#1:Denial

It's not a problem. Until it's a problem.

From my friend’s list: The Top 10 Things That Make It Hard to Get Sober:

1. Denial that you don't have a problem because there are people that are way worse off than you.

---

Denial is easy. It’s reinforced in every MomWater box on the Target liquor aisle — conveniently located right at check out.

Denial is easy. Moms gather on Crate and Barrel barstools around expensive bottles of cabernet and cheers to their great escape. An escape from the impossible demands of childcare, house maintenance, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and making sure their husbands don’t feel guilty playing 18 holes of golf on Saturday. Nine more on Sunday.

Denial is easy. We are the martyrs. Sacrifice replaces breast milk. Labor and delivery do not end at the hospital. The more we give away, the more we deny ourselves. The more dreams we bury in inhospitable ground, the more “mother material” we are made to believe that we are. We are validated by each other, by merciless messaging on billboards and wine-o-clock workout tanks, by husbands who applaud our over-functioning for their gain.

Denial is easy. We do this to survive. There is no world, no alternate universe, where we don’t. Drink. Every night. To keep breathing. To have some last vestige last scrap of blessed relief to call our own. We drown all day. And then at night we drown, too. We drown out the screams, the life force, the goddamn dreams, the fear that the drinking isn’t working anymore. It’s too much to figure out or even admit lives inside us. We just need a break. So we take it. So we don’t.

But, you see, the math of this system, I believe to be defective. Drowning plus drowning does not equal living. Breaking plus breaking cannot equal thriving. It’s been a while since I’ve practiced long equations. Maybe I’m doing it wrong? Maybe you can show me another way. So the solution is something other than it is.

Denial is easy. Until it isn’t. Until you realize the truth of the matter. Until a mosquito takes up residence in your ear. Until you cannot unhear, unknow, or deny its catastrophic transmissions.

Because to admit that you have a problem with alcohol would be to admit that the entire system you’ve built your life on doesn’t work. It would rupture every pipe in the house. It would crack the very foundation you’re standing on. As you pour wine. Into your very nice glass. And hope for it to give you the answers it can’t.

You will always be able to convince yourself you don’t have a problem. There will always be people worse off. The ones who start drinking at 9am. Put their children’s lives in danger. The ones on the street with 40s in paper bags talking to no one at the bus stop. The ones who end up in rehab or smell like fermented bread at the basketball game.

There will always be a way to deny that drinking is a problem… Because it’s NOT a problem. Until it is. People who aren’t worried about drinking don’t bother questioning their relationship with alcohol.

So…

what are you doing here?

This was taken on December 20, 2017 in my backyard. Someone gave me this as a gift. It helped me stretch denial across another few months. A constant reminder that what I was doing had to be right. If it was right enough to be etched on a wine glass and mass produced it was right enough for me.

I love you. I know this is hard. You are doing the most incredible job. I see you.

Love, Rosie.