JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We've been talking about what happens in June and what it means to us, and I need to add the month has a very special place in our family. No, it's not a marriage or a birthday (I'm spending mine getting physical therapy! Woo hoo!) It's because this month my two oldest children celebrate their soberversaries.
A soberversary, is, if you haven't run across the term, the annual commemoration of embracing sobriety. (The T in sobriety is probably why I keep saying soberversity, which, Victoria points out, sounds like a college where no one drinks. Or maybe I'm too fond of the letter T; after reading the chilling One Second After, I told my husband we were in danger from EMTs, instead of EMPs. I still get ribbed about that one.)
This June 1st, Victoria celebrated her sixth year of being sober, complete with a cake from her girlfriend and an appointment with a tattoo artist - she got her first tattoo after one year and has been keeping the tradition ever since. (No, I don't worry about it. By the time she looks like The Illustrated Man, I'll be toes-up.)
And on June 13th, the whole family is excited to see the Sailor get his bronze chip from AA, marking one year of sobriety. I think one of the reasons he responded so well to AA is the chip thing - he's very competitive. AA figured out how to gamify abstinence decades before the rest of the culture.
I never expected to be the mother of two alcoholics, and I'm more grateful than I can say they both stopped drinking in their twenties. I have a family member who didn't, and the toll decades of alcohol take on the body appalling. I'm also grateful neither left any unrecoverable mistakes behind when they quit drinking - no broken marriages, messed up kids or, God forbid, fatal car accidents.
It's a truism you can't make an alcoholic stop drinking, not even if you are a mother with a really stern look and a withering way of saying, "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed." I know I'm lucky that both my kids had the same road-to-Damascus moment, waking up and saying, "This is it. No more." Victoria says her plan each morning is, "Don't drink today." The Sailor goes with the more traditional "One day at a time." So far, it's working well for both of them.
Both of them found substitutes for drinking, which, if you're getting drunk more or less daily, does take up quite a bit of your life. Like a noxious hobby, I suppose.
Victoria walks her dogs up to two hours a day, collects scented candles (her house is like a Yankee Candle store) and treats herself to expensive coffee and fruity seltzer. The Sailor started working out daily, to the point where he now resembles a short version of Chris Evans playing Captain America. (If he gets any bigger, he's going to look like a very pale version of The Hulk.) He drinks cheap coffee and sugar-free Gatorade.
Oh, and for those of you wondering about Youngest? She plans to avoid any problems by never starting. Being a teetotaler hasn't harmed her social or dating life, which does make me wonder why we all seem to think it's so fundamental for both of those pursuits.
So, dear readers, lift a (fizzy, fruity, nonalcoholic) glass to June, to sobriety, and to the power of each one of us to wake up and change our lives for the better.
Worried about your drinking? Wondering where to get information? NIAAA is a good first step.
