“I think I’m done drinking” I told my husband at the breakfast table. It was the morning of August 22, 2021. “Like, forever?” he asked. “I’m not sure about forever, but I am planning to do a September Whole30. And if I quit alcohol now, I’ll have 10 days of just dealing with that before cutting everything else out.” What my husband didn’t know was all the time, research, and emotional turmoil I had done to get to this point. I had mostly kept that to myself because, like anyone getting sober, I was scared to “put it out there” and be held accountable, ya know, in case I didn’t actually want sobriety after all.
Military Family
Ethan and I were coming up on our 2 year wedding anniversary, and our daughter Reagan was 9 months old. A few days before, I had had one of my (few but plenty) rock bottom moments. We were an active military family at the time. Ethan being in the Army when we were married, and I had since moved twice and had my first baby. The latest news was that Ethan would deploy to the Middle East, leaving me with our 9-month-old to be a single parent for approx. 9 months. So I had spent a late night up drinking more than I ever had since giving birth and woke up crippled with guilt and nausea.
I recall laying in bed with my daughter squished up next to me. I desperately wanted to go puke but also wanted to keep sleeping and knew that moving would most likely wake her up. When Ethan woke up, he told me that Reagan had woken up crying in the middle of the night and I wasn’t responding to her. That he had woke up and had told me to nurse her, and I had just reached out and started patting a pillow next to me instead. I was mortified and it was a breaking point for me.
Divorce
I began drinking at age 16 when my parent’s 20-year marriage ended. I was bewildered; we were (and are) a very religious family and they had 9 children together. I stood back and thought, “Huh, I guess a family that prays together doesn’t stay together.” After rarely seeing my parents drink my whole life, I saw my mom start to drink and party during this time. I also moved out into a house with some of my sisters and our place quickly became the party spot. My mom frequently joining in. Looking back now, I can see how subconsciously I learned “this is how you deal with life’s stressors,” which led me to believe that alcohol was the one-stop shop for solving all of life’s big issues.
The start of my sober journey
My journey towards sobriety starts 7 years before that morning in 2021. Since my drinking began at age 16, it had never really let up. I didn’t go through seasons where I drank more or less-it was always just on. My life quickly surrounded alcohol- I planned my days, vacations, relationships, school, and entire schedule around it. Along the way, I also became a near-pack-a-day smoker (later around-the-clock vaper). Drinking led me to make so many heartbreaking decisions during my 20s that only recently have I been able to recall, gently cringe. I’m reminding myself that I have changed and I didn’t know a way out back then.
I moved to Oregon when I was 22 years old and started working as a server in a few different restaurants. The server industry is the playground for alcoholics and addicts. The perfect schedule to drink all night and sleep all day while making cash money daily. Back then, I knew my drinking bordered on “problem drinking.” I just didn’t know what that meant or what to do about it. All I knew was if you were an alcoholic you went to AA and could never drink again. I also thought that the court system had to order you to meetings after a DUI, or otherwise life forced you into the “alcoholic” title, and you had no other choice but to accept it after hitting the so-called rock bottom.
I started doing 30 days of sobriety with a friend and enjoyed the money saved. All while also counting down to the return of drinking. Now, I know that amount of time is not long enough to truly feel many of the benefits of sobriety. During my time in Oregon, I also sought out and made some sober friends and even attended a few meetings (which turned out to be incredibly awkward. If you don’t know, you are expected to start speaking by stating your name followed by “I’m an alcoholic.” Uh no thanks).
Am I an alcoholic?
I would frequently ask my friends and family if they thought I was an alcoholic or not. One friend responded that “until I was roaming the halls at night holding a bottle of gin while peeing myself, I was good.” Well, I had peed myself a few nights after partying, but no roaming yet- so yay! I was in the clear to party on. I also had never shown up to work drunk or gotten a DUI. All solid proof that I was not an alcoholic. When I was 25, my 19-year-old brother died suddenly in a motorcycle accident, which prompted a move back to my home state later that year. I remember thinking, “what the hell am I gonna do now? I couldn’t possibly drink more“.
