Storytelling Af

When I first quit drinking one of the hardest things for me to overcome was fear. I was fearful that I’d miss out on experiences.  I was nervous to be in situations without alcohol, because I never had to be before. Alcohol was such a big part of who I was. I thought that removing it would change me as a person. I didn’t know myself without alcohol. I worried that my friendships would change or that my marriage would be different. What I didn't realize was that although change is scary at first, over time it gets easier. As time went on, I realized that the changes I was making were going to make my life ten times better. I was going to live a happy and fulfilling life without alcohol.

Something inside of me told me that it was time to remove alcohol from my life. I needed to stop the cycle I was in. I was binge drinking with days of regret, shame, and feelings of worthlessness to follow. I was a new parent and there were days that I felt like I had let my family down. I wasn’t being the mom that my son deserved. I often wondered why I kept doing this to myself. Why couldn’t I drink like everyone else?

It was time to change, so I took a chance and jumped in headfirst.

In the beginning, it wasn’t easy. I worried about missing out or not being fun without alcohol. I took it one day at a time and tried to focus my energy on not drinking. I immersed myself in the alcohol-free community through social media, books, and podcasts. As I built up more time without alcohol, things got a lot easier. I put my energy into being alcohol-free, and I grew into the best version of myself.

I started to feel true joy.

The first place I noticed this joy creeping in was when I spent one-on-one time with my son. With the thinking about drinking getting less and less, I could give him my full attention. Watching him learn about his world and get excited about little things made me so happy. I've been able to feel this overwhelming sense of purpose when it comes to being his mom. I know I’m right where I'm meant to be. I am my son’s whole world, and it’s so nice to be able to show him that he’s mine.

Now, at over three years alcohol-free, I’m thriving as myself. I’m doing things that make me happy because that’s what I find most important. My happiness is mine to create. It takes a lot of work, but nothing worthwhile is ever going to come easy.

Sometimes we get stuck being comfortable. Change can be scary. That fear can hold us back from making changes in our lives. It can keep us from feeling the joy that we deserve. Staying the same is easy, making a change takes work. To create a life that you love, you have to take a chance on yourself, and in the end, you’ll be better off...I promise.

Blair is an alcohol-free wife and mom from Minnesota. She works full-time outside of the home and also does freelance writing. Her writing was recently featured in Scary Mommy, and you can find her creating on IG @sobrietyactivist and on her website www.blairsharp.com

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On the outside, everything looked fine; great even. I’m the spouse of a United States military officer, a stay-home-home mommy to an amazing little girl, and have lived and traveled all over the country. My family and friends deemed me as “healthy” because of my love for nutrition and exercise, and my personal social media accounts portrayed a picturesque life. I worked out five days a week, ensured my family was eating wholesome meals, and my home was always clean and organized. Furthermore, I read books and articles to learn about potential questionable and harmful ingredients in food, skincare, and household goods, especially after our diagnosis of unexplained secondary infertility.  However, our health is so much more than the foods we eat, how much we move our body, and using less-toxic products. Many of us evaluate our health based on the physical aspects, and the mental, spiritual, and social components are often brushed aside, yet they are just as crucial.  Moreover, real-life is what goes on behind closed doors; not what our curated Instagram squares portray. I was destroying all aspects of my health day in and day out but made darn sure to keep my secrets hidden—literally. More on that in a minute though.

