Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition

One Year Ago Today

Hello my friends!

Welcome to another week of Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition :)

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If you’d like to read this on the website or you can listen, too: Sober Girls - One Year Ago Today

I hope everyone has been having a beautiful week and is gearing up for the holiday tomorrow! So, I have a little story for you all…buckle up ;)

Exactly one year ago today, I was running rampant through the mean streets of Walt Disney World, Epcot to be specific.

Now, Epcot on a regular day for an alcoholic is a dream…drinking around the countries???? Sign me up!! But for the holidays, they have a special festival with extra pavilions posted up about halfway between each country with special drinks PLUS the regular countries to drink at too.

So here I was on a family vacation, hoping from country to country and everywhere in between, trying peanut butter beer for the first time and dragging my poor sister along with me to wait in the never ending lines.

To make this story short, there was point in which I knew I had one too many drinks in front of my parents. So naturally I snuck off (I believe I said I was going to the bathroom?), ran all the way across the park to get another drink and promptly chugged the whole thing on a slow walk back so my parents wouldn’t see yet another alcoholic beverage in my hand.

This is the point in which I like to kindly remind myself that normal people…don’t do that.

At the time I was super annoyed because the drinks weren’t working anymore. I had reached a “plateau” I liked to call it..where I was drunk but couldn’t get any drunker. Looking back, I can now point out those “plateaus” where when my addiction was like bring on the cocaine.

But again, in a family friendly park you can’t exactly walk up to Donald Duck and ask if he has any blow.

The moral of this holiday story is - this is just another example of the ways in which I tortured my family. And I still carry that with me everyday. Here we are in the most magical place on earth and my biggest concern is not “look at the beautiful holiday decorations;” it’s “where am I getting my next drink from.”

It’s truly so wild to me that this was a year ago, November 23rd 2021. I was so close to my bottom then and had no idea. I didn’t ever have an inkling of an idea that in only a few short months, my life would completely change.

Me and my beautiful baby sister on said Walt Disney World Family Vacation. November 2021

So mommy when you read this, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I behaved that day and for the way I behaved all the days before and after. For when dad had to pick me up all those nights at 1 or 2am. When I wen’t completely MIA and scared the shit out of you guys. For all the times, I’m sorry.

I thought for awhile that getting sober was the end-all be-all of making amends. That the day you get sober all is well with the world.

I know now that there is soooo much work after you put down the drink. And the gratitude I have for being able to do that work as a sober women is indescribable. I have a long way to go, but on November 23rd, 2022 I am sober. I’ve been sober for almost 11 months, I am healthy, I am working on bettering myself, I am determined to be a better sister, daughter, friend, than I was yesterday.

So overall, I hope everyone feels a little extra gratitude for being exactly where they are today. I hope everyone has the most wonderful Thanksgiving and thank you all for being here with me today.

With so much love always,

Jane