Relapse

“Good morning. Aly Alcoholic,” I say to the Zoom squares on my laptop as the kids pop in and out of their makeshift rocket ship made of scooted together stools and a crinkly emergency blanket.

The classic, “Hi Aly” of AA is replaced with muted waves on the screen. This is recovery in a pandemic.

“Activate!” my son yells as my daughter starts a countdown to blast off.

I take a deep breath and begin to share with the women listening on the other end.

…

I don’t know any other way to say this except to come out and say I’ve had some relapses since I stopped drinking a little over 4 years ago. I want to come clean to you, dear internet.

Relapse is probably too strong of a word. But it’s the word that reverberates in my brain in the dark hours of the morning. It’s the word that equals failure in my mind. It’s also the word that led me to seek help.

…

My first “slip” was around the 2020 election. Surely, you understand. Three years of sobriety can easily go out the window when the election is in the balance and people on both sides are making ludicrous claims and everything feels so uncertain.

I snuck a beer while frantically cleaning the bathroom baseboards. For a few golden minutes, my belly burned not with anxiety but with a happy tingling, an eraser, but it didn't last.

I woke up in a different world, to a different reality. 

A world where I still hid my drinking. 
A world where my perfect record vanished. 
A world where I was an internet liar. 

It was just a couple of drinks. In secret. I deserved it after the last four years, the last four months, heck, the last four hours before the kids’ bedtime.

An alcoholic can convince themselves of anything. That’s the scary part.

I told my husband about the drinks and texted a bunch of friends soon after. Everyone was encouraging, kind about it. But I felt like a fraud.

Do I write an addendum to Coffee and Crumbs, an open letter, an apology? 

Is it really any stranger's business if I drink or don't drink? But I've shared this, you see. I put it out there and I can't take it back and it may be what's saving me. 

I didn’t drink again for months because I just didn’t want to keep everyone so darn informed. The last I’d said on the internet was that I had my drinking (or lack thereof) under control.

And everyone believed me. I wanted to believe me.

…

The second time, last February, I didn’t tell anyone. It was only a couple drinks again. Just enough to help me sleep. I didn’t even wake up with a hangover. A shame hangover, yes, but not a physical one.

“I could do this,” I thought. “I could keep drinking and no one would have to know.”

Cold dread flooded my body. This is what I’d worked so hard to give up. The shame. The secrecy. The gnawing hole in the pit of my stomach.  I probably could do this, but did I want to?

…

A couple weeks after that second slip, I listened to a podcast where a college friend spoke to her husband about his experience with alcoholism. He shared his story. He talked with great reverence and respect about AA. He made it seem like an exclusive club. He made it sound almost…fun.

I went to my first meeting that day. My heart pounded as I sat on the cold folding chair and worried about the room’s ventilation and the alarming number of people whose masks did not quite cover their noses.

For the first time in my journey to leave alcohol behind, I was not alone.

I now have been plugged into a great group of women who meet on Zoom and outside in a local park a couple of times a week.  

I reached out to a sober acquaintance and now we have a little group of three women. We Marco Polo and share about alcohol, our progress, our demons and downfalls that keep cropping back up. We cheer each other on and remind each other what we’re fighting for.

I’ve realized it wasn’t that I didn’t have enough support in my life; I just didn’t have anyone who had walked the same road.

A relapse doesn’t make me a fraud; it makes me human.

…

I am still practicing that word on my lips—alcoholic.

But more than shame, that word has brought me community.

I worry what my kids think when I introduce myself as “Aly Alcoholic.” I feel an ache when I think of them growing up knowing that label applies to me.

I can get caught up in the brilliance of illumination. The high of the confession. The polished ending to an essay. It’s harder to show up every day and keep letting the light in. To live my struggle not in the shadows, but at the kitchen table as my tiny astronauts launch into space.

I worry my kids will think I’m weak. I pray that illuminating my own struggles will make them stronger in the end.

More able to cope with their own demons. More willing to put in the work to grow. More able to be honest with themselves about where they’re really at, how they’re really doing. More able to ask for help. To say, “hey, I’m having a rough time here.” To seek out community.

And, like all parents, I hope my weakness will be their strength. Maybe they won't wait so long to let the light pour in.  

***

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Illuminate".

You can read my essay for Coffee and Crumbs on quitting drinking here: Dirty Laundry.

And my three-part blog series here:

• Part 1: The Problem
• Part 2: Cold Turkey
• Part 3: Right on Time

Top 10 reasons to send your 4-year-old to preschool during a pandemic

1. Those few hours without the Paw Patrol theme song being belted out at the top of his lungs (oh wait, the two-year-old will still repeat "I'm Callie and you Katie" all day long.)

2. That pep in your step as you fill up a TO GO mug with coffee for preschool drop off. That is, if the memory of going places doesn’t make you depressed.

3. That pride you feel when you ENJOY making small talk with the masked teachers and other parents dropping off their kids. A person! To talk to! Who won't mention Paw Patrol or tell you how you didn't cut their sandwich correctly. You might even give your introverted self a pat on the back for all of your #pandemicgrowth.

