I didn’t choose to be happily sober. It seems to have found me on its own.

when i started writing this blog, it was an act of desperation. i knew i wanted to quit drinking on a trial basis for a month (dry july) and by day 7 i was really struggling. so on day 8 i started this blog.

i never intended for this blog to be anything other than a place where i could blurt my insides… and really, that’s because i find that blurting my insides makes me feel better, tells me something about myself, and i learn in the rereading. i also am easily amused, and i amuse myself. self-centred much?

i didn’t know that i’d find a squillion people also trying to be sober by conventional and unconventional means. i didn’t know that there’d be genius and support available. i didn’t know that i’d still be writing this 18 months later. i certainly didn’t know that when i started team 100 as a lark (“hey lilly, why don’t you quit for 100 days?”), that it would turn into a THING. i certainly never fucking counted on press (UK Guardian, Good Housekeeping). I’ve never gone looking for press. It just finds me.

i never imagined making jewelry for myself, to help me remember what i’m doing. i never imagined recording my fucking voice so that I could listen to myself later and calm myself down (the height of self-amusing/narcissism). i didn’t expect to teach a sober jumpstart class. i mean really. come on. who plans that?

i didn’t expect that i’d miss communicating over the christmas break, as i sank into a hotel bed feeling vomitous from my new cardiac medications (which i’ve since changed).

i didn’t plan any of this, not one bit. i certainly did NOT plan to be sober for a very long time (18 months on january 1st). really. i’m a girl who loves her wine. i really never intended to quit for good.

But what i didn’t count on, either, was that sobriety would SUIT me. that i’d actually like it (who expects that?). There are moments and days and hours and weeks where i hate my life, or i feel sick, or i think my husband is a turd. but i don’t think that drinking will fix any of it.

i didn’t expect to occasionally feel overwhelmed and trapped in a happy life … Yes, that’s right. Step right up folks and look at the happy sober chick who thinks it’s all a weird scam that’s about to end. I’ve been tricked, i say, i never intended to be here in happyville and yet here i am. i want to be an irresponsible boozer again.

no you don’t. you’d have to give all this up.

so i’m trapped being happy? is that what you’re saying?

yeah. that’s it. poor baby. you’re trapped being happy. get over it.

And most days i remember that, of course, it’s not a trap. I can exit at any time. I choose to be here because this is better. I have a lot of shit i want to do in my life and a diversion to boozeville would derail me, and be a waste of time. The time wasted might be a day or years. You never know what shiny new obstacles relapse will bring.

Anyway, what i have now is working. so i am not fucking with it. except theoretically. Cuz you know, I didn’t choose to be happily sober.  It seems to have found me on its own. I didn’t know i was on an adventure. it sure felt like a freefall into hell to begin. Now it feels normal. so normal that i occasionally want to smash it with a hammer.

Then i realize that if i want to feel bad, there are other ways of going about it that have fewer risks. i could always slam my hand in a car door for fun.

Or i can <le sigh> accept the fact that i feel better. that i’m happy. that this is good. it really is 🙂 i can just accept the goodness (why is that so foreign). I can be thankful that the Little Chick audio brought 1,894 views to that page and caused my online storage site to email me cuz they thought i’d been hacked.

I can be thankful that when i hold a live audio call, 10 or 20 souls show up (no matter what random time of day/week i say i’m going to do it, thanks for continuing to reward me for being random). i can be thankful that i have onion bagels in the oven, a husband who is less turdy, and an immigration lawyer who will not return my phone calls.

I can be thankful.

if i knew me, i’d give my left nut to have a life like this. oh wait, this IS me in this life. holy shit-ola batman. when the fuck did this happen?

** EDIT **

Note from Janet:

It’s a bit weird to pop between the daily real-time posts, and your second month posts. I’m glad the old ones are still archived and available, since that’s where I relate more to. Without knowing where you came from, I would have read today’s post and thought “ya but that’s her, not me.”