My pandemic tale: An unfettered drinking story

A friend of mine is collecting personal short stories about the pandemic, and she asked if I could share about the time our daughter had difficulty getting home from Spain, back in March. That story would have ended with a nicely tied bow (spoiler: she came home!), and it would have been much more flattering than the messy story I’m about to tell.

The ugly truth is that during the first few months of the pandemic, my life had become a microclimate of wine bottles, post-it-notes, charger cords, and take-out boxes. Our house had accrued dozens of empty bottles and more tubes of lipstick than a beauty editor, because both of these were deemed as “my treats.”

Like many of us, my pandemic story includes a couple of tough situations, a few inconvenient circumstances, as well as some unprecedented and horrifying experiences. And at the same time, I am privileged to have family, friends, shelter, food, and healthcare — none of which I take for granted.

Yet, amidst all my blessings, alongside the chaos of the pandemic, and in the company of a powerful civic uprising in my city, my most unexpected personal challenge was waiting for me: an endeavor to stop drinking.

One day in June, it occurred to me that I might be able to exercise more easily if I didn’t have wine constantly coursing through my body. So, I decided to pause drinking. Eagerly seeking out a newly-discovered genre of sobriety books called “Quit Lit,” I also researched all the celebrities who are teetotalers, and I scoured my friends’ social media to try to glean who else was taking a break from imbibing.

During Dry July, insights approached me in giant, unexpected waves. One of my most-reached-for truisms had been that I could always get shit done. Yet in July, I attempted life’s usual tasks without several giant glasses of wine waiting for me at the end of the day, and I learned that I needed to slow the f*ck down. I came to the unpleasant realization that I’d been coping with my anxiety by future-tripping, white-knuckling, and over-functioning, followed by drinking an addictive substance.

As I listened to other people’s generously-shared sobriety journeys, I was faced with some of my own uncomfortable truths that I’d been denying over the last few years:

• The amount of alcohol that I was consuming was at an all time high;
• My self-imposed rules about what time of the day was acceptable to drink had eroded;
• Searching for my ID that I left at a bar was not an irregular occurrence;
• Bartenders were pouring me a glass of my favorite wine before I even sat down;
• I was “pre-gaming” when there actually wasn’t a game.

And, wait for it, a horrible realization: I did not vote in the 2016 election because I was drinking with a friend. I had become unrecognizable to myself. WHO EVEN WAS I??

This pause in drinking was no longer a short little experiment to see if I could go for a run without wanting to die. In the murky waters of unpacking my identity, flashes of clarity arrived when I pondered questions such as:

Why did I feel the need to be ultra-productive?

What if I didn’t have a to-do list going at all times?

What if I took pressure off myself to be a certain kind of woman/mom/wife/colleague/neighbor?

What if my give-a-shit-factor were dialed down to a level where I could breathe?

And, I don’t think I’m alone. Alcohol consumption among women is climbing. Women are leaving the American workforce by the hundred thousands. The gender distribution in demanding professions such as teaching and nursing is widening, and women are most likely to hold the title of “essential worker.” In an informal poll where I asked educators to name their greatest need right now, their top answers were, “More hours in the day,” followed by “Removing the pressure to do it all.”

For me, choosing a life of recovery means taking the counter-cultural option to allow life to unfold without harsh expectations. So, if you need it, please consider this your permission slip to stop white-knuckling it. I have learned during the pandemic that no one wants me (or you) to “do it all.” Our community just wants us to be here and present, and preferably with a mask on and not constantly wine-drunk.

These days are messy, scary, hard times with lots of twists and turns. And I’m grateful that you and I are here for it. I want to show up together, imperfectly, and give each other grace.

I’m on day 118 of living alcohol-free. And that’s my pandemic story.