In January of 2015, my new AA sponsor and I were sitting in a Dunkin Donuts for our first official one-on-one meeting. I was in awe of her. She was seven years older than me, so thirty-two, and was absolutely the coolest girl you’d ever seen: unapologetically sober, articulate, educated, cool-headed and confident, but still gentle, courteous, and wholly attentive to whomever she was speaking to. And effortlessly gorgeous, with fair, un-made-up skin, a stylish sleek dark bob, and round, doll-like, pale greenish eyes; she was wearing, I remember, a cute little vintage tee that showed a white sliver of her enviably narrow, flat midriff. She was at once tomboyish and ladylike; she seemed to have perfect posture, even when she slouched. You could just tell that she knew who she was.

And then there was me: twenty-five, skulking, sorry, skinny but not in a cool way, a depressed bulimic wino still living at home with her parents, a wannabe Catholic trapped in sin and shame, just surviving at a grueling job that I was ill-suited for and no good at – a job where all of my coworkers around me were constantly living out my secret impossible dream of getting pregnant and having babies, which constantly rubbed my own failure and loneliness in my face, and made me angrier and angrier. I was angry at myself, at my situation – just angry in general. I was, at that time, particularly angry at this guy from POF whom I’d gone on a couple coffee dates with and now he wouldn’t stop texting me, even though I’d ghosted him, like, aggressively ghosted him, just like I always ghosted everyone, whether I wanted to or not. He was so nice to me and respectful of me, like he actually liked me – how unappealing! I was, in short, pathetic. 

So there I was, sitting pathetically across from my impeccably cool new AA sponsor in the noisy, cramped Dunkin, listening to her melodious voice, twitchily folding and re-folding an empty Splenda packet into the tiniest possible rectangles, and feeling very awkward. She was giving me my very first AA homework assignment. I was nodding my head, eager to get started on it, to ace it. Bookwork and written assignments were, and are, my forte. I like to think I am less awkward in writing.

One of her assignments for me that day, at the beginning of my sobriety journey, was to write a letter to myself at five years sober. She wanted me to express my hopes and dreams and goals for my future, for all that I could become. She told me to then seal it up in an envelope and not open it until January of 2020, when I would be, God willing, five years sober. 

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Well, in January of 2020, as it turned out, I would not be five years sober. From 2015 through early 2019, I was in and out of AA, sometimes sober, sometimes not. (At some point, during one of my “relapses,” I ripped up that letter I’d written to my future self, and threw it away. I no longer remember what was in it.) I did all the hard work, desperately throwing myself light-years outside of my comfort zone, repeatedly, because my sponsors and groupmates told me to – to no avail. That feeling of awkwardness never went away, and I never experienced the promised emotional release or total personality change that they say comes from working the Steps. I kept waiting for the cure to my chronic, crippling social anxiety and low self-esteem, which had driven me to drink in the first place, but it never came. So in the end I burned out on AA. It wasn’t working; it was truly making me worse. But I couldn’t go back to drinking either. I was at an impasse. Finally, in March of 2019, with some urging from my long-suffering and loyal husband (that’s right, can you believe someone married me while I was in the thick of all this?), I decided that I’d just do it myself: I’d white-knuckle it for a year, for one single year, and if, after 365 days, I was still miserable, I’d throw myself back into drinking with more reckless abandon than ever. I’d self-destruct.

Just two months after that, I got my first ever positive pregnancy test. My impossible dream miraculously came true. I had now something to live for.

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So in January of 2020, I was actually ten months sober, and getting ready to give birth for the first time. Plot twist.

It’s wild how much better life is now. Aside from having a family and a will to live, which are both really nice to have, it’s also just much easier to be a practicing Catholic when you’re not constantly in a state of mortal sin (after all, nothing we do outside of a state of Grace really has any meaning, ultimately, and let me tell you, I knew that in my soul before I knew it in my brain!). And it’s even worse when you’re trying to pretend like you’re fine and showing up hungover to be a lector at Mass and trying to put on a brave face and all. I don’t wish that kind of life on anyone!

