What You Do When No One’s Looking

I’m almost a year sober and a guy I’ve just met at an NA meeting invites me to coffee. He has five years and he reminds me of one of my favorite people back in my home city. He beats me to the coffee shop and orders water. He suggests going to a nearby park and like somebody who doesn’t know better I get in his car. We get out and walk around a little. He sits on a bench and pulls me onto his lap. I don’t like it but I let him. We return to the car and get in and start kissing pretty rough pretty fast and he pushes my head down. I resist. He calls me a slut like it’s part of the game and pushes my head down harder.

I’m just over one year sober and I steal from Walgreen’s even though I purchase several other items. I haven’t shoplifted for years but the lipstick fits so perfectly in my hand and I realize I can so I do. The next day I return to Walgreen’s and tell them I accidentally left with an item I didn’t pay for so I purchase some new items and have them charge me twice. When I tell my sponsor, she tells me not to make any more amends without talking to her. I’m only on step four (resentment inventory, sex inventory, fears). Amends are on step nine. The steps are in order for a reason.

My numbing agents of choice are no longer available to me, so the feels keep coming back, even now, more than two years into sobriety. I get stood up a second time for a Tinder date with a normie and I lay on my bed feeling sick to my stomach and I might be having a panic attack. I cry and tell myself it’s okay, people hurt sometimes. Another day I suffer from a rage attack, some inconsequential happening sets me off and then there I am beating the steering wheel and screaming motherfucker in my car.

On the outside I am two-and-a-half years sober and I am stable and calm and fun and I sponsor other women and lead them through the twelve steps. I have my own apartment and a job and my kids are back in my life. I’ve gone from almost losing custody to splitting them 50/50. Some would call it a miracle, a god-shot. I have a hard time calling things that but I know what people mean when they say it and I’m starting to believe in it. 

Before I got sober and the meds started mostly working, I’d slam my head into walls sometimes, punch myself in the face. Back into a corner and hyperventilate. I’d drink until I blacked out, just like I had since age 12. I’d mix my drinks with my meds. I’d swear to stop drinking then drink harder. I made plans to do bad things and wrote them down. I scared myself. I cut myself. I scared my kids.

There are times now when I dance alone with complete abandon. I hula hoop to dirty rap in my undies with the blinds open. I take my sponsor’s advice to “date yourself” and put on lingerie under a cute dress for no reason and color my eyelids and carefully apply the reddest lipstick and go nowhere.

There are times when I properly care for myself. I take a shower and prepare food that doesn’t come out of a package from the freezer. I journal. I stretch. I call someone I love.

When my family was still together, I used to stay up late on Xmas to wrap presents and stuff stockings and make everything as magical as possible for the kids. I used to perform random acts of kindness and not tell anybody about them. I used to vape weed right before I picked the kids up from school and soon thereafter. I used to wait to do chores until just before my husband came home so maybe he would notice.

Most of the time, when nobody’s looking, I curl up on the couch under a heavy blanket with my phone and a (nicotine) vape. I do everyday things like feeding the hamster and putting furniture together and watching TV. I do recovery things like going to meetings and doing step-work and talking to my sponsor and sponsees. I work my program. I say my prayers, take my meds. I’m more normal than I’ve ever been and it’s boring sometimes but I’m safe. For the first time in a long time I am safe.

Walk around feeling like a leaf. I know that I can tumble any second. –Naomi Shihab Nye

Back in Black

I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long. Life happened and I didn’t feel inspired and now there is a Supernatural-shaped hole in my heart because I’ve finished all fifteen seasons. I think the blog has been a bit meandering so far, trying to find its sea-legs. But I’ve had an idea for how to pull this together into something thematically connected and hopefully worth reading:

I am in recovery from a substance use disorder and I work a 12-step program. At nearly every meeting and during most conversations with other people in recovery, I hear phrases, tidy little aphorisms, some of which are ubiquitous–One Day at a Time, Keep Coming Back, It Works if You Work It–and others that you hear less often but which are also part of the canon. There may even be a few originals thrown in. But for now and for the immediate future, these phrases will title my entries, and serve as my prompts. Naturally, this is a recovery-focused blog and I hope to reach others in my community. But alcoholism and addiction touch countless lives and here, all are welcome.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Today I both reached out and accepted others reaching out to me. I wrote lyrics with one of my clients at work. He was shy at first, dissing himself, “I’m not good at this.” I talked to him about how we judge ourselves so readily and how that stops us from expressing our creativity before we even start. Easy to say to another, more challenging to implement for oneself. (Not-so-secret: I have this problem too.) At first when he asked me if I wanted to help him write a song—I didn’t. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned during recovery, it’s when someone asks you for help, say yes. ” When your mind says no, your feet say yes” (one benefit of training in the ways of the program). Also, it’s my damn job. To interact. To provide support and guidance. To encourage and validate.

