artist/teacher at a pretty good university in Texas. This is the first holiday I've been completely alone in a decade. I made it thru...sober alive.” – ANON
*****
“I’m feeling like I’m nobody from nowhere and I’m full of dread. Even my therapist said in July 2021, “You are nowhere, but that’s where you’re supposed to be.” I don’t know what he meant. Tomorrow’s 1.1.2022 and I’m still in the same nowhere place I was then, albeit 1/2 year more sober.” – ANON
*****
“I don’t know how I’ll be feeling by the first week of January—probably different—but for now, I’m pissed. Which means I’m scared. The last two years have been all about work in a way that’s unhealthy and also financially unequal compared to male peers and my promised compensation. Total. Pisser. The nuts real estate market means I’m priced out of the city I’ve been working my way back to living in for quite some time. Moving clear across the country to lower my overhead and get something, somewhere is heartbreaking. Trying to do it before the other shoe drops at work is crazy-making. And just when I see an article about another woman doing something brave on her own, within a click, I learn that no, that’s not really the case. There is always a second income and a partner to fall back on. So yes, pissed at me for some prime years wasted struggling with drinking/not drinking. Pissed at the seemingly unattainable (unrealistic?) success stories we (I) compare ourselves to—and sensing a real sea change in how honest we’re becoming about showing our true selves. For the better. That’s one of two “saving graces” in this scary: one, I’m better able to punch back without alcohol in the picture. And two, saying how I really feel is less scary than keeping the messy hidden. Thank you for letting me puke all over my laptop. I also need a pedicure.” – ANON
*****
“I'm now six months sober at age 33. The first few months were great and I even rekindled a relationship with someone I met briefly while still drinking. We have a really strong (non-codependent) relationship (!). Yet I have found myself having panic attacks again for the first time in years... the sobbing on the shower floor kind... the kind where you know (don't think but know) that everyone dies alone and THIS is the feeling of the abyss coming for you.
I haven't been going to AA lately - but I know I need to go back. If nothing else, to just be around other people who get it. I'm not at risk of drinking - but it doesn't have to be as hard as I'm making it on myself.”
– ANON
*****
“Feeling absolutely numb about the new year and any positivity about 2022. Guess it's better than naively thinking "this will be my year!" No year is mine or yours or ours.” – ANON
*****
“Going into the new year feeling stressed but also hopeful. I've been with my boyfriend for almost 10 years, my whole adult life so far, through developing a drinking problem and then sobering up. But I feel like our relationship might have run its course now. It's bittersweet. He's been a great partner and he's a great guy. But I don't feel like I'm in love anymore. Change is scary. It doesn't help that I'm missing and pining for someone else who is long gone at this point, with no apology or explanation. Emotionally I feel like a mess, but the only way out is through.”– ANON
*****
“I’m feeling like my feelings are eating me alive. Like the way MS eats away the myelin sheath around your nerves leaving them unprotected and overexposed and wreaking predictable yet unpredictable havoc on your body. If the fear doesn’t get me, the insecurity will. Or the rapid-fire swings between terror-inducing joy and utter hopelessness. Everything is too much and nothing is enough. I’m 3 years sober, deeply in love, medicated to the gills, and I’ve never felt so tired or so crazy.” – ANON
*****
“I feel centrifugal -- moving away from my center (whether I like it or not), thrust outward, seeking contact with the world.
I feel like a cog in the machine, going around and around on my own little well-worn path, knowing that I was made to mesh with my fellow cogs, and that regular contact with one another helps us all keep turning.
I feel like a flywheel, accumulating energy from good days and the love of my friends and the work I put into my recovery, and releasing that energy on bad days to keep things from getting all herky-jerky.