I may not remember what I wrote in that letter back in 2015, but I know for a fact I didn’t even dare to even fantasize that I’d ever become a stay-at-home mom to not one, not two, but three children. With that very same guy who wouldn’t stop texting me back then – the sweet, selfless guy who courageously (let’s be honest: stupidly) became my husband. Not only that, but the ED is basically a thing of the past now. Not that I’m “comfortable” in my stupid meat-prison by any means, but, you know, you learn to live with your demons, if you can’t cast them out entirely. And it’s not so bad. Maybe I’m just too old to care that much anymore lol.

I’m still the same. Frankly, at the five year mark, I’ve only just begun to figure out why I’m like this: why I needed to drink so much in the first place. The debilitating social anxiety, persistent mild depression (dysthymia), negative beliefs about myself, and inability to make or keep friends, have all stuck around, and worsened, and kept me from being the person I wish I could. So just this year I finally got proactive about my own mental health and self-referred for a psychiatric evaluation, after which I was officially diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder.

Finally. I can’t believe it’s gone undiagnosed for all these years. Well, actually, I can believe it. AVPD frequently goes undiagnosed, for several reasons. One is that it tends to hide beneath its comorbid conditions (substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, to name a few). Another reason it goes undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed, is that it’s just not widely understood, even by mental health professionals. Probably because avoidants tend to, well, avoid: to lurk in the shadows; to not seek treatment, or not stick with treatment consistently (like, I’ve been to probably 15 therapists over the years, but never for more than a few months – typical). And when we do get therapy, we tend to suck at it, because we suck at being open, honest, and vulnerable, and at expressing emotions in general; so therapy doesn’t tend to work for us, any better than medication does (unlike ADHD or depression, PDs are not caused by any chemical imbalance, but by a person’s fundamental, unshakeable beliefs about themselves). So the prognosis is grim. My efforts at managing symptoms are ongoing; maybe I should make a pilgrimage to Lourdes; do you think God would cure a personality disorder? haha.

Idk. So in any case I finally got to five years, although it took nine years and change.

And it hasn’t been conventional. Tbh I still don’t feel like I relate much to other sober alcoholics. Not that they’re all the same, by any means, I’m definitely not saying that – I spent enough time in AA and in the recovery world to know that everyone’s story really is unique and different – but nonetheless, I feel like a misfit because, even though my life has improved, dreams have come true, and etc., I don’t feel like I’ve actually changed much internally. I’m not a “new person,” unfortunately. And unlike most sober people I’ve met, I actually really miss drinking. I miss it dearly. Which is complete madness, because my life is so much better now. But the thing is, booze was the only thing that ever came close to solving the problem that the Twelve Steps couldn’t: for a few hours at a time, it all but cured the AVPD. Alas, poor me! Cue the world’s smallest violin.

But, God willing, I’ll never go back to it. I love my family and my faith too much. So I keep chugging along, counting the days (1,827) and side-eyeing the wines on sale as I pass by pushing a shopping cart full of clamoring small children. I’m not a great Catholic, or a great wife, or a great mom, or great at much of anything to be honest; but, –

But what? Lol, nvm, I got nothing. I don’t even imagine this will be useful to anyone except me, but, maybe I’ll put it on my blog anyway. But probably not haha.

It’s been almost ten years since that day at Dunkin in January 2015. I haven’t seen or spoken to that former sponsor in a very long time. If she could see me now… I doubt she’d be particularly proud, seeing as how I’m no longer in AA at all — I’m a sobriety heretic! I don’t need to confess to a sponsor anymore, I have Priests for that now! Plus she was a kind of a feminist and I doubt she’d be about that tradcath lifestyle, lol. But, I am still and shall ever remain grateful that she wasted her time on me. And it’s super weird to think that I’m two years older now than she was then.

I don’t guess I have a tidy way to wrap this up haha. But overall, was it a good move to quit?: absolutely, 11/10, do recommend.