The Harsh Toke of Hard Truths 

I published and instantly pulled this post last summer four plus years ago when I gave up drinking (for about 3 months, or until my Dad died, one or the other) and I rediscovered it right in time for the holidays years later and decided, it’s still true and I’m still a work progress, but can you really have too many reminders to be mindful about the difference between ritual and habitual? xo (Sarah) 

So here I am. I took my first drink FORTY-FIVE years ago – a can of Rainier beer on a beach on Bainbridge Island. I was sure I’d gotten a bad can because this one tasted like it belonged in an engine. A liquid practical joke. Who would drink such a beverage on purpose? Flash forward four decades, and I’ve consumed just about everything that can be drunk at one time or another.

I have to say….uh, erg, fuck, yikes, oh rats, I think I might be um, an alcoholic. What is not to love about an epically tasty glass of really good wine? Or a frosty copper mug o’ Moscow Mule? Nothing! But the thing is, if I could just have one of those, I’d be fine. But I can’t. There’s something missing in the brain of a percentage of us that doesn’t have that off switch. Rather, there’s a rogue voice that says: yes and! As in, yes, that feels perfect, and my vision is expanding, my worries are melting, and my wit is tripping, so the next one will just make it even more perfect. As I explained recently to my 17 year old as he was off to his first party: “At some point, you forget you’re drinking alcohol.” Or, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it so perfectly:

First you take a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes you.

Thank Jesus his father’s side of the family appears to have no issues with liking things to much. But still, here we are.

It’s very 2019 ( and, as it turns out, very 2024) If you’re a seeker, and you’re paying attention, the dots will connect effortlessly. I was just reading a Brene Brown post about her celebrating twenty-three years of sobriety which began when she learned of her wild and crazy family tree. I love her. She has perfected the art of the pithy post and turned vulnerability and sobriety into the new black all while staying likeable and staying one step ahead of her celebrity by walking her talk. In it she quoted the beyond brilliant Mary Karr:

“That schoolmarm part of me — that hypercritical finger-wagging part of myself that I thought was gonna keep me sober — that was actually what helped me stay drunk. What keeps you sober is love and connection to something bigger than yourself. When I got sober, I thought giving up [alcohol] was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.”

The harsh toke of hard truths indeed!