Beyond my Wildest Dreams

There’s a song that I discovered through Apple Music’s “Feeling Good” playlist that I constantly find stuck in my head. It’s a total bop, full of good vibes, truly a feel good anthem. It’s called “Sunday Best.”

It’s pretty frequent mood music for me and I often find myself bouncing around repeated the chorus to myself “feeling blessed, never stressed.”

The feeling blessed accurately describing my mood, the never stressed a mantra for the person I want to be in the future. The dance moves that accompany laughably terrible.

I woke up singing that to myself this morning as I sat down to write. I started a piece called “The Comeback,” describing what it’s been like returning to normalcy after pneumonia and vacation and as I wrote it, the gratitude struck. Looking back over the past few weeks, I can’t help but stand dumbfounded in awe of how lucky I am and how blessed I’ve been.

It’s honestly unbelievable to me that I’m living the life I’m living right now, because this time last year, things were very very different.

Last summer was marked by relapses for me.

I’d been living at home for the year, a much-needed move after having had to pack up my life in Washington, D.C. to try to get sober.

Living in my Dad’s spare bedroom I was working a “get well job,” something in the recovery community known for being an easy transition back into the workforce while you learn a work-life balance, and doing a horrible job mastering that balance. I was lying to my therapist about how I was feeling, not calling my sponsor enough, avoiding doing my step work (an AA thing) and missing Blake something awful. I felt like my life was on pause, I was just trying to slug through the year of recovery so that I could finally get on with my life.

Unsurprisingly, that failed. As I’ve detailed previously, I relapsed shortly after the start of the pandemic and it set off a brutal cycle of relapses that left me bouncing back and forth from my parent’s homes as the babysat me through my leave of absence for work and we all tried desperately to keep me sober.

When I was called back to work in June, I thought that resuming that routine would help me get straightened out again. This was not the case.

It’s still too painful and raw for me to describe now, but the end of that tragic and upsetting story was that on June 29th I was admitted to Newton Wellesley Hospital and diagnosed with “acute alcoholic intoxication and depression.”

After my 72-hour psychiatric hold I was transferred to McLean, a psychiatric hospital located in my hometown, actually down the street from my mother’s house. I spent a week in their inpatient facility, detoxing and asking myself how the hell I had found myself back in treatment, again.

I spent my days writing through my circumstances, attending group therapy and meeting with the doctors. Determined not to lose the progress I’d been making on my summer diet, I consumed nothing but ensure shakes three times a day and continued my sit-up routine daily. It’s incredible the things someone prioritizes. There, in the midst of being treated for nearly drinking myself to death, I was worried about my abs and how I’d look at the beach at my upcoming vacation. Priorities.

I vividly remember my last night at McLean. The patients were allowed fresh air breaks to walk around the campus and I walked over to the little chapel near our building. It was locked, but I literally kneeled outside it’s doors and begged “please, let this be it. Please let me be done.”

I wanted out. More than anything I just didn’t want to drink ever again.

I was terrified, because I think somewhere deep down I knew I would. Or even maybe wanted to.

I was discharged to my mother the next day, just in time to get ready for Blake’s Family’s Vacation to Hilton Head. Amazingly enough, the doctors in the psych ward and my therapist had cleared me to go on the vacation and his incredible family was still willing to have me. I flew to Philadelphia that weekend and joined Blake in the drive down to Hilton Head, where I spent the week escaped from my reality. I stayed sober and counted my blessings. I soaked up every moment of that time, knowing that if I could just achieve sobriety, that could be my life.

It was everything I wanted, but it seemed impossible. It drove me to stay sober for two months, but addiction is addiction and mine was a ticking time bomb.

Which is why it’s so amazing to me that I’m sitting here today. Despite everything, the relapses that came after that trip, the 38 days I spent in treatment here in Pennsylvania instead of settling into my life with Blake. Here I am, enjoying my coffee and watching the sun climb from my desk in our apartment. Employed with a job I love, living with Blake and loving all the little moments of a relationship that brings me joy, all sober. Blissfully, gratefully nine months and twenty days sober.

When I lay that all out, the struggles I had initially put down about coming back from pneumonia seem trivial. In the face of everything, all I have is gratitude. For this moment, for this life. For my sobriety.

Today I’m heading into work with Jax in-tow. My co-worker has already warned me she’s bringing in a cake for my birthday. Tomorrow, Blake and I head to Annapolis to celebrate my birthday weekend at a Waterfront Hotel with a balcony. We’ll sit outside and read, keeping our tans fresh and enjoying even more vacation time, sunshine and saltwater air.

When I prayed outside that little chapel on McLean’s campus last year, all I asked for was to be done. I couldn’t even fathom asking for anything more than that. Anything else seemed impossible while I was still drinking.

Today I understand what they say in recovery groups when they tell you that sobriety will help you attain a life beyond your wildest dreams.

This is it.