While social media offers a plethora of benefits, there also seems to be such cognitive dissonance when it comes to alcohol, especially in the “wellness” industry. Health and fitness coaches push their workouts and meal plans but ensure their followers that there’s always room for booze because, you know, life is stressful and we gotta treat ourselves, right? “Clean beauty” advocates encourage others to use safer products (as many ingredients in conventional cosmetics have been linked to fertility issues, neurotoxicity, and even cancer), yet throw parties titled “Masks and Margs”, “Bubby and Beauty”, and “Makeup and Mimosas”. How can we persuade others to purchase less-toxic options because of possible harmful side effects while sipping on a known carcinogen?  The "clean wine" movement takes the cake though—and not the organic, low sugar version. Clean wine is nothing but a marketing ploy to lure consumers into believing that removing additives and pesticides somehow makes it healthier. Alcohol is ethanol which is a known carcinogen; there is literally no way to make it any better for us. We also see it outside of social media. Alcohol is handed out at the end of road races and even during yoga sessions. Sip and paint/canvas and cocktail parties became wildly popular, but let’s face it—any type of party is an excuse to drink. And let’s not forget about "mommy wine culture," which not only adds humor to drinking but also portrays it as the answer to dealing with the chaos of motherhood. Quite simply, it validates drinking and also hinders the mothers that feel they may actually have a problem from getting help because things can’t possibly be that bad if so many other mothers are participating in it. Right? So how does my story fit into all of this? While I’ve struggled with binge drinking since my teens, things only got worse throughout adulthood. I tried countless times to make myself become a “normal” drinker and even had a few bouts of sobriety, but there was always a means to an end when I stopped drinking for a specific amount of time. Things eventually progressed to hiding alcohol around the house, scheduling my life around days I could drink or be hungover, and lying to my husband.  The morning after I’d drink, I would dispose of my vodka water bottle stash swearing that I was done for good; it was more than just feeling physically sick- I was so ashamed and disgusted with myself. But the following day when I was feeling better, I’d dig through the garbage outside trying to recover them. How could I throw away perfectly good alcohol? I promise myself I’d be done for good after it was gone, then proceed to go cook dinner with organic ingredients, all while secretly sipping on ethanol. This went on for years, and while I know now I was in the depths of Substance Abuse Disorder, I believe that the way society normalizes alcohol, just as in the examples I shared, enabled me to stay on the hamster wheel. I fed into the deceiving information that is marketed as benefits, and I’m incredibly grateful that in the summer of 2019, I finally took off the rose-colored glasses and began seeing alcohol for what it was: a carcinogen that had taken over my life.

On September 17, 2019, I woke up hungover for the very last time and though it hasn’t been easy, it’s been incredibly freeing. I’m not anti-drinking; I’m simply pro-sobriety. I’m a proponent of living authentically and intentionally and have gone from a self-sabotaging closet drinker to living a life less toxic and truly filled with wellness, vitality, and peace. My hope is to open up an honest conversation about what alcohol is and what it is not and challenge others to ask questions such as if it aligns with the lifestyle we’re aiming for or if it’s serving us and how.

Kim Singleton is a mother and military spouse. Kim can be found @kimsingleton.solutions , where she speaks about holistic living and ending the stigmas around recovery and eating disorders. You can also find Kim on @reframe_app on Saturdays, where she hosts "Getting Candid with Kim."

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Back then, when I used to binge drink regularly, I had the impression that the lifting of my inhibitions meant that this magic elixir was showing me who I truly was. The stressed out, anxious, overthinker could not possibly be the person I was destined to go through life as. No, it made much more sense that I was a fun-loving risk-taker who could charm strangers and gather crowds in bars to hear what I had to say...right? Well, not exactly.

You see, while I may have wanted to not have the thoughts looming over my head (like that I was inadequate and that no one could really like me for me), the solution I chose only led me down a road towards completely losing myself. And, almost losing everything else along the way. While I may have wanted to mask my insecurities by drinking and forgetting them in the moment, what really happened was that I forgot myself and turned into someone I eventually had a hard time seeing in the mirror. While I wanted to be the person who everyone wanted to be around, I turned into the good time party girl who may have been wanted, but in all of the wrong ways.

