Who should have known about my drinking?

I didn’t tell you the truth about my substance use because, until very late in the game, I refused to believe it.

Secrets, Wincenty Wodzinowski (1866-1940)

This newsletter will always be free, but paid subscriptions allow me to keep writing it. If you value this recovery resource and want to support my work, consider upgrading to a paid subscription or leaving a tip.

---

Happy New Year! This isn’t a New Year’s post—but if you’d like to check out the one I wrote last year, you can find it here.

When I was with family over the holidays, a relative mentioned reading this newsletter and said something to me that left me momentarily speechless: “I wish we’d known how much pain you were in. I wish we could have done something to help.”

I was taken aback. My sobriety wasn’t news—all my relatives know I’m sober and have been so since my early 20s. When you only see a relative one or two times a year, generally in passing at a holiday party or wedding, news that you’ve gotten sober is treated with cautious congratulations and a desire to avoid any impertinent questions— like how, why, and is that why you no longer have a lazy eye? Instead, it ends up taking the tone of a generic life update, like switching jobs or starting a new hobby.

But it’s impossible to write honestly about my alcohol addiction without getting into the nittier, grittier parts of my drinking and the emotional turmoil that accompanied it. My hope is that doing so will make some readers feel less trapped, alone, or baffled by the ways substance use affects their lives. (It’s not all altruistic; sharing the dark stuff also helps keep me honest and inquisitive about my own addiction and recovery.)

When writing the newsletter, I never think about the fact that people I know in “real life” will read it. My dark and debauched past is easier to share with strangers than those who’ve known me for my entire life, often because—tangentially or otherwise—the lifers were a part of those stories. A bleak story about my crash landing into sobriety might leave people I care about feeling angry, guilty, sad, or a variety of other emotions they probably don’t deserve.

And I get it. I’ve been blindsided by relapses or substance misuse among people I care about; it’s often impossible not to go through every past encounter and look for times when I could have paid a little more attention, asked a few more questions, shown up with a little more support and compassion. There’s a fine line between support and none of your damn business, and it can be nearly impossible to know the difference.

All I can say to the relatives and friends who feel like they should have known something I never would have admitted to them is this: Thank you, but that’s not how this works.

If I never asked you for help, if I never told you just how dark it was trying to survive each day, if I never said I don’t know what to do, but I’m struggling, there’s no reason you should have known. If I—as so many people with addiction do—forced a smile on my face, and hid my bottles, and did everything my intoxicated little brain could think of to seem positively A-okay, why would you question it?

If I only saw you at the occasional holiday party or wedding—events where even the mildest of drinkers sometimes over-imbibe—and then not again for months, I would never expect you to know. You had no reason to doubt the carefully crafted cartoon outline of my life that I earnestly delivered to extended family once every six months. I didn’t tell you the truth because, until very late in the game, I refused to believe it.

On some level, I think you know this and are simply being kind, which I appreciate. But as an at least occasional reader of this newsletter, you probably also know another truth about addiction: It doesn’t really matter who knows what if the person misusing substances is wholly uninterested in changing their behavior.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to suggest that recovery simply boils down to willpower. It’s more like a car that makes a weird rattling noise that the owner swears is normal, or at least not a problem. I’ve driven it for 15 years, and it’s always done this, they might say. It’s never once given me trouble. Whether or not that’s true is irrelevant. The car is only going to the shop if its owner thinks there’s an issue.

But hindsight can be useful in the present. We all have people in our lives who are struggling in some way, and a feeling of helplessness about a past crisis can serve as a reminder to pay attention to loved ones in the present. I don’t mean the people you see only a few times a year, or that the struggle is necessarily substance-related. But these are weird, hard times for many of us.

Who in your life might be lonely or isolated, and how can you reach out to them? Who is going through a difficult diagnosis or painful divorce? What are some ways you can let those people know that you care about them and want to support them? Invite them to lunch or dinner, or for a game of poker, golf, or whatever you do for fun. It may be uncomfortable or awkward at first, but it gets easier, and the satisfaction of showing up when someone needs it most is profound.

But, if it’ll help your conscience, you could always upgrade to a paid subscription. Founding tier sound about right?

If you enjoyed this post, please like, comment, or share it. Doing so helps others find the newsletter!

---

Send questions and feedback to askasoberlady@gmail.com. By sending a question, you agree to let me reprint it in the newsletter with your name redacted or changed. Emails may be edited for length or clarity.

I’m not a doctor or mental health professional, so my advice shouldn’t be construed as medical or therapeutic. You are free to take or leave it.