During my sobriety journey I was told over and over again to write a break-up letter to my addiction. I know something is wrong when I resist the opportunity to write ... but I never trusted the advice and just wrote the damn letter. Until this last time I was in rehab.
Having exhausted every effort to thwart advice, guidance or even the simplest suggestion and found myself back in treatment, yet again, I was ready to do anything to get sober. Including writing a letter to my addiction, as silly as it felt. But as I drowned my Moleskin in the words that follow I felt this cathartic sense of freedom. When I wrote this, I believed for the first time that I could and wanted to be free from alcohol. My plan has been to save this blog, pitch it to someone like the New York Times’ Modern Love around my one year. Funny enough, Modern love doesn’t take submissions in August. I know I could probably wait the few days until their September submission period opens up, but I’m ready to share this today. This is my break-up letter to alcohol.
Dear Alcohol,
I can’t believe we’re here. Seriously, I’ve been in denial for years. Thinking I could hold on to you – thinking, like so many who fall into abusive relationships, that if I did something differently, things could work out. I continuously tricked my self into believing that it was all my fault. Like a battered spouse whose husband tells her he wouldn’t have to hit her if she’d just behave, you kept convincing me I was the problem. I thought if I could just drink like a lady, or reign in my drinking somehow, we could stay together. But that was never what you had in mind, was it?
I won’t call myself stupid, I don’t do that anymore. I will say there are parts of me that are broken. Weak spots that you were happy to exploit, that made me especially vulnerable to you. You tricked me. You betrayed me. You led me into a false sense of security and waited for your moment to destroy me.
Was it hard for you? Laying dormant all those years? It must have been torture, watching me drink all through college. But like me, you couldn’t control yourself. You crept out of your cave a few times. Not enough to cause alarm, but for enough damage to occur to leave me with questions. Not that you’d ever let me get answers. You let your friend denial shut that down.
Friends. I used to have those. I’m lucky I still do. Because my friends actually care about me, they’re loyal, they want to see me get better. They’re nothing like those so-called friends of yours. Yours are cruel bedfellows. Denial, guilt, fear, shame. Those are your people, right? Add enabling in there too. They build your foundation. Laying themselves down like a human pyramid so you can climb to the top and tear people down. Innocent people like me.
You didn’t ask for much at first. Early on, it really didn’t seem like a lot. A little time here, a hangover there.
There was the blackout the night of the birthday fiesta that raised eyebrows. That time at the beach when I passed out on the toilet and woke up in the bathroom a bit later. I just went downstairs and kept drinking. The night of the Corona Limonas and the Washington Monument that I have the scar on my knee to permanently remind me of.
I can still feel your hold on me as I sit here, describing the permanent scarring of my knee as a small thing. Realistically, that night was a warning sign. I woke up with blood everywhere and my head pounding. My entire body hurt. I thought I’d ruined my face and with it, by broadcasting career aspirations. It was terrifying. I should have gone to the hospital, but the shame kept me where I was. Minimizing the damage and showing up to work on Monday armed with a story about diving too hard on the volleyball courts at the National Mall, everyone knows how unreliable the sand coverage there is.
Those were the small things. The big ones would come later.
My $100,000 annual salary. My apartment. Blake. My self-respect. I gave it all away to you.
For a while, you distracted me enough. I was struggling with so much and you took it all away. I thought you were freeing me, lifting the weights from my shoulders when, in reality, you were taking everything away from me. Grabbing anything and everything until I had nothing left. No wonder I mistook what you offered for relief, when really you were just having me give everything over until I was stripped bare. Of course, I felt nothing. You even took feeling from me.
I left you for a while, and it was amazing how much I got back. You don’t know joy, but it returned to my life. Yes, challenges came too, but guess what? They’re so much easier to handle without you around. Still, I had doubts. Some lurking reservations – about if I could really do life without you – or whether I really needed to – or wanted to.
I’m told that even when I freed myself from you, you never truly left. That even though I thought I’d released the grasp you held on me that you were just waiting out there, doing push-ups, building up strength. Waiting for your window. Waiting for me to crack open the door of my sobriety so you could slam it open with no regard. You must have loved when COVID hit. How many souls like mine did you claim when we lost our distractions, our meetings, our jobs? How many of us fell back into your arms as we mourned the loss of our lives as we knew them?
I know there were a lot. I’ve met some of them. We all came to the same place, driven by the insanity that tore through our lives as soon as we let you back in. It was only for a little while, in my case, not. For a few days I sat here stunned, wondering how the fuck I let you do this to me again. I almost stayed in that daze. You would have loved that, wouldn’t you? I heard you, out there calling to me, offering, as if you’d be doing me a favor, to take it all away.
But I finally I said no. I know you aren’t used to hearing that word from me. Damn it feels good to say it to you. No. No more. I’m done.
I know what you’re thinking… “she’ll come back, she always does.”
Not this this time. This time is different. You know all those secrets we shared? I shone the light on them. They aren’t rotting away inside of me anymore. I don’t need you to drown them out because I’m confronting them now. I’m learning how to deal with things without having to come running to you. And you know what’s amazing? I can. I am so much stronger than you wanted me to know. My mind, the one you loved to monopolize, it turns out it’s a beautiful thing when I’m using it for good. For years you used it to hold me hostage. Well, the joke’s on you now. I’m learning how to use my intelligence for good and it is more powerful than I ever imagined.
I am done giving up everything for you.
Remember the first time we were at this impasse? You’d taken my front tooth, my mind and the peace of mind of my family. That felt like nothing. Somehow I called it the bottom, but I was warned the bottom is reached only when you stop digging. I was told anything you put before your recovery you lose. I didn’t listen.
Instead I had to lose everything. You made sure I did. Actually, I shouldn’t say I lost, because I blindly gave it all away to you. Because I thought you gave me something I needed. Turns out, you were just there to destroy me. It took me a while, three years and the loss of everything I love including myself, but I was finally given the gift of desperation. Unlike the so-called “gifts” you’ve offered me, the gift of desperation turned out to be the most important thing I’ve ever received.
You can have denial, your guilt shame, fear. While you’re at it, you can take lying, flaking, faking and all the things I was doing for you. Take dishonestly, cruelty and disrespect too. I don’t need any of that anymore. I’m getting better, stronger everyday. The more I put myself out there, and share the things you said only you could handle, the more I learn that I have nothing to be ashamed oh. Did I make mistakes? Abso-fucking lutley. But I am not my mistakes. I have forgiven myself I’m free. I don’t need you anymore. Did you hear that? I”ll say it again for you, ,to make sure you hear it.
I don’t need you anymore. I am done with you.
No longer yours,
Amanda
p.s.) You haven't heard the last from me... as soon as I’m strong enough, I’m going to free others from you too. Just you wait.