I’m trying a new thing the past two days (that number includes today, technically not “past” but omg whatever). I made myself a schedule, or rather a pattern, for my work days. It includes the things I want to encourage myself to make a regular part of my life—5 minutes of meditation in the morning, for instance (hit it yesterday, skipped today). But this afternoon I did friggin YOGA!! For like fifteen minutes. I haven’t done an actual concerted session of yoga in, um, at least a year. Why? It’s the easiest thing—all you need is your body. Anyway, this is the plan: wake up, 10th step check-in, morning meditation, morning routine (dress, meds, vapes, coffee, bag, shoes, coat). When I come home from work it’s…work-time—edits if I have them, step work if I don’t. Then I do some “actual” writing: the real deal, relevant research, or actions related to submitting work for publication. Other options: journaling, writing letters. Bodywork break: yoga, hula, tai chi, body scan, roller, walk. Options abound! I literally do NOTHING for my body right now, at least not intentionally. Then I prep for tomorrow (coffee, clothes, bag, vapes) and have some free time for “projects”. This could be anything from an art project to a cleaning junket to the assembly of some furniture to using my label-maker. Sky’s the limit baby! Then I eat and have some down time to do whatever (we all know this means watching Supernatural). An hour before I go to bed I head upstairs, make my entry on the gratitudes and affirmations thread I share with my girls (sponsees) if I haven’t done so already, then read for a while (whoah, actual READING!!), and when the lights go out, the evening version of my 10th step review. There might be a little somethin somethin next but omg MYOB. Somewhere in the middle of it all I reach out to others and respond when others reach out to me. Voila! All in a day… a bit ambitious but better to strive for the unattainable than to settle for the same old boring shit forever.

Today during my project time I picked up the phone. It’s one of my aspirations to call or text at least 5 people a day, making or receiving at least one actual phone call. I tried dialing a few friends. Hit voicemail, which nobody leaves. Then I called my 94-year-old grandpa. And had a real conversation. His brother just died, and he said to me, “I didn’t just lose a brother, I lost my best friend.” We talked about aging and death, how the body compounds its betrayals. We talked about whether he was still okay being on his own. I mentioned a living arrangement that had been tossed around wherein he stayed at a small place near one of my uncles and his partner. Grandpa said he didn’t want to be a burden. I said that’s one way of thinking but it’s just as likely that people who love him and want to care for him and spend time with him might think of it as a blessing. If I were able to offer that kind of respite and care, I hope that’s how I would feel.

Then I called my Grandma, his ex-wife of many years. She is still going strong at 90 but she’s losing her vision and only has two-thirds of her one good eye left. She, too, lives on her own. In a small condo on a golf-course in Palm Springs. She is an avid reader but hasn’t been able to read an actual book in over five years. But she is a modern woman and has adapted to the IPad, the Kindle, and books on tape. Still she sleeps only five hours a night if she’s lucky and has so many more hours to fill. She cooks for herself, bathes herself, dresses herself, enjoys her own company. She’s not lonely. She’s laid off the vodka and now just has her one (big) glass of wine a day. She tells me a funny story about a 90-something man in the complex getting a crush on one of my sisters and sending her a negligee. I say he’s a randy old man and she says he’s a horny old man and that he’s tried to get a pinch in on her before too. We talk and we laugh and we talk and we laugh and I love her to the moon.

I’m so glad I picked up the phone today. It was no skin off my back. I even multitasked. All the while I wore headphones and had my hands free. I wiped down the counters and put away the dishes in the dishrack and loaded the dishwasher and set up my coffee for tomorrow and emptied all the trash. Things I can do with my hands yet save my attention for the person on the other end of the line, to whom I listen with my mind and with my heart.

