I'm Not One of Those People
The Memo for September 13, 2024
A few days ago, I published a story to commemorate the 28th anniversary of my sobriety date. In it I referred, several times, to the following quote from one of my favorite writers, Joan Didion, which appears in her essay entitled On Keeping a Notebook.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not."
-Joan Didion
In an accompanying post, I mentioned that, in all these years, I have barely written about my own sobriety, and that it’s time I did something about that. I arrived at this conclusion in the days leading up to my anniversary, after asking myself why. Why hadn’t I written about my sobriety?
One day at a time. Just as those five words are seared into the mind of any person who aspires to achieve sobriety, four words are seared into the mind of every aspiring writer.
Write what you know.
When I search my heart and ponder the question, why have I chosen not to write about sobriety, this topic that I know as well as anyone, I could offer myself any number of excuses. But, when I pan that stream for a nugget of truth, everything washes away except one simple reason.
I never wanted to be one of those people.
Growing up, lots of people around me were drunk all the time. That was acceptable in my family. But those people drank way too much.
Those people were like my cousin Pat, who would walk into the restaurant when the crowd died down on Saturday evening. Before the busser could clear the tables, he would go around polishing off all the drinks the customers didn’t quite finish.
Those people were like my Uncle Charles, who broke into a drug store early one Sunday morning, after all the bars were closed. He took a pint of gin from the shelf, sat down on the floor, and drank until the police arrived to take him off to jail.
Those people would sometimes reduce themselves to drinking things like aftershave or rubbing alcohol or mouthwash.
Those people were pathetic.
I heard the way my family talked about those people. That’s why, after all these years, there is still part of me who resists being one of those people. Maybe that’s why I haven’t written about it.
In the months preceding my last drink, I attended one of those meetings for the first time. That fellowship with the alliterative name. That secret society that everyone knows about. Those meetings.
Those people have to go to those meetings.
Back then, as my alcohol problem escalated, my mom implored me to go to those meetings. I would go, and then come home to the inevitable questions.
“How was it?”
“Did you like it?”
“Will you go again?”
I remember acknowledging what a valuable resource it was, saying something like “It’s great that they have those meetings. I can see how they really help those people.” I’m not sure I’ve experienced anything worse than the way it felt to be drunk at one of those meetings with those people.
I couldn’t manage to abstain in between those meetings. I needed more help than that. Once I got it, I knew how important it was for me to get honest. That meant telling the stories I had been holding back - stories that made me sound a lot more like my Uncle Charles or my cousin Pat than my dad or my brothers. In stories like these, I avoided bars and liquor stores, and pretended to be sober, while ingesting products like Nyquil and, more often, Listerine. Only those people do things like that.
I told the stories, and I have been sober ever since.
Writing is different.
From time to time, this comes up when I’m composing an email or a text message and think better of it. I often decide it would be better, for whatever reason, to convey the message at hand with a phone call, or an in-person conversation.
To me, writing is a different type of commitment. Speaking the words means acknowledging reality. Putting words on paper means accepting reality. It makes it permanent.
I never wanted to be one of those people, let alone permanently.
At this time, 28 years into recovery, reckoning with that resistance seems like the thing to do. I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s time to let it go, and make peace with myself.
I don’t indulge any fantasy that my life might have been better had I not been one of those people… if I continued to drink. To say I nearly drank myself to death is not hyperbole. Things were not going well. But, even if I could have continued to drink casually, sanely, I wouldn’t be the person I’ve become. I wouldn’t be who I am today.
I am grateful to be sober. I am proud to be sober. It changed the course of my life in ways I could have never imagined, and in ways I will write about. Before getting sober, I didn’t much care whether I went on living or not. Now, I’m pretty happy with my life.
Sobriety is no consolation prize. It is what I want.
I would rather be the man I am than the man I was.
I think back to the Didion quote as I see the end of that last sentence on the screen… the man I was. “The people we used to be...” It reminds me what I love about writing most of all. It reveals things that would never occur to me without putting pen to paper. It is archeology. I discover things that were buried beneath the surface.
I have averted my gaze, for 28 years, from seeing myself as one of those people. Then I string together some words and arrive at “the man I was.”
It occurs to me, only because I chose to write this, he is not who I am.
He is who I was.
He is the person I used to be.
I am not one of those people.
I was one of those people.
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Journaling Prompt for September 13, 2024
Write about a part of your life that you have had a difficult time accepting.
Glossary of Feelings
Regret (noun)
sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair
an expression of distressing emotion (such as sorrow)
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Have a great weekend.
