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Acknowledgments Acknowledgments
To Central Recovery Press: Thank you for taking a chance on me. I hope to make you proud. And to Eliza, the coolest editor ever: Thank you for putting up with all my cat memes. You are simply the best.
To my sober sisters and brothers: You are my ever-present lifeboat. You kept saying, “It will get better,” and yep, you were right. Thank you.
To the Booze-Free Brigade: I lift my La Croix to all of you. Thank you. You know how special you are.
To my church: I’m usually really good with words, but I can’t really put into words just how much you mean to me. Thank you.
To my friends: All of the really good parts of this book are dedicated to you. I wrote them when you were watching my children.
To Jenni and Sherry: No, really. Thank you for loving me. And thank you for your evil sense of humor. We are family. And we really do put the “fun” in dysfunctional. I adore you guys.
To my mom: I’m really sorry about the bad words and the parts about sex. But I sure do love you. Thank you for your wisdom, your letters, and sweetness. You should write a book.
To my dad: You are my hero. Always have been. Always will be. I love you.
To my sweet husband: We make a good team. Thank you for not sending me back down to the minors. I love you so.
To Charlie and Henry: You are the best of the best, and I love you to the moon and back. Now, go to bed.
Thank you, sweet Jesus, for your love and all those times you said, “I’m here. Don’t freak out.” I’m sure that’s in the Bible somewhere. You are my all in all.
And to all mommies, all of them, everywhere, who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. This is for you.
“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting.”
William Shakespeare
It took a wedding, two babies, and a funeral to help me understand I needed to get sober. How I survived parenting while in recovery is another story.
For me, the ugly cry involves a lot of snot and bravado. The snot is self-explanatory, but the bravado means I simply refuse to acknowledge the copious drips collecting around my nose. I won’t wipe. I don’t blink. I don’t even call my bluff with a wet sniffle. Sitting in a squeaky pew at my brother’s funeral, I have settled into the ugly cry. At this point there is so much beading of moisture I’m convinced I’ll leak all over myself when I go up to give his eulogy. Meredith takes pity on me and hands me a Kleenex; it’s the size of a postage stamp. I half-heartedly dab at one side of my nose, which only makes the snot spread, leaving a glistening snail trail over my once perfectly applied lip gloss.
At last I give in and collapse into my father’s cotton handkerchief. I had asked him for it before the funeral, and he’d handed it to me without a word. I’d wanted it because I needed to hold on to something of his while I realized that his boy, and my darling brother, was gone.
My brother died because he drank too much.
I, also, drank too much. Here’s the story of how I stopped, and how I keep being stopped every day, twenty-four hours at a time. I am in recovery, and I am a wife and a mother to two small children all at the same time. Having toddlers and not drinking seems quite a feat to some, and I completely understand. My drinking wasn’t crazy when I was in my twenties, partying with friends. My addiction didn’t bloom until my thirties when I was devastated by a broken heart. Instead it waited, patiently, until I had the one thing I always wanted: true love.
Now I had a husband, two babies, and a big fat addiction to alcohol.
Is parenting possible without wine? Even on a nut-ball, crazy toddler, Sharpie-marker-on-the-couch, Barney-on-repeat kind of day?
Yes. And, more importantly, even with the decorated couch, even with Barney, even when I can’t find my keys, or my sanity, or a diaper, I found joy in sobriety. It’s possible.
Not only is it possible, it is deserved.
“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were.
After the second, you see things as they are not.
Finally, you see things as they really are, and that
is the most horrible thing in the world.”
Oscar Wilde
Birth with a Beer Chaser Birth with a Beer Chaser
My darling husband is leaning over me as I rest in the hospital bed with Charlie snoozing in my arms. Brian is smiling widely, but I am distracted because his pants seem to be . . . clinking? “My darling,” he kisses me. “Here is your beer.”
I don’t like beer. An alcoholic saying she doesn’t like beer is like a doctor saying, “I’m just not that much into stethoscopes. They’re cumbersome.” But beer’s hops make my face itch, and whenever I drink it my nose twitches like a rabbit—and