Only If We Make It Back

Tonight I want to talk about relapse. Sometimes when you work with other women in recovery you lose one. (Sometimes = often, let’s be real). Relapse is a part of recovery; we are prone to repetition. It is my observation that there are certain never-fails in the relapse department. Of course there’s the trope of “people, places, things”—which to some extent means anyone, anywhere, anything, but more specifically the people, places, and things associated with your drinking and using. But above and beyond that, particularly during the first year of sobriety, this is what takes people out: “relationships”, sobriety anniversaries, the fourth step. The relapse trifecta. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve come across who relapse within inches of their 60 days, their 90 days, their six months, their nine. JUST when they’re getting there or JUST when they’ve gotten there. Damn, that’s gotta hurt. The fourth step, in which people make a “fearless and thorough” inventory of their resentments, fears, and problematic sexual behaviors…well, it’s got a reputation. A lot of people get stuck on it and it can drive you to crazy town because of everything you’re dredging up. The process is not meant to punish you—ultimately it’s meant to free you—but digging into the past with no anesthetic is the kind of surgery not everyone makes it through. Relationships—no explanation necessary, highly destabilizing; the recommendation is that newly sober people don’t enter into romantic relationships for the first year. But who does that? It’s like, what do we have left?

These are the mind-altering substances available to us: caffeine, nicotine, sugar, endorphins, oxytocin. My first year, I didn’t give a fuck about anything I was ingesting that wasn’t drugs or alcohol. As long as it wasn’t THAT, I was good. The point was to get sober, not to become a saint. So I pounded energy drinks (a newly acquired habit) and smoked like the proverbial chimney. I used to have a salty tooth, but in early recovery I lived on chocolate protein shakes, pop-tarts, and gummy worms (Seroquel had a hand in this). I obsessed on muscle cars and jumping out of airplanes and drove fast and laughed loud and got a lot of tattoos. I fucked around: got myself a treatment boyfriend, aaaaand a girl. Discovered Tinder. I did almost all the wrong things. But that’s how I got sober. Well, that’s the condition I was in when I started to put in the WORK: treatment center, PHP (Partial Hospitalization Program) to IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program), sober living, meetings, fellowship, sponsor, Big Book, STEPS. And, in my case, meds. I am what we call Dual Diagnosis, having both substance abuse and mental health issues. There came a time during my recovery when I had to manage my bipolar and my ADHD or I wouldn’t have been able to progress in my program; my sponsor called me out on it during my fourth step, actually. Which took me 9 months and 200+ pages to complete. Which is NOT “NORMAL,” even for a non-normie. I don’t recommend that anybody work their fourth like I did, but what matters is I made it through. I wish we all would. I wish we all could. And I believe we CAN, no matter how many times we relapse. But only if we make it back.  

The Hawtness

Well we just went through a rough patch where my baby boy was possessed by the power of the Mark of Cain and the First Sword. Demon Dean was hot for the first few minutes of debauchery and I liked the Crowley pal-up but as the episodes wore on it was hard to maintain my crush at cruising altitude. His masculinity was on hyperdrive in all the ugliest ways. The smirks and the jokes dried up. His easy charm erased. Thank jeebus he is back in fighting shape and he and Sam have once more mended the rift that arose between them. So now they’re on a case with a bunch of rich pricks (the joke is WASPS) and a couple of vengeful spirits (who are turning out to be shape shifters, actually, so now they’re breaking out the cutlery—silver, natch) and I just have to say it’s so cute when Sam gets flirted with. I love the play of—is it modesty?—the “aw shucks I’m no flirt” discomfort that flits across his face and is, in its way, hella flirty. And then when he actually turns it on…he’s got a certain intensity, a different flavor than Dean’s but still intriguing. I love how women are always giving him the side-eye, which of course he seems not to see.

I had to look up their heights the other day to make sure Dean (Jensen Ackles, btw) wasn’t short. I thought by his overall sexiness and the way he carries himself that he was tall, plus I was trying to math him against other people and he was also taller than other men, but in comparison to Sam he looks a little shrimpy. But who wouldn’t? Sam (Jared Padalecki) is 6’4”. But never you fear. Dean clocks in at a respectable 6’1”. Knowing that, I swear Sam is more like 6’8” lol, cuz when they’re standing right next to each other he seems to loom over his brother. Talllllll drink of water that one.

