I create space to fill my summer with joy

One of my favorite sobriety practices is a sunrise walk with my dog. Teddy and I live in a touristy town, and last night was the final firework show of the Dog Bowl Festival. Thousands of people and their furry friends gather for competitive events, hot air balloons, live music, and food trucks. As a dog lover, I anticipate this kick-off to summer every year.

However, today on our sunrise walk downtown, Ted and I found more than a dozen semi-full beer cans and mini wine bottles left behind from the night before. Our sacred morning (walking) meditation spot was trashed. I was struck by the urge to chug a few and catch a buzz before my coffee. No one would see me. Feeling triggered as hell, I cried the entire fifteen minute walk home.

Summer, for me, triggers more glorified drinking memories than any other season. Everything we love about summer — weddings, graduation, barbecues, slowpitch softball, boating, bonfires, festivals, concerts — are all accessorized with a red solo cup.

My post-festival morning walk was a reminder that this will be my first attempt at an alcohol-free summer in over a decade. I could feel some serious FOMO surfacing. Sometimes not drinking makes me feel like an outsider.

But, since ditching alcohol several months ago, I can see my hard work paying off. In an effort to fill my summer without wine, I built a cozy twinkle-light-lit balcony garden and have become a devoted plant mom. I am brewing my own fancy iced teas. Ted and I have discovered three new walking trails. My brain is less foggy. And as a special sobriety gift, I splurged on the new Taylor Swift vinyl for my record player.

The point is, by removing alcohol, I have created space to fill my life with things that I love. Drinking alcohol causes us to miss out. Not the other way around.

I am bringing my voice along for the ride

Over the past eight days, my job, city, and closest relationship have been flipped upside down. I am ending one chapter, and opening new doors. This is the space where paralyzing anxiety lives, and dreams are born. While packing my things, I’ve been given time to reflect on the apartment that brought me into sobriety and the lessons I’d like to bring from this place to the next.

When I first moved here for a new job, it only took about three weeks before I was drinking prior to clocking in. After one of my worst episodes, I woke up to find a hole I had ragingly punched through my bedroom door.

Those incidents led me to find a therapist. Together, we uncovered the main reason I have used eating disordered behaviors and binge drinking to cope, is because I didn’t feel like I could use my voice. I felt like I had to physically prove my struggle to the world. For more than a decade, I thought if I got thin or sick enough, someone would come to my rescue. But that never happened.

Before I moved here, I was still using my body and blackout drinking to tell my story. I was physically abusing myself because I never learned to speak up while experiencing pain.

After nearly 15 years of this self-made abuse, I am slowly relearning the importance of kindness. A type of kindness that, for me, is only experienced while using my own voice. When I take the time to honor and heal myself, my ability to show up and speak up multiplies.

It is impossible to say what the future holds. All I know for sure is, the upcoming weeks will be difficult and messy. Moving sucks. This is a massive change. I will have triggers and probably cry twice a day. However, one comforting promise I can make myself is to bring my voice, rather than the abuse, along for the ride.

I have the power to rewrite my story

A few years ago while finishing school, I took an adolescent psychology class. I almost fell out of my chair while reading about a theory stating that kids develop an ideal self and a feared self. I took a screenshot of it on my phone:

“The ideal self is the person an adolescent would like to be (for example: an adolescent may have an ideal of becoming highly popular with peers or highly successful in athletics or music). The feared self is the person the adolescent imagines it is possible to become but dreads becoming (for example: an adolescent might fear becoming an alcoholic, or fear becoming like a disgraced friend or relative).” 

At that time I was showing up to morning classes hungover and bringing a tumbler filled with Pinot Grigio to evening classes. I kept telling myself I’d get my shit together at the end of the semester. And there it was written in scholarly black and white; proof I became the person children fear. 

A few months later, after spending an entire semester drunk, I went to rehab for the first time. Then, five days after being discharged, and on my way home from an AA meeting, I got my second DUI. Now my criminal record was filled with more black and white proof I should be feared. 

For a very long time it felt like the universe was saying there was something wrong with me. I was the one who needed to be sent away and monitored 24/7. I was the one who could not handle life. 

My relationship with alcohol didn’t change until I realized I have the power to rewrite that, “Hi my name is Kelsi, and I should be feared” story. That story is what kept me entangled in addictive patterns for over a decade. It helped to welcome all parts of myself, rather than emphasizing my perceived weakness.

Now, after months of filling my life with Tempest material and brightly colored pens, I have rewritten the story in my head. It goes like this:

“My name is Kelsi and I am not afraid of myself. Sure, I’m awkward, emotional, quiet, and often overstimulated, but I’m also kind, creative, intelligent, and loved. I am someone who courageously and imperfectly challenges society’s view of what it means to struggle with alcohol.”

I have the power to rewrite my story.

I am free to bloom

 Whenever I woke up from a drinking black out, usually around 4 a.m., I would think, “I wish I could crawl into a hole and die.” A few hours later, I would force myself out of bed for a cigarette and shower in the dark. That was my morning ritual for years. 

Maybe I did crawl into that hole for a while. I tried to make it my permanent address because that felt way easier than being with myself through the pain. Eventually, though, I wanted out. 

Years before my sobriety began to stick, I attempted different routines and planted various seeds to aid my recovery. I tried rehab, meetings, halfway houses, several antidepressants and vivitrol, drinking herbal tea, getting a dog, studying Brene, Glennon, and Oprah, writing my own blog, and countless therapists. 

One ritual that really stuck was reading a book of poetry before bed called All Along You Were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols. Here is one of my favorite pieces: 

"The sight of old photographs 

sends a sharp pain up your spine. 

The days are not going to look the same 

from this day forward, 

but you will move forward, 

for all you have endured, 

you have blossomed. 

Which was possible only by the rain. 

And perhaps this is your becoming, 

your unfolding into a grace-filled bloom."

Her words reminded me that I was free to bloom, even while buried in that hole I had created. I was still free to dig myself out of the dirt and grow with the sunrise. Now, after a few months of hangover-free mornings and witnessing the perennials fill my life with vibrant color after a long winter, I can feel myself blooming, too.

 Things got dark.

That’s okay. 

 I am free to bloom.