I’ve never been to an AA meeting but apparently it’s a saying within the Fellowship that by five years sober you’ve got your marbles back and by ten years sober you’ve learned how to use them. So I guess I am now the recipient of a shiny new set of mental marbles (but no instruction manual), because I am five years sober today!
Five years – it feels like a crazy long time but also in a weird way just like the beginning. I certainly don’t have life all figured out and I’m really not sure how ‘emotionally sober’ I am because I still use food in a really unhealthy way to deal with my emotions, which is all too apparent when I look in the mirror or try to wear a beloved winter coat I’ve not tried on for ages to discover that it no longer does up over my ample bosom. I am not any kind of finished product at five years sober, if I was a house for sale I’d very much be sold as a fixer-upper with lots of potential.
But the more I reflect on this notion of having my marbles back but not being quite sure how to use them yet, the more it resonates. The great thing about AA aphorisms is that they have been created and refined by the hive mind of millions of people who have struggled with alcohol and then travelled this crazy and wonderful journey in sobriety just like us. I think sobriety has given me my marbles back and they are beautiful, real, solid and shining. They are mine and no one can take them from me, ever. Sometimes (often) I take them for granted now, because it’s been so long since I lived differently that I forget how far I’ve come. So today I will sit down and remember.
Marble 1: Self-respect
As a drinker I pretty much despised myself. I felt that there was something deeply wrong with me because I couldn’t behave like ‘normal‘ people around booze, but I also felt like there was something deeply wrong with sober me, who felt shy around strangers and even friends sometimes, who was introverted and nerdy, utterly shit at flirting, clumsy and all kinds of awkward. Who was essentially the bullied 14 year old who had discovered that alcohol soothed her troubles so very effectively and had a side benefit of instantly catapulting her into some semblance of belonging. Getting sober at first was like being skinned alive, because suddenly I had to live with this quivering little version of myself All The Time. But in doing so I learned to love her and I learned to respect her, truly. Over the past five years I have grown true inner strength and I respect the real me. I can see value in how I listen at least as much as I talk, in how I love books and learning, in how I recharge with alone time. It’s all ok and, as it turns out, loads of people like the real me. I’ve found a whole tribe of them on my sober journey ❤️.
Marble 2: Clarity and courage
I spent a lot of time being afraid when I was a drinker. Afraid of myself, afraid of life passing me by, afraid of something I may or may not have done in a blackout, afraid that I was somehow going to lose it all. But most of all I was afraid of my choices, because I didn’t trust myself. I was very unhappy in my marriage but I didn’t know if that was because of my drinking or because I was in a marriage that could never make me happy. I didn’t know if separation was the right thing or the wrong thing for me and my daughters. It all went round and round in my head until I was tortured by it, so I drank more, and more often, to drown out the noise. It was a path that was going nowhere good. When I took alcohol out of the picture I had to really look at that unhappiness and that really fucking hurt, there’s no two ways about that. But I could do it and, even better, I found I could see my way through the maze. Ultimately that has led to separation – I will be decree absolutely divorced in a couple of weeks. And it’s ok. I know it was the right thing for all of us. I know it and I trust that knowing completely. Ex and I were never going to make each other happy and being in a relationship like that for 13 years was doing such a hideous number on my self-esteem and perception of myself as someone who is worthy of love that I’m still working through all that crap in therapy and am likely to be for some time yet before I can ever think about dating again. But I am working through it and I’m excited to see where that takes me next.
Marble 3: Purpose
I lived in a fog of ennui when I drank. I didn’t much see the point of anything I did. I loved my daughters so much but I couldn’t shake of the awful feeling (a hangover from the postnatal depression that rocked me after their births) that I was no good for them. I found it hard to find my purpose in my parenting because I felt like a shit parent most of the time. I was doing a job that I felt entirely meh about, which I’d been doing for years without making any particular moves to grow or develop. I kind-of-incidentally was of benefit to others through my work but I felt like a bit of a failure professionally to be honest. Like I’d had a load of potential but I’d just pissed it all away. Since getting sober I’ve retrained and this summer will qualify as a counsellor. I’ve been working with clients as a trainee for a year now and I love it so much. It probably makes me a total weirdo but to sit with someone in their pain and to use my skills to help them get out is the greatest honour of my life. I’ve also found an outlet for the urge to write which had followed me around poking at me (with a pen?) since my English Lit A-level. My self-help book about getting sober is still selling well two years from publication and I get messages from people who share that it has been the book they needed to read to quit drinking. I have exciting plans afoot with a Soberista friend for where to go next in helping people live more joyfully and meaningfully. And I know now that I am an awesome role model for my girls and I have a giant-sized heart full of love for them, so I think I’m doing ok on the parenting front. Suffice to say I have a pretty rock solid sense of purpose in my life now, so much so that I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow I could say ‘yeah, I lived a good life’. And (hopefully!) there is so much more to come.
Marble 4: Authenticity
We did a feedback exercise on my counselling course recently. We all had to bring in some random items and put them all out on a table. Then, in pairs, we had to each select an object that represented something about our partner and explain to them what it was. My partner selected a book and said it was because she sees me as an open book, because I’m so honest and vulnerable in sharing my thoughts and experiences. She also said (this nearly made me cry) that my being like that has made herfeel safer to share within the group. Wow. Needless to say, drinking me was not an open book. She was a closed up little clam shell which flew open temporarily while under the influence of booze, spitting out its contents inappropriately and dramatically, before slamming shut again and trying to pretend nothing had ever happened. In admitting to other people my deepest shame about my drinking I have learned that there is nothing about me that is unfit for public consumption. The kindness, compassion and understanding I found here, about the thing I feared made me untouchable, has changed the way I am in the world completely, and that touches everyone I come into contact with. What a gift.
Marble 5: Love
Cheesy I know but I had to include it. Drinking me didn’t know how to love. I couldn’t love myself, because who loves a drunk, but I was also so self-absorbed with the constant merry-go-round of worry about my drinking that I couldn’t really love anyone else either. I feared letting people all the way in but I also had next to no boundaries in my relationships. I would say I loved people but then either push them away or cling on so tight I suffocated them. I would over-extend myself for people and then resent them. I would let people treat me badly and then bitch about them behind their backs. Now I just give out a lot more love into the world. It’s not always kindly received (even by my children!) but that’s ok because I’m not generally giving it out with expectation. I’m neither a saint nor a zen master and of course I still fuck up in all sorts of ways in my relationships, but I feel like my emotional life used to be this awful tangled rats nest and now it’s unwinding into something much simpler. Thank goodness. And I live my life surrounded by so much more love because, quite simply, I go where I find it. I don’t waste my time banging my head against relationship brick walls any more. I am blessed to have many people in my life who love me for me, not what I can do for them. It’s so much more than enough. I no longer need to beg for emotional scraps from people who don’t really value me, because I’m learning to value myself.
So there we are – five sober marbles for five years sober. There are more too, I’m still finding new ones all the time. Sobriety is not a journey for the faint-hearted – a lot of it is work. But it’s so worth it, trust me, for these shiny jewels we get gifted along the way. And if the next five years will teach me how to use these precious gifts to be more and more of a decent human in the world, then sign me up for that.
