I’m coming up on my 11th Sober Birthday in a few days (June 8). Today Google Memories showed my husband a photo of flooding that claimed our basement the morning we were set to visit my homebound Mother in 2015. Against all rationality, I insisted we move forward with our plans and deal with the water issue (it was $20,000 in repairs) later. For me, this was just more chaos in the Crazy Stew that was my life: 5 days from declaring myself powerless over alcohol, raging perimenopause, unhappy teenagers, husband struggling to provide a living for us and new part time job being forced to wear skinny jeans, chunky heels and $200 blouses selling boutique clothing to the 1% (many of them mothers of my daughter’s friends). Sure, bring on the flooding, I thought. And off we went for another fairly miserable trip sitting in my mother’s hot bedroom for 2 days!
A calm nervous system was not in my vocabulary in those days. I believed it was my job to react to everything and hypervigilance, cortisol and adrenaline were my sources of energy. At night, a bottle of red wine soothed things, I believed, so I could get up the next day and do it all over again. Looking back at that flooding, I now see the water catastrophe as a portal to a new beginning. There was no NOT dealing with water and my cocktail of coping simply wasn’t working any longer either. Change was literally washing over my household and it was time to seek help and understanding. But what kind?
It was easy to point to a dozen or so very sensible reasons why my drinking had gotten out of control but, in my mind, I needed to get to the quickest solution (and avoiding pain was a goal but my goodness the Universe has a sense of humor). Only now, 11 years later, do I have a full understanding of that broken woman who walked into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on June 8, 2015 and asked for help. Today, social media and medical experts are highlighting exactly who I was and what I was going through at the time but in those days there could only be one simple reason why things were super dysregulated: ALL MY FAULT. A recent diagnosis of ADHD has revealed to me my brain was being hijacked by hormonal imbalances during perimenopause. The estrogen that played such an important role in regulating my ADHD symptoms (and there are many: emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria, impulsivity and poor executive functioning) had become erratic and so had my life.
A narrative soon developed about my alcohol use disorder and this shaped my self image for the next few years. I was a person who reached for a substance to avoid pain and, to recover, needed to develop the ability to sit with discomfort. Practicing “the pause” before reacting became a new fascination. I was accustomed to having big emotional reactions to things (often pointed out to me as my fault) and then stuffing them down in shame – and drinking to soothe my nervous system – on repeat. Sustainable recovery was going to require an infrastructure that did more for me than just prevent me from getting drunk – I knew I was going to have to discover who I was in this new phase of life and create supports to protect the person I was becoming.
But it never occurred to me that the constant internal buzzing feeling – not being able to ever fully shut my brain off – could be ADHD. It would be many years (7!) before someone who was caring and who knew me well suggested I might want to get evaluated. Even then, I waited another FIVE years before making an appointment for an ADHD evaluation. And meanwhile, I rode the menopause rollercoaster completely without any support because hormonal replacement therapy did not agree with my stomach. Learning there was a link between addiction and ADHD and midlife hormonal shifts for women has been both liberating and crushingly devastating – I often wonder what life might have looked like if I had learned much sooner and gotten the support I needed.
And back to narratives: I did silly things like allow a journalist eager to write about “Mommy Wine Culture” use me to create a very unflattering picture of a woman so utterly incapable of managing herself under peer pressure she succumbed to a cliche and let wine drive her personality. That’s absolutely not what happened and the story didn’t show all the ways I worked tirelessly to get better so my family could do better – but I allowed a person to shape a narrative for her personal storytelling career and it landed badly for me. I didn’t feel like a “role model” for other women struggling to get sober at all after that article came out. I felt like I had been duped by a manipulative has-been (she ultimately lost her job for repeating the pattern with my story on several others). It would be many years before the pattern of giving away too much of myself to people who were there to use me changed.
But change it has. 11 years later, I understand my sobriety journey has been kinda “bass-ackwards,” so to speak, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have been honest, authentic, dutiful in my pursuit of what is best for me and also for my family – and it has all worked out beautifully. I’m on a wonderful medication for ADHD that supports dopamine regulation and each week I meet other “late diagnosis” women and men from all over the world, like me, who had very similar experiences. And most of us see more positives than negatives in learning – kinda sorta late – about our wonderful, creative, imaginative, quick-acting, neurodivergent minds. I am happier than I have been in years and really, truly grateful.
This morning I was taking our dog for a walk when I stopped and turned around to gaze at my beautiful home of 16 years (the longest I have lived anywhere). Suddenly the heart shape created by our 100 year old oak trees became visible to me, as if to invite these words and celebrate more than a decade of living authentically and working to stay sober. It felt like the universe was saying, “Wanna take a second look at your life and see the love and goodness that surrounds you?”. I’m glad I did and I hope you take a second look.
Speaking of second looks here’s Days 1 and 4,015 sober – I can’t believe they are the same person!
Cheeky Street 