My Story

Hi, I’m Brenna and I’m a recovering alcoholic and this is my story.

I started this journey over and over again. Each time with the best intentions. And 2 out of the 3 times I tried [I mean REALLY tried] I failed. Third times a charm right? Or the 15th time or the 20th. The number doesn’t matter - the intentions do.

I just passed my anniversary date, or re-birth date, or sober date, or whatever you want to refer to it as and it was liberating as HELL. I think I’m FINALLY ready to share my story - my successes, my failures, my weaknesses in the hopes that it will reach someone and help those who need it most. To do that we have to start from the beginning. To do that I had to go back through some of my journals -  the past 7 or 8 years is, understandably, a blur that I’m still trying to navigate through.

At the time of this writing I was reading the Sober Curious Reset by Ruby Warrington. This was my Day 1 journal entry:

Here I am AGAIN, for what feels like the 8 millionth time, trying to be sober. I’m supposed to write down my full story that led me here, but alas, there’s not enough rom for THAT can of worms, so, we’ll start with the latest catalyst: Mother’s Day [2021].

The day before Cohen [that’s my oldest son] had a baseball game in Cottonwood; it was a beautiful day; the weather was warm, the wind wasn’t trying to blow me over as per the usual in spring in Arizona, and although Cohen’s team lost -horribly, he played so well. All I could think about was leaving the game to drive to Apache Lake to meet up with all of our friends for an impromptu Mother’s Day trip and get my drink on. I even said as much to some other baseball moms - never mind that I was already hungover from the night before.

The second we were able to check into the room we started drinking and we didn’t stop. I vaguely remember getting pissed  at Luke but can’t remember why, although I’m fairly confident I didn’t cause too much of a scene. 

We finally ended up going to bed around midnight- I think, AFTER other people fed our kids [Grayson - my younger son - ate with me and Cohen was fishing but the fact is OTHER moms made sure MY kids were fed] and half-heartedly tucked them into bed and Luke and I took off to the lake, leaving them sleeping alone in an unlocked hotel room.

The next day, Mother’s Day, I woke up around 7:00 [thanks for banging on my door like you were the cops Kane],  hating myself, and feeling like absolute shit. We ended up back down by the lake trying to choke down a White Claw just to make ourselves feel normal again. All I could think about sitting there at this beautiful lake watching my kids play was how shitty I felt and how bad I just wanted to go home and go back to bed. 

How could I ruin Mother’s Day? Another experience that should’ve been beautiful and peaceful and soul filling ruined by fucking alcohol. Why can’t I just be NORMAL?

The day was salvaged, by alcohol because that’s the only thing that could’ve kept me going. The saddest part? I drank ALL day and didn’t even get shit-faced like I should’ve been. I swore I was going to quit drinking. Especially once the two day hangover hit, but lo and behold I felt normal on the following Wednesday and there was booze in the house so, of course, I drank it; I get hammered and mad at Luke, again, for some reason, which at the time must’ve been completely justified in my head, for which I couldn’t remember the next morning, and somehow I managed to pass out after choking down pizza that tasted like cardboard. Don’t ask me how my kids got to bed that night because I couldn’t tell you.

I woke up on Thursday the next morning after tossing and turning all night, not able to sleep because my anxiety about how shitty I was going to feel the next day wouldn’t allow it and I cried. I clocked into work [I don’t know how], I woke the boys up, made them breakfast, made their lunch, and got in the shower hoping that my guilt and shame and embarrassment would wash down the drain with everything else.

Surprise, surprise,  it didn’t.

Luke called while I was listening to a Recovery Elevator podcast in the shower and I answered [yes, still in the shower in case you were wondering] and I told him my plan - I don’t want to drink anymore; I’m exhausted with hating myself, I’m exhausted with feeling like shit, I’m exhausted from the constant worry and anxiety. I just can’t do it anymore and I cried. And it felt GOOD.

None of my reasons for wanting to be sober have changed this time around, however, my level of acceptance has.

I am not a normal drinker and I never will be. And that’s OK. My new journey will be rediscovering who I am without the booze. It’s exciting and terrifying all at once. But what journey isn’t?

I previously mentioned that my reasons for not wanting to drink had not changed - back in 2019 during one of my many failed attempts to quit drinking I wrote down my motivations to ditch the booze - the motivations that still have not changed - these are my motivations:

1. I want to feel good physically.
2. I want to live my life with clarity [still working on that].
3. I want to alleviate my mental health symptoms [anxiety and depression and I have since started taking meds again to treat those symptoms - thank GOD - which is something I refused to do when I was drinking because it was too inconvenient to go to the Dr. - it cut into my drinking time].
4. I want to save money - over the past year I have saved approximately $6,000.00 - yep, you read that right - $6 GRAND - and that was being nice to myself - I definitely drank way more than I input in the Recovery Elevator sobriety counter app. You know what we did with that money?  We bought a boat.
5. I want to be more active with my family.
6. I want to be free from the control alcohol has on my life. And boy did alcohol control my life -  EVERYTHING revolved around booze - can I drink there? If I can’t when can we leave so that I can start drinking again? Can I sneak booze? Etc. etc. etc.
7. I want to live positively.
8. I want to be better for my boys.
9. I want to stop romanticizing booze and the experiences that are a result from booze.
10. I want to be more productive - per my Recovery Elevator sobriety app I have gained 1,000 hours of productivity. 1,000 HOURS. That’s a lot.
11. I don’t want to wake up in the morning embarrassed at my behavior or wondering if I did something or said something I shouldn’t have.

This was written in May of 2021 - if you do the math I didn’t hit my one year until Christmas Day 2022 - so even AFTER that journal entry - I failed at sobriety again. Don’t give up on yourself. If it doesn’t stick the first time around - it will stick eventually. I’m here for you.