4. That realization that there is a 0% chance that you will yell at, want to hit, or give your child an "I just can't even" exasperated sigh if said child is not present to receive this wrath.

5. Actually, there's a good chance this wrath may dissipate almost completely in the child’s absence.

6. The hope that your child might learn how to use a public restroom standing up and that you will not be forever “pointing his penis down” as he pees and then pulling his pants back up. One can dream.

7. The joy when he tells you what he did in class and what the weird, yet endearing artwork with orange and purple painted dots that he brought home means. We have not yet reached this day. He is still punishing us for sending him to school in the first place. “You shouldn’t have gone home,” he still says. “Then you would know what I did.”

8. The day when he complains that it’s NOT a preschool day and you feel absolved from that first blustery drop off when he cried and looked so small and vulnerable in his miniature puffer jacket and mask and whimpered as you left. (Like number 7, this day is still hypothetical, but I am anticipating that it will feel great. So far, we have progressed from not liking preschool at all to “I still don’t like preschool a little bit,” which is actually a big shift for a little boy who operates in extremes and absolutes.)

9. The alone time with Sissy that you realize you’ve never actually had. Girlfriend is smarter and funnier than you knew AND she still takes naps. You would never name favorites, but we all know the future is female.

10. That feeling when you actually MISS him and can’t wait to hear about his day. When the house feels “too quiet” without his singing or his questions and you find yourself wondering what he’s doing this very minute. When resentment blossoms into enjoyment. When you end up better able to love him, and his sister, and yourself.

I struggled with this decision for a long time, then waited on a preschool waiting list even longer. But it might be the greatest act of self-care I've done as a mother so far, and especially in this season.  Oh, also he might make friends and not be terrified of TK and actually learn a thing or two, but, hey, that would be icing on the cake.

Written as a response to a Rhthym writing prompt - find other responses by searching #rhythmwriting2021 on Instagram.

Spin

Jaw clenched and lips pursed, I stared at the screen in front of me but didn’t really see the latest student essay in need of grading. 

“How much is it?” I asked.  

“$2,000,” he said, and quickly added, “I can sell the car and get something cheaper. We can use that money to pay for it.”

“I won’t use it,” I stated matter of factly. I tried staring harder at my computer, switched tabs to my work email. 

A judgy sigh slipped out before I had a chance to stop it. There were so many other ways I would prefer to spend our money. 

“Fine, if you sell the car, you can get the Peloton.” I conceded. 

“But I still won’t use it.”

***

A few months earlier we drove 45 minutes to go for a mask-wearing test drive in 100 degree heat only to discover the car in question had a “mystery sound” the salesman conveniently forgot to mention before we wasted a morning of childcare on it. So when my husband presented the car swap for a Peloton, I felt reasonably certain it wouldn’t happen any time soon. 

But then my dad, ever the schemer, hatched a plan. We would do a three-way car swap. He would pass his truck along to my younger brother who would pass his wife’s CRV onto my husband who would pass his too-tiny-for-two-kids Lexus to my Dad. My husband and I would drive out of the deal with an SVU and--apparently--a Peloton. 

***

The Peloton took two months to arrive because of Covid-gyms-are-closed demand. 

I nearly forgot about it when the delivery guys carried the bike up to our loft. 

I wasn’t going to use it, you see. I have principles, you see. 

It all started with a tweaked neck. I had been working out pretty consistently considering the state of everything in the world, but a strained muscle in my neck had sidelined me for a week or two. 

And my anxiety was at an ALL TIME HIGH. I cried every day. I hated getting out of bed in the morning. I’ve known for a good while that exercise endorphins work better than any prescription medication I’ve tried for anxiety and depression, but this workout hiatus just proved it again. 

Still in pain, I walked up to the Peloton screen and created an account. Just to see how it worked. 

A “How to Adjust the Bike” tutorial popped up, so I lowered the seat, setting it to my hip level and scooting the saddle (spin speak for seat) forward. 

All I'd have to do is pedal. No neck or arm movements involved.

I had a decision to make. 

I could be right, stick to my judgment and my metaphorical guns and I-told-you-so's, or I could be happy. Soaked in sweat and pulsing with endorphins, happy.  I chose happy. 

With my husband working downstairs in the office and my kids as my witnesses, I hopped on and started pedaling. 

It was so quiet! Eerily so. 

“Mama’s gonna do a bike workout now,” I told the kids as I popped in my Airpods and let Usher drown out their whining. They bumbled around the loft, pretending to be Marshall and Sky from the Paw Patrol as I broke my first delicious sweat in two weeks. 

***

I have done a spin workout 12 out of the last 12 days since my first ride and did a happy dance when my own pair of special clip-in shoes arrived. I would like to write that I am thoroughly embarrassed about this, but I'm not. I'm too busy feeling happy--must be the dang endorphins.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Unexpected Joy".