I had a bad smell where I didn’t drink alcohol, but the dry January felt different. I put myself in the basement office and balanced my laptop on the laundry stack. The coffee mug is located in a pile of socks. The welcome graphics of the Zoom Class have a dark room.
Almost everything I heard about drinking landed on two buckets. Friends who have stopped alcohol are alcoholics “because they can take or leave.” I was in “I take it, especially if it’s red wine,” but I didn’t feel like a problem. I had no dew or alcohol fuel fight with my husband, but I found a resistance to the idea of slowing down in myself. I was worried that a cold curious female group joined in January, which was built in January (100% guarantee of having a few glasses of wine before clicking on a purchase) and was worried that I could find myself in my basement.
Slowly on the sliding sideway screens, the instructor explained that EFT or “emotional free technology” can fix and calm the nervous system with a soft pad and tab by our index and middle fingers. I laughed at the phrase “pats and taps”, but closed your eyes as instructions. I breathe in thinking of the poor nervous system. I tried to tap my forehead and ignore my children’s sound. Blue. I knocked on my upper lip. I tried to ignore the fact that my fingers smelled old kitchen sponge. I knocked on my armpits. I closed my eyes and tapped in the right order, and I tried not to think about what I was actually thinking about. I simply felt it.
So I reached a mug. Socks have a mug of red wine. This poured out despite (or?). I poured it as one of the many reasons why I spent most of the nights of the year. Because I was heading for what events I headed (tonight: tapping), because I was bored with the elements of parenting (Blue) And because I felt that I was doing my best and I could need some help (always). I took the red wine to my laptop and took a long marsis. I quickly wiped the keyboard with socks. I felt relieved when I was honest. But I also felt as if I failed.
Rumors around the drinking keeps growing, but I feel separated from my reality. Tressie Mcmillan Cottom wrote about recent assistants. “Performance abstinence” Drinking as a shorthand for a clean and perfect lifestyle. When I read her OP-ED, I couldn’t stop thinking about how my experience of stopping drinking was opposite to the perfect white background and the “clean life” language coat. For me, the process of stopping drinking can only be described as a confusing confusion (underestimation).
For almost two and a half years without alcohol, I had nothing about it. It is a person and a Prosaic feeling. There was no clean IG post or a clean life declaration. Instead, I tapped the clavicle between the wine sip and took classes without wine. For several years of cold lightingStop like a woman) And audio books (This naked heart) Women’s travel and treatment in wine, with therapists and girlfriends.
When I tell people that I don’t drink alcohol, I feel that they are a secret alcoholic or stopped randomly. When I saw the two drunk buckles, I couldn’t see the right position for them.
So I want to introduce another bucket, or messy middle. I sometimes recognize it in the wild, but it can be difficult to find. But recently, it is coming out with my girlfriend. In late nights, they will (sometimes simply), “Why didn’t you really drink?”
What I speak to them is: Evidence of the risk of alcohol NYTIMES GIFT LINK, like most friends, I Max 7 drinks recommended. But that’s not the reason I stopped. And it wasn’t the fact that my hangover or my children made a small change in wine -related gifts for my birthday. I didn’t even answer the question about whether I had a problem with alcohol. It was the existence of the question itself and it was a space from my brain. I hated how much I thought about it. I stopped drinking because I didn’t want to waste my inner life anymore.
And when my girlfriend asked me how I moved without drinking in the dark, I tell them a few sessions with the female group I was eager when I was curious. Cool coach It took me to the place where I was not ready to drink completely. Not fast. It took 10 months in the tapping class, and for almost a year, I did not drink and drink and drink. I really wanted casual drinking to work, but I wanted more space in the brain.
In a terrible news (a joke, a fellow sover!), I stopped rather than stopping my drinking. My brain is quieter and more mine. It’s not always easy, but if you don’t drink, your efforts are reduced.
My regenerated mental space feels opposite to the basement with a lot of shadows, but I can move its origin backstairs. I, skeptically tapping my clavicle, smells like old kitchen sponges and poured wine. What I felt so dark and humble makes me soft now. I felt like my worst version of the laundry, but it wasn’t at all. It was messy, but how I arrived here -taps my brain’s quiet place and keyboard. And I wonder if you are causing something and feel messy. Then I will support you.
Casslein Dona Ho He is a writer and poet who lives in Seattle. She wrote How her MS diagnosis tells her parenting and The worst gift she received. She is currently writing her first novel and invites you warmly to follow the free substack newsletter. Smile.
PS: “Mom was an alcoholic” and “How did you change the relationship with alcohol?”
(SASHA DOVE/STOCKSY photo.)
