My Thank You Letter to Alcohol
One year ago today, I decided to quit drinking. My rock bottom didn’t involve a brown bag or a gutter or vomit or a DUI or a trip to the hospital or detox or rehab or even a single AA meeting. I’m one of the lucky ones who woke up before things got real bad and managed to carve out her own path to booze sobriety.
On Christmas Eve last year, I was in New Hampshire, visiting my favorite family at the end of a long, blurry year of New York City stress. I guzzled boxed wine as I helped my aunt wrap presents for her children. I got so drunk that I missed most of Christmas morning because sleeping off my hangover was more important than creating memories with my loved ones. They didn’t really mind because they’re chill af, but I felt like a steamy garbage person. That feeling was not a new one. It was quite familiar.
That, however, was still not my rock bottom. It came two days later, when I was sitting across from my Aunt — my most favorite person in the whole wide world — having my second glass of wine. I told myself that after Christmas Eve, I could only have two drinks per day. That third drink always seemed to lead to 6 drinks, so I decided to avoid it.
As she talked, I realized I wasn’t listening to her. Like, at all. Instead, I was talking myself into a third glass of wine when the one in my hand wasn’t even halfway gone yet. That thing happened where she asked me a question and I had to pretend like I had been listening. I fooled no one. That was the moment. I realized that alcohol had become more important than sharing quiet, intimate moments with the people I loved the most. It was time to be done.
I still have shame about that day and about a series of other events that led up to that moment (ask me about those offline pls). I’m also super grateful. Like, incredibly so. In the last year, I planned and took myself on a 7,000-mile, three-month road trip around the country teaching people how to use yoga, meditation and writing to be better at being human. After that ended in June, I decided to move from NYC back to my hometown of Minneapolis. I figured that would be pretty chill, but it wasn’t. My re-entry to midwestern living was rocky and painful af. The busy-ness of the tour faded and I was left to deal with The Backlog of pain. All of my most familiar and intimate relationships with family and friends changed completely or ended altogether. I think this is one of the key reasons many people avoid chucking an addiction when they know they should. It can be a reckoning unlike any other and, in my case, it was not fun at all. It came with a bunch of crying and confusion and doubt and fear. But that pain made the most beautiful space for new, loving, healthy relationships to form with people I didn’t even realize existed, including myself.
So, on this special day, I wrote a short thank you note to alcohol because as Mary Oliver put it, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
Dear Booze,
Thank you.
Thank you for being there for me when the pain and joy was too much for me to bear. I needed you to swoop in and round off the sharp edges of who I was, because I was too afraid of facing the beauty and defined clarity of being me.
I knew, deep down that if I let myself stay clear, I’d have to admit that I was a more-than-capable, independent, beautiful woman who had the kind of super hero strength that could touch and move people on the other side of the world. Owning that would have meant going up against everything society has taught me about being a woman and I was just too scared to take that on. Thank for being there when I needed to play small before deciding to go big.
Thank you for numbing me out so I could turn 32 and realize I hadn’t felt anything fully as an adult. The shock and awe of being present in my body and my emotions for the past year has felt like binging on life. I don’t think I could have really felt that if I hadn’t spent so much time with you over the past 12 years.
Thank you for showing me who my true friends are. You surprised me with that one. Sometimes pleasantly and sometimes not.
You know how shitty friends and bad boyfriends show a girl what she doesn’t want in a relationship? You showed me what I don’t want in a coping mechanism. I’m probably the most thankful for that.
Some days I don’t think of you at all and other days I miss you. When things are really bad, I wanna call you and be like, “Hey wanna come over and distract me from the vibrant experience of being human?” But I don’t. Because I know better. Despite all that, I think we may reunite again some day. But it will be so different than it was. You’ll be a condiment, not the main course. You’ll enhance a meal, not drown it. I don’t know when that will be, but I look forward to redefining who we are together.
See you sometime. And thanks for being there. I’ve learned so much thanks to you.
❤ Tatum
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Tatum Fjerstad is a yoga, meditation and writing teacher who also designs websites and edits and ghostwrites books. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her cat, Gary, and she is well-loved by some really amazing people. To be her new best friend, visit her website.