I feel like one of those old-fashioned wooden spinning tops that you can spin extra-hard and it will flip over and balance on its stick. The view is great, but how the hell did I get up here?” – ANON
*****
“A couple weeks before Christmas I realized I no longer had any hope for things getting better on a larger, global scale. I’ve never been particularly optimistic, but I’ve at least harbored some notion that there’d be a future my kids could live in that wouldn’t be horrifying. But as I stood in my kitchen trying to rally the energy to empty our countertop compost bin so I could compost the bits leftover from lunch rather than just scrape them into the trash, a voice inside me said, “It doesn’t matter.” Immediately my fork was flinging lettuce into the garbage can and I felt somehow relaxed. My sobriety remains intact and my relationships remain solid as ever, I just no longer try to see over the horizon into the future. It somehow doesn’t interest me anymore.” – ANON
*****
“I feel my right upper quadrant abdominal pain. Fatigued, nauseated. My face is red but not yellow - yet - so at least there’s that. I also feel a bit pre-defeated because obviously New Years resolutions don’t last. Everyone has covid again, and I take care of them and am not allowed to be as screwed up as I feel, nor my husband in the same boat. We get home late and drink and take Z-quill and are exhausted and then REPEAT. Boring / been there / done that - I know we aren’t special. But I’m hopeful… or just saying that because I want to be hopeful… maybe ready? for this to be the year. I can’t do this much longer. We can’t.” – ANON
*****
“I am good. I am good. I am good. I am good. How long has that been Monday, December 6th, I was violently hungover, just as I was on Friday, December 3rd. Both days I thought, I can’t do this anymore, I have to stop. Sunday, December 5th was the last day I drank alcohol. The following Monday was my last hangover. I stopped, five years or more, since my last too brief moment of sobriety, and I don’t know why it took this time, but I’m grateful it did, because I am good, finally, again.” – ANON
*****
“The bad news: I feel more stuck/fat/stupid/envious/angry/listless than ever. The good news: I'm taking it out on everyone around me, which surely won't have long-term consequences.” – ANON
*****
“Two different people complimented me in the gym yesterday about what I was doing. I’m not one of the many nubile, beautiful young women, so the compliments were especially appreciated. I resumed weightlifting a few months ago after many years of making excuses why I wasn’t doing it even though it’s just about the best medicine there is for me. I’ve seen my attitude shift. In the beginning, I woke up feeling like shit, dragged myself to the gym, and felt better by the end of my session. Now, 24 workouts later, I wake up excited that today is a gym day, so all the great stuff that comes from lifting is lovely icing on the cake. My trainer says, “never waste feeling good,” and I’ve started to internalize that. Feels good to feel good.” – ANON
*****
“I don’t know how I’ll be feeling by the first week of January—probably different—but for now, I’m pissed. Which means I’m scared. The last two years have been all about work in a way that’s unhealthy and also financially unequal compared to male peers and my promised compensation. Total. Pisser. The nuts real estate market means I’m priced out of the city I’ve been working my way back to living in for quite some time. Moving clear across the country to lower my overhead and get something, somewhere is heartbreaking. Trying to do it before the other show drops at work is crazy-making. And just when I see an article about another woman doing something brave on her own, within a click, I learn that no, that’s not really the case. There is always a second income and a partner to fall back on. So yes, pissed at myself for some prime years wasted struggling with drinking/not drinking. Pissed at the seemingly unattainable (unrealistic?) success stories we (I) compare ourselves to—and sensing a real sea change in how honest we’re becoming about showing our true selves. For the better. That’s one of two “saving graces” in this scary: one, I’m better able to punch back without alcohol in the picture. And two, saying how I really feel is less scary than keeping the messy hidden. Thank you for letting me puke all over my laptop. I also need a pedicure.” – ANON
*****
“How am I feeling? "Good news, bad news" as my old counselor used to say.
The Good = new job finally after 2 years of looking. And it checks all the boxes I was looking for (more money, MUCH better benefits, remote flexibility, more personally fulfilling mission, etc.) Because it's a job in higher ed, they also offer a generous tuition credit that will allow me and my wife to pursue advanced degrees. Big win!
The Bad = new job brings old fears of "Imposter Syndrome" as well as general agita about change, and the Devil You Know, etc. There's also been some family tragedy. Wife's grandpa suffered a traumatic brain injury after he was thrown off his tractor (grandma, who has dementia, hit the tractor with a pickup while they were trying to haul the tractor out of a rut...) They took him off life support on Dec. 13. We'll bury him the week of Christmas and grandma will be going to an assisted living facility. She keeps asking when Grandpa's going to come back. They were married for 64 years.
So that's the good and bad news.” – ANON
*****
“I am 18 months AF as of today*. The pink cloud has lifted. The reality has sunk in. The cravings are distant memories. (Or are they?) I am rediscovering the new parts of me--like realizing am a hardcore introvert at the ripe old age of 39--and shedding the old parts of me--turns out I could care less about wasting my Sundays actually worrying about fantasy football. These feelings are mostly good things. Hard things. I think I am ready to date again; until I think again. New Year but same new me. Bring it on. But not too much.” – ANON
* Dec. 14th
*****
”This year was unprecedented for me in discovering and practicing various forms of sobriety. On the one hand not much changed, but I do have the gift of no longer wondering, what would happen if I stopped drinking and/or stopped smoking weed all the time. On the other side of the last few years I feel like my goal is modest yet also wildly ambitious. I want peace of mind, as much as is reasonable to request these days. That and safety for the children—mine and everyone else’s.”
– ANON
*****
“I feel like quitting. Not my sobriety, but writing about it. I had the wonderful-terrible idea to write a book about my struggles with alcohol and path to sobriety. But it's hard and feels stupid. The world doesn't need another recovery memoir, especially mine, which isn't anything special. I doubt anyone would want to read it. It's terrible and trite... But I know none of that matters and this is my fear talking. So I'm going to keep waking at the ass crack of dawn to write my story.”
