I don't drink (anymore)

I don’t want my sobriety to get any more attention than it deserves.
And yet, a lot of my life today is due to it.

Some days I don’t mind it being celebrated.
But I don’t always feel good about it. Sometimes I wonder what all the fuss is about, because time passing does that, it’s not as heavy as it once was.

Quitting felt like an impossibility, yet, here I am 9 years later.
Sometimes it feels like a miracle, a blessing, it’s always been a huge relief.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel great pride when I look at the one, two, three, four people that tell me I inspired them to also quit. The four people that didn’t realize it could be done so easily, so eagerly, without pain or suffering, just a flip of a switch.

But sometimes that badge of honour disappears a bit, in certain circles, on certain days.

On one such occasion, I was at a film festival in Oklahoma, proudly parading our work on a music video at one after party after another. My sobriety was on edge, as it sometimes is in new social situations with lots of people and lots of drinking. In that moment, my friend asked me to hold her plastic cup of red wine while she adjusted her strappy shoes. It felt good to hold it, it smelt good, I pretended it was mine, lifted it a little higher so people could see me with it. Look, look at me, I didn’t fuck it all up, I can still have wine sometimes just like you.

Sometimes these moments in our life feel staged, because no sooner had someone called out “Hey Mark, want a beer?”  to the guy I was standing beside, that he yelled back “Nah, I’m good. I don’t drink”. I nearly dropped the cup of wine I was moments earlier so eager to have. My connection with Mark was instant and more powerful than all the wine in the bottle. I don’t drink. What an empowering thing to hear come out of your own mouth. That camraderie in sobriety is everything, and without that, I’m not sure I could have done 9 years.

Community in recovery is what they call it. It creates support, accountability, connection, learning and growth. That’s what is missing in every program except AA, I think. That’s what needs to be created to have success.