December, the Drinking Minefield
There’s a reason my sobriety date is Christmas Day. Plus: How to stay out of harm’s way this holiday.
The cans were side by side in the fridge door. I reached in and grabbed the Pellegrino, popped the top open, and took a sip.
I don’t know how many milliseconds it takes for taste buds to send a message to the brain. Or exactly how much information the gustatory cortex — the taste center of your brain — needs to complete feedback to you. I just know that my first reaction (“My, this tastes awfully bitter…”) and my second reaction (“This isn’t Pellegrino!”) were separated by a comical millisecond or two of incomprehension. Oh, to have seen the expression on my face in slow-motion animation. The third reaction — bending over the sink and spewing out the beer — was classic slapstick.
Perhaps you’re thinking this response was a wee dramatic. After all, I didn’t swallow the beer, nor did I stand there and continue to chug the whole thing and then run to the liquor store for a bottle of scotch. But it was the first time in almost 17 years of sobriety that I’ve accidentally (nearly) ingested alcohol, and there was something a little spooky about that.
That was a couple weeks ago, and a few days later, the subject of “accidental” ingestion happened to come up in a meeting of sober friends. I was amazed to hear that everyone had one of these stories. One by one, they spilled out. There were the times they’d been served alcohol unknowingly — a mixed-up drink order at a restaurant or a swapped glass at a party. There were the times when they’d been served an alcoholic beverage by a friend or acquaintance who didn’t think it would be any big deal. (Argh!) There was the alcohol-soaked tiramisu at a wedding; the bottle of fruit seltzer at a picnic that was really hard seltzer; the Virgin Mary that wasn’t a virgin.
As I listened to everyone speak, I heard the notes of anxiety behind the nervous laughter, saw that the memories were vivid and powerful.
But there was something more going on, I thought, if even people with long-term sobriety could be rattled by a single sip of alcohol.
It was fear.
Because there are two kinds of “accidental” drinking — and only a thin line between one and the other. In both cases you are blindsided; the first by fate, the second by yourself.
When the first type happens – the true accident – there’s a part of you (me, any alcoholic) who wonders, ‘Did I want that to happen?’ ‘Was that really a total accident?’ ‘And does that mean that maybe next week or next month, I’ll randomly pick up a drink at a party and guzzle it?’ It happens. You wouldn’t believe it, but it does.
The disease is clever; it will chisel away at a tiny crack if it sees one.
December is a plague of accidental drinking of the second order. It’s no coincidence that December 25 is my sobriety date. The last month of 2006 was such a horror show of stopping and starting – after an entire year of trying and trying to quit drinking for good – that I simply could not carry on after finishing my last drink on Christmas Day 2006.
I put myself in harm’s way every chance I got that holiday.
I sat with the whiskey-drinking boys at the office Christmas party.
I threw a party at my own home that I had no business hosting. I nearly had a panic attack getting ready for it, so I poured myself a glass of wine. I misplaced that glass when the guests arrived, and poured and misplaced a couple more during the party. At the end of the evening, I didn’t know which glasses were mine, so I simply finished off what was left in all the half-empty glasses. (That should have been a clue that the end was near.)
Then, the kicker — I traveled to the family Christmas, where anxiety reigned supreme. The first thing I did when I walked in the door and picked up the vibe was to pour myself a Scotch.
Each of these “accidental” drinks was a relapse before I even knew what a relapse was. I couldn’t have defined them as such, because I didn’t know what sobriety was. I was just trying to quit drinking. I had absolutely no tools for keeping myself safe – I just kept banging my head against the wall until I was exhausted.
And then I had no choice but to ask for help. It occurred to me (finally) to pray. God and I were estranged during the drinking years, but we’d been chatting in recent weeks, me gargling my words as I flailed around in the deep end. This time I begged for help. Out loud in the car while driving across the Delaware Memorial Bridge staring into the sun.
