Has YOUR hand been in a public toilet today?

Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash‍ ‍

Something people may not know about my particular alcoholism is that I wasn’t one of those high-falutin’ functional alcoholics.

I wasn’t out there holding down a job and keeping myself fit and tending to my relationships while also downing one too many bottles of wine at night.

I was at the bar at 7:00 a.m., fishing my necklace out of the toilet after sticking my fingers down my throat to vomit up the appropriate amount of toast to be able to get drunk faster.

One time, after losing a job due to my drinking, I retreated to my palmetto-bug-infested, $400-a-month shack and hallucinated for a day or two while dangerously navigating delirium tremens from the (not-at-all-comfortable) comfort of my own bed.

Until I went back to drinking, that is. Because, while shame would occasionally keep me sober for a day or two, the insatiable itch to drink, drink, drink always brought me back to the bottle.

And in the bottle is where I lived. Aside from the hours I spent
working jobs that contributed in no meaningful way to society,
or unconscious in between passing out and coming to (blackout drinkers don’t “go to sleep”),

I was drunk or on my way to becoming drunk.

So these days…

When I feel a little morose or disenchanted or self-critical because postpartum me isn’t “accomplishing” at the rate I’d like to…

It’s helpful to remember

that it doesn’t matter at all.

I haven’t plunged my vomit-covered fingers into a public toilet to fish out last night’s necklace in at least a decade.

And maybe that’s accomplishment enough.

Love,

Your friend who wants to be a living embodiment of “divine relaxation”

Morning Musings is a delight-first writing practice that used to be daily-ish and is now simply -ish.

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