Suzie Beats the Booze

  "Sometimes you can only find heaven by slowly backing away from hell"  -Carrie Fisher "I think I'm in trouble. I'm drinking every single day and I'm not sure I can stop"  My doctor looked at me with her kind and insightful eyes. She's known me since I was 3 months pregnant with my first child- that's 14 years of caring for my family's medical needs. She was supportive when a few years earlier, I dissolved into tears in her office and finally admitted that my mind had been taken over by terrifying intrusive thoughts. That I was scared and jumpy all the time. That I had a neverending sense of doom, certain that my life was more than I deserved and the other shoe would drop at any moment. She was calm, reassuring and offered me help in the form of a referral and some medication.  Coming to her as a messy mom  again , someone who wasn't coping the way I thought I  should  be was no small feat. I felt humiliated. By the time I sat in her exa...

  "Sobriety was the best gift I ever gave myself"- Rob Lowe Well, here I am. I've swerved the booze bitch, who lives in my mind, for the past 100 days. I'm proud of myself and that's a wonderful feeling. This started as a "dry month" for me, just a chance to get curious about myself and how alcohol was or wasn't effecting my life. I'd expected that when the 30 days was up, I'd pat myself on the back and reward myself with a glass of wine. I'd never bargained for what actually happened. I felt good. I was sleeping so well, my digestion was so much better, my mood felt more calm and stable and I had the sense that I was just on the cusp of learning who I am and what I actually need from my time on this planet. So, I decided I'd do another 30 days to see what else I could learn about alcohol, the alcohol industry, women and addiction and, most importantly, my whole self. When I started my first 30 days, I downloaded an app on my phone to...

It's hard to say exactly where things hit the skids for my old friend, Merlot, and I. We were buds, she was doing everything she promised me and I was grateful.  I have a photograph of me on the FIRST night I ever raised a drink to my lips. I was a drama geek in highschool, a real Moira Rose. A pretentious teen who thought she was destined for the Oscars, and envisioned pulling up to a highschool reunion in a limo, feigning impatience and embarrassment by the papparazzi presence. Ask Tim, I can still be a *tad* over the top, but I like to think it's part of my charm. That photo shows me at a cast and crew party, glassy eyed and absolutely BEAMING, with my arm around the neck of a guy who's name I can't remember. In my hand is a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade. I don't remember where I got the drinks from, but I remember how easy they went down. Full of sugar and so similiar to the innocuous lemonade eight-year olds sell from behind cardboard stands. I don't r...

 You ever stare at a blank page and have no idea where to start? The emptiness lending itself to so much possibility that it's paralysing? I have so much to say and it's been so long. It feels like I have a plate of spaghetti in my mind and I  need  to tell you about each and every strand of pasta but it's all just such a saucy mess and I don't know where to start picking at it. Which piece of this slippery mess should I extricate and hold up for you and say "See this one? This one is important because...." ? You see, I've been feeling like a bit of a mess.  Actually if I'm honest, and I've promised myself  I won't be anything else, I've always been messy in different ways and at varying levels of fucked-uped-ness. Hey, that's probably true for you too.We're all walking around in these meatsacks on this giant rock, trying to have experiences that really mean something. I turned 40 last June, I'm considered to be mid-life at this...

  ~There is no greater misery than false joys~ -Bernard of Clairvaux Well, interwebs, here we go. I'm sitting in front of this blank screen, cracking my knuckles and sipping my lukewarm coffee. The time has come to look at that heaping plate of spaghetti in my mind and pluck out another strand to face and do battle with.  In my last writing, I told you that I never quite fit in. That I was always aware of some level of force or extra effort when elbowing my way into a social group. The people in my world who have known me over the past decade may find this hard to reconcile because, genuinely, I love people. I connect with others easily and I've honestly never been shy. What my friends and family can't know is that I've lived my life as a shape shifter. A chameleon. I've been so wholly desperate for a sense of belonging with others that I've abandoned myself entirely. After years of stifling myself, I no longer have a grasp of who I really am.  I've spent th...