Here’s the thing: I was so livid after what I heard that I wanted to break something. I wanted to scream louder than I ever have.

But I had eight teenage eyes watching me. My brain decided that the little-bit-better solution would be a stiff gin and tonic. I mean a beverage is better than broken pieces, right?!

Except it had been 549 days without one. I could smell the lime being squeezed. I could taste the gin hitting my tongue. I could feel the instant relaxation going down my throat, sip by sip by sip.

And I could see what would come moments later: an empty glass held by a person filled with disappointment, shame, and regret that she had let herself down. That she hadn’t kept her promise not to drink.

So I didn’t make the drink. The decision Was. Not. Easy. One would think that going 549 days without alcohol would make it easier. Kinda like how people say to parents with young kids, “Don’t worry, it will get easier!” As a parent to teens, 20 years later, I can assure you…it has NOT gotten easier. It has simply changed. Some days are easier than they used to be. Some days are harder. The same goes for my journey not to drink.

I can go weeks or months without thinking twice about alcohol, and then BAM—the struggle is so real it hurts. The double hurt is that in those moments, when I feel so crappy that a drink seems like it will wash away all my pain and bring me back to a better place—it won’t—it becomes abundantly clear that I’m doing the right thing by choosing not to drink. It becomes as clear as gin that my relationship with alcohol is no good.

And I didn’t even drink *that* much. But I saw the intake creeping up. I saw the craving increasing. I saw my desire, my enjoyment of one drink… become a need for one drink.

And that is very hard to swallow. Because it means this journey is about more than making it through the day. It means making this choice every day for years and years to come. And I’m not gonna lie. I miss alcohol. I miss the taste and the rituals (not what alcohol supposedly did for me, I’ve found good enough substitutions).

But oh how I love a good margarita by the pool. A glass of red wine by the fire at Christmas. Champagne to celebrate. The substitutions for these just aren’t the same or even good enough.

And I know me. Sips of the real thing won’t stay sips. So I will keep doing what I did that day when I wanted to break something, but pouring a stiff drink wasn’t a choice I was willing to make either. I’ll ask myself: What do I really want to feel? What feeling am I chasing? What need do I have? That day, I put on my sneakers and went for a walk around my neighborhood. In my wet bathing suit. If you want to know whether it was an awesome look, the answer is totally not.

Rest assured though, it was a skirt bottom so it wasn’t totally awful. And I felt less awful afterward. I called a friend while I walked. I shared my frustration about life. Then I did a second lap.

And I got back to life. I made it to bedtime without a drink. Today is day 559. The last ten days have had their moments too—moments when gin told me it would make life better. That it would be the sugar to make the medicine go down, so to speak. I didn’t listen. I found other orange to help me carry the gray. If there is one thing that has become even more clear during my journey of not drinking—and during The Orange Rhino Journey Part 2—it is this: When gray happens, which it will, it doesn’t just poof! disappear.

Drinking certainly didn’t make it go away. It usually made it heavier. Not drinking doesn’t magically make the gray lighter either.

But it makes it easier for me to manage. So does acknowledging the gray. It keeps it from taking up every inch of space in my mind. I can’t make the gray disappear.

And I don’t think carrying it will magically become easy. But every day I don’t drink, I get a little better at carrying it without adding more weight. And isn’t that what so many of us are doing? The heavy, non-disappearing, perhaps permanent gray may not get lighter.

But we get better. And somehow, that makes it feel lighter to carry. Sending warmth to you today, especially if this post hit too close to home. Solidarity my friend.

xoxo, Sheila

🧡 The Orange Rhino