Motherhood
Drinking was very much of my husband and I’s origin story. We partied together and even budgeted a ridiculous $1000 towards the open bar at our wedding (the leftover alcohol supplied our party friends with a year of booze after). My first long stint of sobriety was when I got pregnant with our daughter. I found nicotine to be the harder of the two addictions to quit at the drop of a hat, but spent much of the pregnancy wondering if I should “just not go back to drinking when she got here.”
Ultimately, I began drinking again the day after she was born. Only now, 3 years later, and having had another child, I can see how alcohol single-handedly caused so much crippling anxiety during my first postpartum. I would begin drinking at 10am to be sure I would stop by 3pm to “be okay” to sleep next to my daughter by 7pm. I had too much anxiety to have her sleep away from me but also too much to sleep with her next to me. It was an all-around shit show.
Sober Podcasts
It was during this first year of motherhood I felt something had to change. I was in school full-time online getting my bachelor’s degree, and I thought, “What if I approached sobriety like anything else I was interested in? By researching and reading everything there is on the topic.” It was the best decision I ever made. I found many of the most popular “quit lit” books after officially putting down alcohol, but the best thing I found that ultimately gave me the confidence to make the leap was the podcast “Euphoric” by Karolina Rzadkowolska.
I recall grabbing a drink, rocking my daughter to sleep, and listening to the podcast. I had never felt so seen. These women described all the things I had been feeling over the past decade of drinking. I slowly listened more and more, consuming all the content I could. All while being equally terrified that this was going to lead to me quitting alcohol.
One of the last “hills” I had to overcome was the idea of a sober vacation. To me, taking a vacation meant drinking even more than I did on a daily basis. It meant unhinged drinking, guilt-free drinking with breakfast! Hearing one podcast where Rzadkowolska and her guest talked about sober vacations changed everything for me. They explained how not drinking yourself into yet another painful hangover, a trip could actually feel like a vacation. They described biking down the streets of Hawaii and seeing people huddled in a dark bar and actually feeling sorry for them, they were missing Hawaii! This was a holy shit moment for me in my journey. I wanted what these women had.
It’s time…
The saying often goes that there’s “no perfect time to get sober.” While I do have to agree, for me, it felt like it truly was the perfect time to quit. I had a daughter now who needed me 24/7 (and also really cut into my drinking/sleeping/freedom time). I did not want to be one of those party moms whose life looked glamorous online like I could have my cake and eat it too, all while experiencing painful hangovers and crippling anxiety and guilt over being a good mom behind the scenes. I also had a wonderful husband who supported me in everything I wanted to do and I felt like I didn’t have to face everything that was coming alone.
At the time of writing this, I have been sober for 3 years and 4 months. There is not a day I don’t thank God for my sobriety. Even after a long night or weeks of sleep deprivation due to babies waking up, nothing compares to dragging myself to work day after day of perpetual drunk, sleepless nights.
Tips and sober truths
To end the short version of my sober story, I’ll leave you with some of my most favorite things since quitting drinking:
- I found out I am a morning person
- I truly love reading (it turns out reading while drunk is really hard)
- THE SLEEP
- I can treat myself guilt-free (whereas before, I wouldn’t spend $20 on mascara).
- I am actually allowed to be sick now (no one claims “she’s just hungover” behind my back).
- No more cognitive dissonance
- I will look back on my life and truly have had “a prime.”
- Quit lit. I will forever be reading this genre! “The Sober Lush” by Amanda Ward and Jardine Libaire being an all time fav.
- Having a drunk or hungover mom will never be part of my children’s memories
- I am someone my brother in heaven would be proud of
This piece is written by Willow Slater, 32-year-old mom of 3 living in Central Oregon, USA
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