60 months. 260 weeks. 1,826 days. 43,829 hours. 2,629,746 minutes. 157,784,760 seconds.
Breaking it down like that makes it feel in turns unimpressive, crushingly immense, and too large to fathom. It’s also just five years. Five years since I had my last drink —which was vodka, of course — and started on the journey that brought me here. When this all began, five years seemed like it would be a momentous occasion. A remarkable achievement. Something that would forever define who I was. It was something to strive for, a marking of a significant amount of time spent away from something I had used to define and treat myself in every sense of the word.
Now that it is here, I have a much different perspective. What was almost monstrously difficult back then has become by rote now. The daily if not hourly, (let’s be honest, often minute-by-minute) struggle of getting by without a drink has been replaced with the much more mundane, but no less vital, reality of day-to-day existence without that coping mechanism. What once required near-constant vigilance and maintenance is now just the way things are. That’s not to say that I never think about having a drink. That would be essentially impossible in the society I live in. But it no longer feels like an internal threat to my safety when I do; merely a passing thought. Almost like “I wish I could speed up time right now.” It feels that likely most of the time it even occurs to me.
That’s a victory, I suppose. As is my ability to quickly identify when a setting or situation is dangerous for me to be in when it comes to alcohol. And my ability to either manage it properly or extricate myself from it. Those are tools that I learned were okay to have and that have been honed over the course of these five years. And my burgeoning ability to recognize harmful thoughts and actions within myself for what they are. Coping with or managing them can still be a struggle, but at least I can see them for what they are now instead of just assuming they’re a part of who I am. That is definitely a win.
In a way, so much time spent at home over the course of the pandemic has helped. I know consumption peaked for a lot of people, and that makes perfect sense, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ve been able to find other ways to deal with things internally that I never would have out in the world. Speaking of that world, I still have lots to work to do. In some social ways, I’ve reset, as I think many people can relate to no matter where they are on the consumption spectrum. I need to get used to dealing with people again and work on integrating this new version of myself with others. All while they very well may be doing the same.
I also need to revisit my relationships with anxiety, depression, and panic. There’s been a sort of safe baseline while being “stuck” at home and as the world has opened up again I’ve seen the cracks in my formerly nigh-impenetrable armor. I’ve also been able to see that while those things still have power over me, and probably always will, I can also live without them. I can live through them. As always, in what will no doubt be my mantra and tattooed somewhere on my body at some point, the only constant is change. Nothing — no panic attack, no deep depression, no bought of anxiety — lasts as long as I do.
Just like my abuse of alcohol ended five years ago on this day. Yes, it will always be with me. Yes, it may come back at any moment. Yes, five years is a drop in the bucket when stacked up against the 25 I spent drinking and smoking (four years since I had a cigarette today too). But it’s still as much a part of me now as any of those other things. Nothing can take this time away from me, nor the things I’ve learned about myself. I guess that can feel pretty momentous.
In closing, I have to say that there is no one right way to get help if you are struggling with addiction. The best advice I can give is to confront it. Whatever that means to you, you’ll know it when you find it. It had to be my moment for me, I had to own it, so I shy away from offering any specific resource or method to take. Just know that if you’re thinking about it help is often just a call, message, or click away. And you are not alone.
Your insight on this subject is deep and meaningful, and shows how much thought you have given to weathering the storms of addiction and pandemic. And change, always change. The amount of it wears me down at times, testing my patience with myself and others. My own bouts of depression and anxiety still vary from day to day, encounter to encounter. I'm back to having a mask at the ready when I go into stores, not a welcome companion after only a few weeks of freedom....and do I even feel "free" in the world? Not yet.
I am hoping that our trip to Baltimore will happen next month, but trying not to count on it, lest some kerfaffle screws our plans up. I doubt that certainty is even possible, but hope is. You have my love and support, and I feel that from you in return.
Happy FIVE years!! You are the living proof of possibility and hope.