7 days
thoughts on sobriety
I listened to the Armchair Expert episode about Dax’s relapse from sobriety. I highly recommend listening. I’m obviously no expert in addiction, so take my words here with a grain of salt. The jest is that Dax had 16 years of sobriety from cocaine and booze. After some surgeries this past year, he started struggling with pain killers, so he “reset” his days of sobriety, starting over after 16 years with day one again.
I’ve been thinking a ton about sobriety in 2020. Seth Haines in his book Coming Clean (highly recommend - I think I read it when it first came out in 2015 and still think about it frequently) says that “we’re all addicted to something.” I’m convinced that is true. I think we all use something or somethings to numb or “press the easy button.”
Here are some things that cause me trouble: doomscrolling, people pleasing, Regency romance novels, trying to control everything, one too many IPAs with friends, tortilla chips, online shopping when I’m bored. Obviously, none of those things are inherently bad (or good); it’s my relationship with them that can go sideways.
Our culture puts up on a pedestal people who numb by overworking, but then tells people who numb with heroine that they’re bad people with no self-control. We praise women for their motivation and size who numb by trying to control every calorie they consume or by over-working their bodies in the gym. We create an entire industry around mommy wine culture, but culturally tend to judge people who struggle with their relationship with alcohol.
I’m obviously not saying that I think doing heroine or binge drinking are good ideas, but I have been paying attention to how I numb, what things I turn to when my feelings become too much (that one is easy: my phone), and pay attention to what things I’m using to easy button my way away from my life.
2020 has been such a teacher for me because there is so much coming at us each and every day - if we’re paying attention. A global pandemic, a long overdue racial reckoning, increasing fear about the state of our democracy, anxiety about how this is impacting my kids and all of our kids. I want to be awake to it, but not incapacitated by it. I want to feel my feelings, sit with them as long as needed, and learn from them. I don’t know what word to name this kind of living, but I think sobriety comes close. I’m trying to figure out what that looks like for me, so that I come out on the other side of this more compassionate, more integrated, more present.
Worth sharing this week
I was exhausted on the night of the debate, so we went to bed early. Man, was I happy with that decision after I woke up. I feel like most people have made up their minds by now, so I’m not sure what difference the debates will make anyway. But I actually think this episode of Pantsuit Politics and this episode of The Daily about the President’s tax returns and the implications for four more years of this is the content we should all be paying attention to this week.
A friend kept asking me if I had read Know My Name yet, and I kept putting it off because I knew it would be heavy. But I’m almost finished, and I really think everyone needs to read it. I will also be assigning it to my kids before they start high school. I’ll surely have more thoughts on this one as it settles in.
It’s soup season in Indiana, which means chili is on our menu at least once a week. Here’s my go-to vegetarian version that I love because I always have way too many lentils in the pantry, and this is our regular version (although I usually leave the beer out these days - unless I have a porter on hand that Grant doesn’t mind me stealing). Check out this Twitter thread for more soup-spiration :) Comment below or email back with your favorite soup recipe because I’m always looking for new go-tos.
We finally watched the new Little Women as a family last week - and we all looooved it, especially the kids.
Seasonal pic of the week
15 years with this hunk - celebrating in downtown Noblesville (a close second for our planned anniversary trip to Switzerland and Italy this past summer!)
Cheers to making some soup and getting outside this weekend!
Sara