Coming Home

As a kid, I built a fort in the furthest corner of our backyard. I’d spend hours there, hiding out, when things got bad at our house. I constructed it out of various materials we had stacked up in our old garage: its walls were made of the head and footboards of a wooden baby crib – the roof, an old piece of plywood overlayed with a remnant of shag carpet – and everything fastened together against a corner piece of fencing with thin rope and even an old length of telephone cord. It was really something!

What I loved most was, when I’d tuck myself behind its walls, I was completely hidden. Hidden from my volatile home, hidden from view of gossipy neighbors, and even safe from the elements. I loved when it would rain – the heavy drops would hit the roof, but I’d be safe and warm underneath, sitting on my little milkcrate chair, usually with a book and stuffed animals in my lap for company.

When I got older and had my first taste of booze, I quickly realized it was an instant method of doing the same thing. I was invisible within the haze of alcohol. No one could see the real me. And no matter what anyone said or did, booze provided a buffer against the pain. I’d step behind a bottle, blocking out people and things. I kept life at arm’s length so it couldn’t hurt me anymore.

It was the perfect safe haven.

Reflecting on it now, I’d never been taught to deal with “life on life’s terms”. My mom had been a single mom, and did all she could just to keep food on the table and the mortgage company from taking our little home. Her energy was poured into survival – not teaching her kids the intricacies of handling life or dealing with people, hurts, and problems. She just kept on going. I know now that my mom’s way of dealing with problems was to not deal with them at all – she’d hide in her work. And in a sense, by example, that’s how I learned to deal with things – eventually, with a bottle in hand.

For about twenty years I took refuge in the dark confines of alcohol – my “adult fort”, as it were. I loved how it enveloped my mind, quelled anxiety, smoothed out the constant racing thoughts, and surged through my body like a sweet anesthetic.

I could keep life at bay, just as I did as a kid.

But somehow the amount that I consumed went from the innocent, “couple glasses a night” to the frightening, “I don’t remember cracking open that second bottle..”

The anxiety once tamed by alcohol, was now crippling. Things that I used to enjoy dropped by the wayside. Friends still came around, wanting to go hiking, or do breakfast or grab coffee – but why on earth would I ever go anywhere or do anything that didn’t involve alcohol? I became increasingly isolated.

I started drinking in the morning, hiding bottles, and constantly lying to my family.

This went on until my body finally began to give out – something I never imagined happening to me at a relatively young age!

Fairly active and healthy – how could I develop a racing heart, throat and stomach pain, and creeping neuropathy in my fingertips and feet – all from my fondness for (read: dependence upon!) wine?

But as my body broke down, I just couldn’t deny it anymore. I could no longer brush aside the physical and emotional symptoms – they weren’t caused by “hormones”, poor diet, or stress – as I’d often told myself.

All of those symptoms had one source. A source I hated to admit – because it meant I’d have to remove it.

And how would I survive without my hiding place?

Just like my fort where I’d felt safe from the storm as a child – there was a liquid wall between me and the world. I was terrified to come out from behind it.

I’d spent decades getting that space just the way I wanted it – familiar, comfortable, and most of all, impenetrable.

As alarmed as I was at the decline of my health, it took quite some time before I was ready to take action.

I won’t forget, one particularly bad morning, dragging myself into the bathroom and leaning on the sink. I could hear all manner of noise downstairs, as my family was buzzing about getting ready for the day.

I leaned in toward the mirror and met my own gaze. Sad, exhausted, bloodshot eyes looked back. I didn’t recognize the face reflected there.

How many times have I done this?

How many mornings will I spend like this?

What will it take to get me to stop?

There was a dull ache in my side that had been there for a few months. That morning it was particularly painful and I couldn’t wave it away with excuses. I kept staring at my own face – really examining all the changes I saw, some subtle and some really noticeable.

Every single year of drinking was etched deeply there.

Then, from somewhere in the very core of me, a feeling rose up. I’d been in such an emotionless haze for so long, it actually surprised me!

It was pure anger.

It was as if my very being – the real me that had been buried alive under booze – was screaming, “Enough! Enough!! Not one more day, not one more moment of living like this!!”

I locked eyes with the girl in the mirror, tears welling up and anger overtaking me, and resolved that today was the day the madness stopped.

It was a hellish Day 1, and, not gonna lie, it was hellish for some time. Days passed into weeks and weeks into months – but sober momentum was starting to build and carry me forward.

And slowly, over these last 7 months, I’ve started to build a new place where I no longer need to hide. Construction began with a new foundation – one laid upon truth and the acceptance that alcohol was harming me. Then came the walls, shored up with sober tools and kept in place with sober knowledge. Now, instead of hiding behind those walls, I’m letting life in! I want light to filter in at all times of the day – I want to see the changing of the seasons – I want the sun to warm my face as I look out each morning, clear-eyed and clear-headed.

I don’t want to live a numbed, monotone existence anymore.

I can’t tell you the peace I’ve found while working on my new home – the New Me – room by room! It truly is hard labor, but my mind is quiet now, and focused. I have realized, though, that so much of the work I have to do is unfamiliar to me – so I’ve reached out to others more skilled in this type of building – my sober community – to help me.

Together, day by day, we’re steadily constructing my new booze-free sanctuary. A healthy place to live, where the child in me can heal, and the adult me can finally learn how to navigate life without a buffer.

It all takes time, and that’s ok.

And sometimes, when the workday seems long or progress slow, booze might cross my mind. For a moment, I might miss the warm burn in my chest from that first drink. But standing at the foot of what I’m creating – looking up at this hopeful new life with all it’s colors – I realize that booze had been a sort of distorted shelter. It was the fort where I hid, that in the end, never really protected me. And I no longer belong there.

I’m able to pick up my tools again and keep working, smiling as the light comes in.

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