– Rachel L.
*****
“Sometimes I want to drink to the point of destruction. I want to burn down everything I've worked so hard to create and maintain.
Other days, the turning of the leaves and the frost on the car windshield makes me cry because I'm so thankful to be here.” – ANON
*****
“Three years ago I was in almost the same position I am now. Slumped over on my bed in my 4 story walk-up apartment, where all the walls are painted a slightly offensive buttercream yellow, drinking from a sippy cup. Three years I was drinking warm white wine, tonight I am drinking sparkling water with thinly sliced lime. I cut the lime myself, as I assume most people do, with a new knife I bought myself for Christmas. It is an expensive Japanese knife, an extravagant purchase that brings me KonMari levels of joy. I took multiple photos of the knife when it arrived to send to friends so they can be equally as thrilled for me.
Three years ago I could not afford an expensive knife or even a cheap knife. I was camping in my apartment with a broken fridge. I previously had a working fridge, given to me by an older relative who had already purchased it second-hand. A hand-me-down appliance. It slowly died, ice mountains forming in the vegetable crisper, an endless puddle leaking out across the tiles that I slipped on more than once, til the seal would no longer function.
I innovatively developed a system that involved wedging a chair between the kitchen cabinets and fridge door. Yes, having to constantly move the chair to access the kitchen was slightly annoying but, I explained to my roommate, it’s actually not that great for the environment to throw out things that still work. He was not happy about the fridge situation, he was not happy about any part of living with me, and several weeks later when I was hospitalized for alcohol-induced sepsis he covertly moved out and sent me a text to let me know where he had left his key.
I was employed at this stage but unable to afford a new fridge, or a second-hand fridge, or even a free fridge which would require paying someone to lug it up the stairs. I quickly discarded my fridge-chair contraption and transformed my new spare room into the Ice Room. I found a medium-sized bucket and routinely purchased bags of ice to fill the bucket where I stored my food, my wine, and my sheet masks. When the ice melted or the food spoiled I would pour the water off my balcony onto my neighbors to the left, as my balcony drain had clogged long ago. I would wait until late at night and fling my spoiled food aiming for the road but mostly hitting trees or parked cars.
I hoarded empty wine bottles in the spare bedrooms closest, determined that I would one day create recycled glass art, I had visions of me wearing protective glasses and industrial gloves, sawing these wine bottles into some sort of sculpture which would represent my unaddressed alcoholism and my successful transition into sobriety.
I had wanted to stop drinking for most of my drinking. I desperately wanted to be sober but I wanted to do it in a way that still allowed me to consume alcohol. I wanted all the areas negatively affected by my drinking to be resolved but I still wanted to meet my friends at the pub for a beer on a Friday. I thought that alcohol was my problem, that all the issues I faced were caused by the wine inside the bottle and if I could just remove that, I would be the person I really wanted to be. I could live the life I wanted to be living. I could have a fridge again.
That night three years ago, or really early morning, I had gotten home after attending an NYE party with friends. I had lied to my friends and told them I was sober. I continued this lie for almost 6 months, telling them about the joys of sober living, how I was finally getting my shit together and I was so thrilled I had been able to do it. That night a friend made a themed mocktail and the group cheered to my sobriety and achievements.
I left the party after the countdown and returned to my yellow apartment with my ice room and lukewarm warm. It was too late to purchase any fresh ice so I had no choice but to drink it as is. I cried and drank until I finished my bottles of wine, stumbling around my apartment looking for objects to throw off my balcony, smoking cigarettes in my bed hoping that I would fall asleep mid-drag and light my mattress on fire and the ice room and broken fridge would go up in flames and I wouldn’t have to deal with the bulging cupboard doors hiding the empty wine bottles. I wouldn’t have to look at the mess I had created. I wouldn’t have to deal with myself.
I woke up mid-afternoon, fresh with determination to not go to the liquor store, to not drink today, to go to sleep sober. I wanted to change.
Three years later I am in the same position, in my bed, in my apartment, sober and honest. I spent NYE with a small group of friends and sparkling water. We watched the fireworks from my balcony and each took turns cutting something with my new knife.” – ANON
*****
Would you like to contribute to next month’s Check-In?
This is for the first week in February. Tell us how it’s going. Unleash the beast. Anonymity is fine, but you can reveal your first name and your last initial if you’re feeling itchy.
Examples: “I truly believe the world is about to end and I’m totally okay with that right now. Is that bad?”
For every published submission, we'll donate $5 to the Katal Center
Send them in here: editors@thesmallbow.com
