Five alive.
Five. Years.
By the grace of God and a whole lot of help from a whole lot of people, I’m celebrating five years of continuous sobriety today (and some time before that trying to figure out how to make it stick).
Can you believe it?
(I can. Now.)
***
I prayed for this day once upon a time.
(Maybe even a few more times than that.
…
Yes, definitely a few more times than that.)
I remember the first time, I couldn’t even clearly see what it would look like. Only that I was desperate for something to change.
So in the back of an Uber on the night of my last drunk, I asked the driver if he would pray for me. Because I couldn’t do it for myself. I couldn’t picture, let alone articulate, what it was that I was asking for other than to get out of the wine-soaked lather, rinse, repeat cycle I had found myself in.
And maybe because he just wanted me out of his van or maybe because he saw how much I was hurting, he did.
I woke up the next morning knowing everything had changed but that it would only stay changed if I did something differently this time. Which looked like something I had known I needed to do for a good long while: I found women who knew the very particular pain I was feeling and who were going to love me until I could learn how to love myself.
It took a while.
To love myself, that is.
But eventually I did.
(And still do.)
***
Getting here — to this mile marker on the journey — hasn’t always been easy.
I often find myself reflecting this time of year about those tender first days of sobriety when it felt like I was holding on by my fingernails. And how, bit by bit, things got easier. Holidays came and went and I stayed sober. Most people, places, and things stopped being the triggers they once had been and I learned to avoid the ones that didn’t transform.
In short: I worked for it in a way that I hadn’t been ready or able to do before.
I’m still working for it.
In some circles, it’s tradition to share the answer to the question “how’d you do it?” on an anniversary. This helps remind anybody listening that it takes work and that there’s not only one way to get there. That everything that works for me may not work for you but that if you find yourself struggling, you can always borrow one of the tools from my box and see what happens.
The truth is, my list is pretty long. There’s things I have to do every day and there’s things that I pull out occasionally to stay sober, to stay (mostly) happy, and to stay healthy. But even when I write them all down, I get to the end and am amazed that there seems to be something that’s bigger than the sum of the parts.
And today? It’s a damn party. Because I’m alive.
Not just living. Not just getting by. I. am. alive.
I’ve been thinking about what that looks like now, a little bit further down the road than I once was. And I’ve come up with a couple of proofs of life. Things that tell me that I’ve changed. That I’m still changing:
1) I keep my word. I was a promiser. Some might even say a chronic one. But especially at the end, I had a hard time following through with what I said I was going to do. And often that hurt other people but almost always the person it really hurt was me. It got pretty sad at the end, making promises to myself that I knew I couldn’t keep. Now? I try to be a woman of my word — to others, yes, but especially to myself.
2) I do that by saying “No” a lot more often. It took me a long time to internalize that not only is “no” a complete sentence but that it can be an incredibly gracious one at that. So before I say yes to adding to my plate or agreeing with something that goes against my values for the sake of fitting in, I try to pause and get really, really quiet before I give an answer.
3) Which means that I get to say “Yes” way more fully than before. Now that I know how to say “no,” my yeses have taken on a more wholehearted quality. Saying yes to something means that 9 out of 10 times I’ve given care and attention to what I’m saying yes to — to how it aligns with my values and my bandwidth as well as how my “yes” might affect the people I love the most. I still stumble sometimes on this one but hey, I’m working on progress and not perfection.
4) I seek connection every. damn. day. In his well-watched TED talk “Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong,” journalist and author Johann Hari argues that “the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety – it's connection.”
I believe with every fiber in my being that this is true. My addiction stole from me my connection to myself, to my friends & family, and to whatever’s out there that’s bigger than all of us (which some might call a higher power, or God, or the universe…). And the thing that keeps me sober now is doing something every single day to remember and feel those connections. Sometimes it’s writing here, sometimes it’s picking up the phone, and sometimes it’s just giving my people the longest, most delicious hug I can.
5) And I focus on the journey. Oh Lordy, this is a tough one for me! As some would say, it’s an active practice. I have a pretty strongly ingrained tendency to focus on the destination rather than the journey. But I’ve learned over these past five years that the only way I got here wasn’t by looking at the finish line (and what would that even be, anyways?) but rather looking at where I am at any given moment and maybe a little bit further ahead. I don’t know where I’m going to end up and I don’t think I really need to. I just need to get up each morning setting an intention to show up the best way I can that day and then go to bed knowing that I’ve tried (or at least have an idea how to do it a bit better the next day). It’s an approach that’s working so far, so I think I’ll keep at it.
This hasn’t been the easiest year (or string of years. for many of us.) but I’m proud of being exactly where I am today and I’ve got a heart filled with gratitude for every last person who’s helped me along the way.
I love you.
(And now it’s time for cake.)
A really important P.S.:
If you are struggling with doing something that you don’t want to do anymore, know that you’re not alone. And if that thing is drinking too much or too often or when you really don’t want to but can’t seem to help it, I’m happy to share my experience and more about what worked and works for me.
Please reach out and know that I’ll hold any correspondence in the highest confidence:
ec {at} emilycornell.com
@eccornell on Instagram
You might also want to check out:
Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink In A Culture Obsessed With Alcohol by Holly Whittaker
We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life by Laura McKowen
The Unruffled Podcast (archived episodes still available on Soundcloud), hosted by Tammi Salas and Sondra Primeaux. I shared more of my story on Ep. 109.
