Holy Christmas

Can we just fast forward to January 2nd?  The holiday season -- Thanksgiving to New Years -- is my least favorite time of the year.  It's not that I don't love the gift-giving and cookie-baking and turkey roasting, because I do, nor is it because I fear spending time with my nearest and dearest.  It is what happens inside my head and heart as I struggle to get everything done, be everything to everyone, and radiate joy for the benefit of others that does me in.  In recent years, the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas has shrunk from a respectable amount of time to a matter of days.  Suddenly, it is Thanksgiving and even more suddenly, it is Christmas Eve and I haven't sent a single card or wrapped more than two gifts.  In years past, the best cure for this feeling was just a little bit (OK, a lot) too much wine.  Last year at this time, I was constantly on the verge of tears and wishing I could check myself into a psychiatric hospital.  Somehow I managed to make it through to January, probably through the grace of God.

2013 started out on a high note:  my youngest brother announced his engagement to a lovely young woman whom we had all met and decided to adopt.  The wedding happened in March and brought my entire extended family together for the first time in years.  We had a blast, so much so that my husband asked me if I was drunk (I wasn't).  The glow from this happy event didn't last, unfortunately, because shortly thereafter my sister discovered that her husband -- one of the pillars of my life -- had been cheating on her for years with multiple women.  The circumstances of her discovery were so bizarre that it made her believe in a punitive God because her soon-to-be-ex-husband was critically injured during his final tryst with one of her colleagues.  He survived but may never have the use of his "little man" again.

It felt as if we had had a death in the family but there was no body and there would be no funeral.  My grief was such that I began drinking in earnest every evening as a way to escape the feelings my soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law had provoked with his narcissistic behavior.  And then I realized that I was reaching a point of no return, that I had to give up the drinking completely and forever or give in to alcoholism and lose everything I cared about in life. 

Call it God or a Higher Power or Big Fish, it really doesn't matter.  What matters is that I heard the message that I needed to live my life without wine and I acted upon it.  And thank God I did because 2013 wasn't finished with me.  Being sober, happily and voluntarily, enables me to embrace the challenges posed by each and every day.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!  #LiveSober and enjoy the peace that comes from #recoveringlife.