Six Years Sober

Then vs. Now

LEFT → March 2018 // RIGHT → April 2024

Today I am SIX YEARS SOBER. SIX YEARS since the last time I drank. 

SIX YEARS since the last time I woke up wanting to die. SIX YEARS since the last time I tried to silence my bursting heart, shrink my too-muchness, seduce my soul to drown in the red river. SIX YEARS. 

Two thousand one hundred and ninety-two days. 

Thirty-six thousand waking hours. 

Of never questioning this one decision. 

Never looking back or wondering what if. 

Never.

Because six years ago my life exploded open. 

In March 2018, I weighed approximately 93lbs. I was taking 70mgs of Vyvanse plus 10mgs of Adderall per day. And drinking enough to take down a small convoy of Scottish sailors each night. I was brought up to believe that drinking was what adults did to make them happy. And was utterly confused to find that no matter how much I drank, no matter how many pills I swallowed, I could not locate the elusive morsel of happiness at the bottom of any bottle.

When, finally, the scales began to tip on the see-saw of my life. When the pain of staying the same became greater than the pain it would take to change, I picked my broken body up from the bathroom floor one cool April morning, gathered together my weapons of mass destruction, and emptied a life I’d outgrown down the toilet. 

I wish I could say it got easier after that. And in some ways, it did. My mind was no longer perpetually entrenched in a battle between the “healer” and the “drinker.” I was all one thing. There was so much beauty and peace to be found in the bright red faces of the poppies on the battleground after the war inside me had ended. 

I wish I could say it got easier, but it didn’t. It got gritier. It got realer. It got deeper and more complex. I had to find new ways to cope with a discomfort that had always lived in the dark webbed corners of my psyche. Sticky spidery things I’d never confronted before. 

What I CAN say for certain about a life without drinking is that it is infinitely BETTER. Richer. More textured. More colorful. More bold. More adventurous. More alive. And more me. 

If bulimia, for me, was the gateway to addiction. Then sobriety was the gateway to freedom and authenticity. It’s just the beginning. But my, how wondrous and wild is this brave new world? SIX YEARS. And I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.