Uh-oh. There’s a part of Dean that still takes pleasure in killing, methinks. He just shot the shape shifter (turns out there was only one) a few more times than was necessary to kill her. Sam is perturbed. Demon residue? Dean mans up and brushes it off like always when he’s about to fuck shit up. This will lead to nothing good, be sure. Finis.

Body Fluids

Omg my daughter just puked her fucking guts out, the bedding all twisted up and chunks and chunks, that greasy smear. She didn’t like, puke in one spot. She made multiple deposits—sheets, comforter, one of her plushies. I’m sure you can imagine what I’ve just been through. Note to self: buy gloves. So there’s a load in the machine and another on deck. The carpet has been spot cleaned and will be vacuumed tomorrow. The upstairs toilet is clean. The counter is actually clean too because my son sprayed blood all over the counter, the sink, and the mirror earlier today when he got a bloody nose so I took care of that as well. What’s up with the body fluids?! I was shitting my brains out yesterday fml. I had such bad cramps on Monday I thought I was having a kidney stone attack. 

Anyway the upstairs smells like vomit and all I have to clear the air is this lavender spray that basically smells like shit by association because that’s the bathroom shit-spray. I’ve gotta get some other scent!! Maybe that one natural citrus spray that you see everywhere. Lavender is the worst for toilet situations. Hopefully it isn’t ruined for me forever. My bouquet was lavender when I got married, I loved it that much. 

Funny thing, there I was picking flecks of partially digested carrots off the carpet and I no shit had the thought (paraphrasing), “I know so many moms who would give their left tit to be where I am right now…with their kids.” The program is strong in this one. I am so grateful for these thoughts, even in the midst of whatever life throws at me, especially in the midst.

Like when my tire went flat on Friday and I was filled with gratitude that it hadn’t blown out on the highway and that a Les Schwab was around the corner. Instead of being frustrated or pissed. I do have to admit that when I thought I might have kidney stones I was definitely thinking about the painkillers I got last time when I went to the emergency room doubled over in pain and keening like a wild animal. But that’s just how our addict brains work. My position on medication is that if I truly need it I will take it and I will not give up my sober date and anybody who thinks I should can fuck off and work their own program. I’m not having my next hip replacement stone cold sober. If it triggers me, I’ll deal with it. But for now: I notice my thoughts and I notice that they’re addict thoughts and I know that that’s just normal for the old me and then the new me lets them go.

So I’ve got my daughter on the couch now and I’m scared shitless. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I LOVE MY COUCH. I love it so much that I don’t and won’t have cats. If she pukes on my couch I will probably lose whatever Zen I have. Believe me, I wasn’t a monk cleaning up that puke, I was definitely like fuck this but also you just do what you have to do. I mean, what other choice is there? I only almost puked once. Another thought I had was about my own mom and how much puke she must have cleaned up with five kids. Gratitude for her as well. OMG am I so annoying with all this gratitude coming out my ass?

Ate the Other Half

Is it wrong that I find Lucifer kinda sexy? He’s such a dick, takes pleasure in his dickishness. I think I take pleasure in his pleasure. He’s no Dean though. Ultimately: no contest. My daughter got me a packet of all the necklaces from Supernatural for Xmas. Gonna be rocking a lot of pentagrams. I’m putting on all the ones with black cords. Gonna hide them under my shirt tomorrow at work so people don’t think I’m a Satanist but then again, do I care?

It’s my Friday so I’m up late. 10:20 p.m. at the moment. Yes that is late for me now because for once in my life I work a day job and have to wake up at 6 a.m. The way I tricked myself into it is I told myself “hey, you don’t like to wake up no matter what time it is and you hit the snooze button at least twice no matter what time it is so what do you care if it’s at 6 a.m. instead of one or two in the afternoon?” (unemployed Covid schedule = whack). Anyway I just took my meds so I’ll be out around midnight and get six hours of sleep if I’m lucky. Eating half a now-unfrozen margherita pizza with a Coke. Might eat the other half. Will probably eat the other half.

Lucifer is really fucking with Sam this episode. Sam’s in the looney bin, locked up. Lux won’t let him sleep and Sam’s going cray. Kinda like me on meth back when. Chasing voices around an empty house. Picking “glass” out of the tips of my fingers with tweezers and a needle.