My answer came a few days later when I was back home after the family visit, lying on my kitchen floor. Not drunk — depressed. Dopamine-deprived from three days of trying to power through without alcohol. I couldn’t stand another second of it – I absolutely knew I was going to drink again. So I called our couples therapist, who was an addiction expert.
She told me what she’d been telling me for months, only this time I listened: If you’re going to stop drinking and get sober, you can’t do it by yourself. You need to go to twelve-step meetings. I got off the phone and called a friend. She was the only person I knew who had admitted to attending these meetings (which seemed both mysterious and unappealing to me). Saturday morning she picked me up, even though I tried to back out.
An hour later I was sitting in a folding metal chair in a drafty parish hall in New Canaan, Connecticut, listening to dozens of people talk about a disease they were suffering from and how they were dealing with it. Suddenly, I had the sensation of being on a huge ship changing course and making a wide, lumbering turn.
Epiphany: I was an alcoholic, like my grandmother and my grandfather and my cousin who had just died. Here I had thought I simply had a drinking problem – that I could take care of it myself. Quit. Carry on. Thank you very much. I’d like an A+ in this course. But now I understood I had the disease. And it was such a monumental relief to know what was wrong with me that I nearly fell off my chair.
I clung to meetings in those first few months. I went every day, sometimes twice a day, before and after work. The women and men in my 7:30 morning meeting were lifesavers. I listened to them and tried to understand what I was hearing.
February came along and I found myself thinking I might have made a mistake, I was probably fine, I didn’t need to go to these meetings.
But even the meetings weren’t enough to keep my disease from playing tricks on me. February came along and I found myself thinking I might have made a mistake, I was probably fine, I didn’t need to go to these meetings. I had one foot out the door heading for an “accidental” (intentional) return to drinking.
And then, out of the blue, a woman appeared in my morning meeting and offered to begin leading me through the twelve steps. It was step work — especially the honest inventory I took of myself in the fourth step — that set me free. I finally understood the fear I lived with and the façade I hid behind.
I’ve been lucky. I haven’t picked up a drink since then. At least not one that lingered in my mouth for more than a few seconds.
But just because I’m coming up on a sobriety anniversary doesn’t mean that I don’t still have a healthy fear of slipping up and taking a drink.
That’s why I do all the things: say no to certain holiday parties; always have an exit plan for others. I take a supportive friend or family member with me, or make sure other sober people will be at the party. I bring Pellegrino with me! I don’t throw big holiday parties, or even small ones, because I know with my workload, I will get stressed out.
If I’m feeling down, I speak up about it and make sure I’m not isolating. One of the most important things I do is beef up my twelve step meetings around the holidays. Inside those rooms, I don’t feel so out of sorts, and I get all the reminders I need about being honest, letting go, and taking things in little bites.
In there, I’m also reminded that one of the best things I can do for myself is to help someone else. December is a really good time to do that.
And thankfully, my family holidays are now filled with joy instead of stress.
If you’re struggling with alcohol this holiday, please ask for help. Or if you’re sober, please offer help to someone who isn’t.
Please feel free to add to these lists in the comments below.*
RESOURCES
TO READ
How to Avoid Booze During the Holidays by Tawny Lara
SoberStack, curated by Dana Leigh Lyons of Sober Soulful: an incredible list of 87 Substack newsletters coming at the topic of sobriety from every direction.
The entire contents of the most marvelous little book called Living Sober are online in this PDF. We sometimes chuckle at the advice in this book, but when it gets right down to it, the practical suggestions for how to stay away from trouble every day (especially during the holidays) are truly helpful.
Thank you for writing this. My first response: “her too? She tried to convince herself?” My second response: this is all so familiar. So so familiar. The holidays, the triggers, the self-doubt, the plans gone awry. Your words are a balm for me. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
For years and years...
“I didn’t know what sobriety was. I was just trying to quit drinking. I had absolutely no tools for keeping myself safe – I just kept banging my head against the wall until I was exhausted.”