foot off the pedal. burners on low.

to practice sobriety is to relinquish control

space for so much more.

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I look back on my drinking from where I stand today, three years free, and what strikes me, still, is how long I lived inside a story that was killing me. This is utter hyperbole but also totally true: though I didn’t have a chemical dependence on alcohol—though I wasn’t physically addicted, though my challenges with booze wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone on the outside looking in—my own inability to see, let alone imagine, into a different story, one where I wasn’t beholden to something that only ever kept me tolerating my life, rather than participating in it, was slowly murdering something precious deep inside. As the days began to pile up—10 days, two weeks, a whole month!—as my lived experience of sobriety turned out to be the exact opposite of what I’d been trained to believe it would be, as that door I had forgotten existed began to open up inside that precious place, well, it’s still hard to put into words, and, yeah, I know as a writer my job is to chew on things until I can explain them in a neat and succinct way, but if these long meandering sentences tell you anything it’s that I’m still not sure how to describe what it felt like to re-orient myself, not as a person who didn’t get to drink, but as someone who didn’t have to.

I was plenty familiar with deprivation narratives. After all, I am a woman who exists in the world. I knew how to erase my needs, to be the go-with-the-flow-girl, to settle, to make my desires so small and manageable as to be void of all vitality. I knew how to smile, and nod, and acquiesce, bat my lashes, be coy. I knew how to read whatever room I was in and then shapeshift into some form that I thought would make everyone else most comfortable. Rarely did I feel comfortable, and this is another story: the one where I had no idea that I got to have a say in any of this.

Have you ever seen a baby horse stand up for the first time?

There were the early days of sobriety. The falling apart of my very skeleton, the subsequent re-stacking of bones into a steadier structure. There were the habits I didn’t even realize were habits, those small, day-to-day ways of living, thinking, of moving through the world, that seemed minuscule when viewed independently but when added together made up a whole life; there’s me unable to ignore any of it. There’s so much loneliness. Everything is awkward: my limbs are too long, my knees knock, I am clumsy, I bump into things. I stick my foot in my mouth, actually, no, I’ve stopped doing that, now, I am quiet, so much quieter than ever, because for once in my life I have nothing to say, but that’s not quite it, either, I have plenty to say, I just don’t want to say dumb shit anymore, because, suddenly, everything is urgent, and I want to say only what I mean.

I tell the truth, I stop lying.

Time is a squirrel, time freaks you out. Time is a holy rascal. At first you chase grasp cling. Then you become a hermit. Then you begin the slow crawl of self-forgiveness. You begin to re-emerge.

Three years ago, there was very little pleasure in my life, and yes, I mean physical pleasure, and also, I’m talking about those day-to-day moments of pleasure that occur when you are present for your life: that first bite of black sesame ice cream in a fish-shaped cone lined with red-bean paste; greeting the day with a hummingbird outside your window, same time every morning; mornings!; laughing until your sides hurt with friends and then crying when you realize how much more joy is possible now that you no longer numb out from any of life’s experiences.

At first I thought I’d wasted time. That I had to play catch-up. That I had to get to a place where I too had point-to-able successes, like my friends, like my sister, like other people my age. See! I would be able to say. Look how far I’ve come! I make a real salary now—with benefits. Or, look! I bought a condo! Or, yay me! I found someone I liked enough to marry! At first I thought I had to hurry up and do. That I had to be a person with a fancy LinkedIn profile, and credit cards with rewards that I actually knew how to access, and a passport full of stamps, and professional photos on social media of my casually curated, big fancy life.

Time is a holy rascal.

Booze took me out of the present moment. Early sobriety had me rushing through it. Both extremes average out to a complete missing out on life. This, the greatest deprivation of all.

Sometimes my earnestness embarrasses me. Sometimes I worry about how I sound when I hear phrases like “all roads lead back to sobriety” come out of my mouth. Sometimes I wonder if you will get sick of the way I dance around similar themes, over and over. Because I don’t have a snappy three-step-list, or a how-to-get-sober playbook. I don’t have any of those above listed things, either, not even close. But I have time. I have a torch I carry for pleasure, rather than performance. I have filtered light through a purple plum tree that casts shadows on my bedroom wall. I have early mornings full of quiet beauty. I have more love than I know what to do with, that spills out at times, through my eyes, my mouth, my skin. Three years in, I am overflowing.

I stand on still-wobbly legs. I am out of the whitewater, I’m learning to swim. Sometimes, I let myself float. I gaze up at the stars, I place a square of chocolate under my tongue. I breathe in the smell of your neck. I cry at the smallest kindness. I am here for all the moments.

Foot off the pedal. Burners on low.

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⛓ Related links:

🌀 Long locked doors, wide open windows

📖 Recommended reading: Pleasure Activism, adrienne marie brown

🐴 Foal’s very first time standing up

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Slow Motion Sober is a newsletter and community for creative types who are sober or curious about sobriety, and all the life-y intersections along the way. It's written by me, Dani Cirignano, a writer and sobriety advocate in San Francisco, CA. 

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