Today after work I stopped to check out a house that one of the sisters who still talks to me is rehabbing. (One out of three isn’t talking to me and hasn’t for well over two years. Not bad for an alki?) After that I stopped by Walgreen’s and only bought the things I actually needed, well, things that I had on my list. “Need” can get a little slippery when you are consumed with want. The Big Book says something about the “chief activator” of most of our defects being the fear that we’ll lose something we already have or not get something we want (“need”). Actually the book says “something we demand.” (p. 76) So I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist. I’ve been spending a lot of money lately, and I mean it when I say “lot.” I have to watch out because impulsivity and extravagance are signatures of both my bipolar and my ADHD. I bought a BMW once on credit when I was jobless and recently divorced.

After Walgreen’s I went home and straightened up real fast then headed to the Lite Owls meeting. It’s the only in-person meeting I go to right now. Topic was the first step. There were few enough people that everybody shared, just like the good-weather days when we were getting together at Alberta Park. When the meeting was over I was fantasizing pretty hard about my couch (I luuuuuurve my couch) and Supernatural but instead I had a friend over for tea (right after I pounded a Bang at the meeting). “Fellowshipping.” There was a large group going to fellowship at a food-cart, but one person was all I could handle and even that was pushing it. Often in recovery life, your feet say yes when the rest of you says no. So I held to my plan to hang with D. And later I was glad. I am making a new friend. We talked and talked. Feelings welled up in me from all over the place. I started to cry twice but didn’t finish.

This summer I sent the non-talking sister a letter to ask if she would be willing to let me make an amends to her. An amends is where you face the harm you’ve done another and find out if there’s anything you can do to atone. You don’t grovel; you acknowledge and address. If you’re doing it “right,” you listen. I don’t hold it against her, the silence. All I can do is extend a hand.

H.J. Sandwich

Praise jeebus I am a medium-to-high-functioning person today. At work I actually worked. I didn’t even make it through all my games. After work I noticed that one of my back tires looked flat. Fuuuuuuck. Not long ago in a preparatory mood I’d purchased a pressure gauge to keep in the car because I think every glovebox should have one (chalk one up to growing up in Montana). The thing barely popped. Now I have watched many a tire being changed but have not, myself, changed a tire. I googled “flat tire near me” and wonder of wonders, there was a Les Schwab like .2 miles away, two blocks, no shit! I drove a little gingerly. Sure it sucks to have a flat tire, but I was grateful that I found it before I hit the highway and also that the shop was crazy close. They found a nail in the tire and fixed it for free. This too I took a moment to be grateful for. I talked on the phone most of the time to the friend I had to cancel on and then I worked on the puzzles I usually do on the clock.

Home. Didn’t park like an asshole, hoping the other cars in the neighborhood will pick it up by osmosis—leave room for another car, drr. I’ve thought about leaving a passive aggressive note on a certain few windshields but that would make me a possibly bigger dick than the shit parkers.

Checked the mail, one envelope, boring. Walked into the apartment, didn’t like the looks of a chalkboard and a calendar that I put up in the kitchen the other day, grabbed a hammer and relocated them. Set up my coffee for tomorrow, including a timer, which I’ve never tried before. Took off my shoes and pants—the pajama transition. Finished reading my New Year’s tarot spread (a friend had my main book for interpreting so I had to wait until she gave it back). Cleaned the downstairs bathroom. Grabbed the laundry out of the dryer, hunkered down on the couch. And here I am…

OMG Dean is making out with a woman who isn’t turning out to be a monster. It’s implied that they’re fucking. Lotta bare chest and bedroom eyes. HAWT. I have a slight-to-moderate and sometimes avid Dean preference. Dean’s the funny one, the little faces he makes, his dumb jokes. Clean cut, always popping that collar. Every once in a while I get hit by Sam’s puppy-dog action but I’m not a fan of his sideburns. He’s a talllll drink of water though. I like the way women always give him a “damn you’re foine” look and he doesn’t notice. Oh fuck the lady did turn out to be a freak. Dean might have impregnated her. Witches? These guys never catch a break in the bedroom department, I swear. Uhhhh I could help with that. Maybe a sandwich?  

