The first time I tried sobriety we were in England and it was January, a cruel time of the year to sober up. But something about the landscape and season reflected the inner peace I needed. Long muddy walks in the early mornings beneath a blood-red sky, hot baths in a cozy English cottage, coffee by candlelight.

We stayed for two weeks on the outskirts of Bath in a village called Coombe Down. I’d write in the mornings and then descend from the cottage down to a wooded path, a pond and an old stone bridge.

If ever there was a time to reconsider who I was this was it. I was out of work and 45 with two kids, a dog and a cat, a house in the suburbs.

After my step-dad died my mom decided to stay in Germany in the old house they’d bought 10 years before. It was sad to be so far away from her, but when we visited we could explore all of Europe with a home base right in the middle of the continent.

It didn’t occur to me how much growing up I still had to do. Travel had always been an excuse for me to self-indulge; doing it sober had its own novelty. But as the month wore down I counted the days until I’d be drinking again, and within hours of crossing the English Channel I was ordering a bottle of Champagne from a menu in France, giggling my way up the elevator.

Four years later I quit for good, with a last glass of bubbly on a non-descript Sunday. But sobering up and growing up aren’t the same thing. For me, growing up took a lot more work. I had to leave behind whole parts of myself, the parts more concerned with me than with others. I guess I had to change the true nature of who I was to find peace.

I tried doing the 12 steps but never made it past the third. I’m not sure I got it or fully embraced the idea. A time came when my sponsor and therapist suggested I try ketamine therapy, but I didn’t like the idea of taking drugs to help me stop taking other drugs. I just wanted to get on with my life and stop thinking about it.

On those early morning walks in Bath I started to heal as I sobered up. Maybe it was the feeling of the landscape, the sense you can sometimes get in January when it feels like nature is trying to inch its way out of winter. I was trying to inch my way out too. I gathered what hope I could from the sight of small birds scrounging for seeds, the music they made with their little peeps. I thought I could find my way out too. I couldn’t.

I don’t think we can ever deny our true nature. We just make up stories about our lives to find peace with the world. Who we are will go unknown to most everyone, even ourselves. We will be remembered through the stories of those who are closest to us, and we help create those stories by how we live and act.

We get to rewrite that story every day.

Categories: Memoir, writing

Tags: dry January, recovery, sobriety