Ugh, the Super Bowl

Ugh, the Super Bowl.

Every time someone mentions this massive cultural event, I get triggered. In October 2015, I got arrested for my second DUI. Four months later, this commercial aired during Super Bowl 2016.

Everyone I know watches the Super Bowl. One hundred million people tune in for this toxically masculine, racist event centered around alcohol, gambling, and bottled-up rage. And now, every single one of them is being fed the message that I am a short-sided, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution. As if being criminalized for my trauma wasn’t bad enough. Now everyone also thinks I am a Darwin-award-winning selfish coward.

I internalized pop culture’s view of people who drink and drive. It makes sense that I feel my jaw clench and shoulders tense when people mention the Super Bowl. The trauma of those words lives in my body.

Worse yet, this is a Budweiser commercial. Not only does Big Alcohol make serious cash during the Super Bowl, but they also use their power to spread a message that keeps people like me trapped in shame.

As you might have guessed, I will not be watching the Super Bowl tonight.

Instead, I will focus on celebrating two years of practicing sobriety with Tempest. My alcohol-free journey hasn’t been perfect, but I have had 99.4% alcohol-free days since the week of Valentine’s Day 2021. I have proven to myself that I am not, and never was, the lowlife person the Super Bowl told me I am.

If we want people to recover from Alcohol Use Disorder, the language must change. The picture mainstream media and Big Alcohol paint to describe folks like me is horrific, egregious, dehumanizing, and verbally abusive. It would not be acceptable to describe any other mental health disorder or deadly disease with such vulgarity during the most-watched TV timeslot. Why is alcohol addiction the exception?

Two years of sobriety have taught me that punishment, shame, humiliation, and criminalization don’t lead to healing. Pop culture does not define me. Besides, being a follower of toxic masculinity, racism, booze, gambling, and pent-up rage has never been my style.

Instead, I get to move forward with love and kindness. I will step into inevitable Super Bowl conversations with grace. All I have to do is celebrate my progress with a new houseplant and tend to my trauma with compassionate care.

Progress.