So far for my program today I listened to the Joe and Charlie Big Book Study on my morning commute and during lunch, the sections on steps eleven and twelve, which are maintenance steps but also connecting-more-deeply steps—through prayer, meditation, and service (such as sponsorship). And now I’ve finished that round of tapes, which is saying something because there were 34 readings all told! I don’t hit as many meetings right now because I work early so I lost my regular late-nighter. I think of these recordings as a kind of replacement or transitional tool. I’m stable enough to have some flexibility in my program; it changes as I do. My potential sponsee made her call so that’s three days in a row and she needs to make seven. Then we get to work.

Prayer is something I started doing even though I didn’t believe in “God” when I entered this program and was (am?) pretty secure in my agnosticism. But in the program you follow direction. I was told to pray and so I prayed. I learned the Third Step Prayer and the Sick Man’s Prayer and of course I already knew The Lord’s Prayer and the Serenity Prayer. I’m trying to learn the St. Francis Prayer (some call it the Eleventh Step Prayer), but it’s a doozy and I haven’t been working that hard on it lately. (Okay I haven’t been working on it at all). For a while I thought about customizing the various prayers to take out the “Gods” and the “Lords” and the “Thous,” etc., but then I decided to just do them verbatim. What difference does the nomenclature make? That’s actually wild for me to say because I used to have a real chip on my shoulder in the “God” department; I certainly wouldn’t cap it. I didn’t like the word “spirituality” much either. And I was (am?) anti–organized religion (working on it: resentments). But I think we’re all trying to answer the same essential questions: Who, What, Where, When, How? and more than anything, Why? (a question we’ve been asking since we first learned to speak). So I vote for all gods, from Odin to Freya to Siva and back. The Universe. Supreme Intelligence. Just…Nature. That which I may never be able to fully articulate. Worship whoever or whatever works for you. Don’t worship at all. We’re all climbing the same ladder, even if some of us lose our footing on a broken rung.

Watching Paint Dry

I had planned to spend most of my day with Sam and Dean (Supernatural, duh) chasing ghosts and being chased by leviathans, but then a mob descended upon the White House. We are living so much history this year. I had that sense at the beginning of Covid: this is history happening. And the hits keep coming. So instead of hanging out with two hottie-boo-botties who kill things, I’m watching a bunch of old white people, mostly men, put forth their various positions. Yes, I’ve been watching CONGRESS for several hours now. Both chambers. It’s weird how I can get sucked into this kind of stuff. Sometimes I’ll end up on C-Span. Why not watch paint dry?

I fed my kids tonight. Healthy food. I made salmon with Israeli couscous and collards. My son won’t eat cooked vegetables so I threw a couple of carrots on his plate. He eats hardly anything and finishes fast. We all sat at the table together for like eight minutes, which I count as success. I refrained from asking about their homework because I read in some parenting column that if you want family dinnertimes to flourish, you’ve got to avoid talking chores or homework or other annoying-to-kids topics. These topics are also annoying to me. But I am compelled to visit and revisit them daily. This homeschool bullshit—one of Covid’s many delights. Anyway, we were all at the table together and then after they had gone and I sat there finishing my plate alone I missed them a little but more than that I had a feeling of satisfaction, like just now I did something right.

I talked to a new girl today who wants me to sponsor her. She approached me about a week ago and then never got back. I don’t chase down my girls but I gave her one text and one call. She has two other friends that also need sponsors but I’m like hot damn girl, I’ve already got three, so she makes four and that’s a handful. I don’t like to say no to women who find me because when people come into your life there’s a reason. But that doesn’t mean I have to sponsor every woman who approaches me; I can still be there for them by forming a bridge to some other woman who might be able to fill the role. Sometimes people come into your life to teach you boundaries.  

Sponsoring has transformed my program. I am stable enough to be a rock for other women—me! When I started this journey into recovery I had lost my fourteen-year marriage, my home, my two children, my work, my physical health, and my sanity. Here I am, a little over two years later, working with women who are now where I was. I have a job. An apartment. A car. I’m about to have health insurance. I take my meds. And most importantly, my kids stay with me three nights a week. So many of the women I know in recovery are just devastated over their kids. Some are in and out of court. Some have lost custody; others have voluntarily given them up. Some are battling their exes with the children in between. Some don’t get to see their children at all. I understand that we, as alcoholics and addicts, have our work cut out for us when it comes to putting Humpty together again. There is a trail of wreckage behind us. This splitting of the mother from the child is one of the rotten fruits of this sickness.

TV and Me

The day before yesterday I ate meat, just meat, for dinner. I had broiled a hunk of something bloody for my kids when they were here for our days and there was a plate of strips left over. So I sat on my couch watching Supernatural and didn’t even bother to cut. Strips of meat, straight to my face.

Yesterday I didn’t eat dinner at all. I had a piece of pumpkin pie when I got home from work and some sniff-test-failing milk. Tonight I may or may not have a microwave dinner. It’s nine and the jury’s still out. When it comes to food, I’m listless. I can go the whole day without even thinking about it. It’s not intentional. It’s not pathological. I like food. I just don’t care about it right now.

Lately all I want to do is sit on my couch and watch Supernatural. There are thirteen seasons—jackpot. I haven’t watched many movies during Covid, maybe they’re too self-contained, not bingeable. But I smoke series like crack. I watched all 9 seasons of The Office even though part of me was like am I really doing this and do I even like these people anymore now that Michael is gone? I started the original (Ricky Jervais) version too but caved on that one because accents. Downton Abbey kept me going for a good long time—that one I actually watched the movie too, I wasn’t ready to let it go, the whole shabang a masterpiece of nuance. I’ve been using TV to bond with my children: all 12 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race with my son—so many snuggles (hate the word, love the activity) and he’s eleven! Soaking it up before he’s a teen. All 5 seasons of Riverdale and all 7 seasons of The 100 with my 8-year-old daughter. More snuggles! I’ve watched a perhaps unsettling number of teenager series: The End of the F***ing World, 13 Reason Why, Sex Education. Is it weird that I get crushes? FML I’m a creep.

I hate when there’s only one season, but I’ll watch despite myself. The Queen’s Gambit (LOVE HER), Ratchett  (costuming, sets, saturation!) (I almost ditched this one early because Nurse Ratchett was so one-dimensionally “evil,” but then she started to develop some complexity and I was sucked in.) Only one season? Withdraw like it’s the last hit. Itch for more to come but know that by then you won’t remember the first one.

What else do people do? I hear that baking bread is a thing. Writing novels. Happy hours over Zoom. Personally, I go to a lot of 12-step meetings online. One or two a day—more than many, less than some. There are marathons: 24 hours a day, meetings, across all continents. The variety, the availability—actually a really cool side effect of this digital adaptation to rat-bastard Covid. Helped me stay in touch with my SoCal community when I moved back to Portland in March–just when things really started busting. Helped me build new community here. But it’s not the same as an in-person meeting because it just isn’t, so we all talk about how we feel bad for people starting their recovery during Covid, never having had the experience of an in-person meeting—the energy, the fellowship, the weak coffee and strong cigarettes. In our community right now the same old things are extra: relapse upon relapse, overdoses, hospitalizations. (So glad fentanyl wasn’t a thing when I was shooting up twenty years ago). Suicides are up. Domestic violence. Depression and anxiety. (America was already sucking in all of these departments).

The people who bake bread—fuck off. Oh, you’re also learning three new languages? Eat shit. We already know about my TV situation. Every day I maintain up to twenty games of Words With Friends at once. On my phone. I do the NYT crossword puzzle and the Spelling Bee (anagrams). On my phone. I won’t stop playing Spelling Bee until I reach “amazing” (the category before “genius,” which I’ve achieved exactly twice in six months). I ostensibly read “the news” (on my phone) but get sucked into every single advice column. Even though I hate-read the advice from Miss Manners.

It’s the end of holiday season. For Xmas I bought a fake silver tree. My son does not approve and is not shy about it. Me and my daughter decorated it anyway. We went to the dollar store and blew forty bucks on holiday decorations for the whole damn apartment. Originally, I had a more subdued aesthetic in mind, classy. But my daughter likes red and green, classic. I reminded myself (repeatedly) that Xmas is for the kids, but there was still a part of me (selfish, petulant—stylish!) that wanted to “do me.” I cut myself a little slack for the attitude though. It’s my first time ever living alone in my own apartment. I’m forty-three, recently divorced, recently re-rehabilitated. I used to go for “character” in my apartment selections but things changed when I was in California and I got to live in a spotless stucco mini-villa during sober living. All us girls had chores every day and double-scrub on the weekend. Formerly a clutterer and a chaos bomb, I gradually learned new habits. I started to want things just so. When the time came, I rented something modern, clean, no nooks and crannies. It’s the nooks and crannies that get me.