My binge drinking eventually pushed me to many rock bottoms. I became a manipulative liar...and would brag about how good at it I had become. I had the ability to morph into any character necessary to get my way. I avoided my amazing family and events with them because my priorities lay with finding the next high. As time passed, more legal woes presented themselves. With this came the self-loathing, and while I hated what I had become, I continued to drink and use, to the point it was no longer even appealing, but I did it anyway. I kept myself around people who were just like me. People who had problems just like mine. This was by choice. I didn’t want to deal with anyone’s talk of concern or care.

Finally, my final rock bottom moment hit and with that came the last day I drank. July 28, 2019. This is when the real work began. This is when I had to be brutally honest with those I loved, and also with myself. I admitted to myself that I had major issues and that I wanted to change. At age 42 (then), it was finally time for me to grow up. None of this was easy. Learning how to be an adult when your age is double that of two adults is NOT a simple endeavor. But step by step, I started to see the layers of Kelly peeling back. Things started to look clear. Emotions showed up and I was forced to deal with them authentically. I learned that while this was hard, sitting with the feelings and growing because of them was so worth it. I found out just how strong I really am. I am becoming the mother, daughter, and friend I wish I had been all along.

I am present for the things that really matter. Catching frogs with my daughter. Seeing the sun come up. Hearing birds sing at dawn. Learning what I like and don’t like. Discovering hobbies. Reading books and writing again. Sharing my story...the things that brought me the most shame are now the things that I can proudly put on display because it helps me grow each time I talk about it. And, it potentially helps someone else who could have experienced some of the same things. The fact that I have been allowed the opportunity to make it through all of this and gotten to this point is beyond miraculous to me. Never have I been more grateful for anything more than sobriety—it allowed me to discover who had been inside of me all along. Thanks to living alcohol-free, I can finally, for the first time in adulthood, say that I love myself and my life.

Kelly Belew is a mother and sobriety blogger in Charlottesville, VA. Kelly founded the East Coast Sober Squad and can be found @kelz_is_sober.

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When I was younger, my friends would say that I was a lesbian when I was drunk.

I assumed it was because my first kiss was with a female friend. Or because at high school parties, I kissed way more girls than guys. Or because when I got to college, I found myself fitting in more with the frat boys, unable to connect with many of the women on my campus.

Eventually, people started telling me I was bisexual. When I was drinking, I happily accepted this label that had been thrust upon me. Aided and abetted by alcohol, I dove into my newfound sexuality. From the way I talked and behaved, you would have thought I was excited and proud to be bi. And I was. For a little while.

But deep down I was desperately confused.

My relationship with alcohol made everything in my life messy. It blurred lines that shouldn’t have been blurred and created divides where there shouldn’t be any. I thought alcohol was opening my eyes up to the truth: that I wasn’t straight. I thought getting drunk was freeing me and allowing me to find out who I was. In reality, it was the opposite.

If you want to figure out who you are, blacking out and not remembering who you hooked up with, or if you even liked them, is not helpful. Booze was a security blanket that kept me smothered and trapped. My relationship with alcohol kept me scared of sober interactions that might have led to clarity instead of confusion.

I had accepted this label (“bisexual”) that no longer felt right. Something important was missing. I didn’t know if I wanted to date women, befriend them, or if I feared them. I didn’t know if I liked hanging out with guys because I was attracted to them, or because I wanted to be them. It would take me years to realize it was a little of everything.

The change happened when I got sober. Not at first. At first, I was just struggling to exist. But when things calmed down and I slowly got used to living without alcohol, I began to revisit my earlier questions: Who was I? Where did I belong in this community? People in sober spaces would call me “girl” or “lady” and I began to realize that those words made me pause, made me consider them deeply. I came to realize that those gendered words were making me hesitate because I didn’t consider myself to be a part of them.

It’s hard to discover your truths, to discover your real self, when your brain is constantly being drowned in a drink that encourages self-doubt, depression, and anxiety. After almost a year of sobriety I realized I was struggling because I was focused on my sexuality and ignoring my gender. That’s when I discovered I was nonbinary.

A nonbinary or genderqueer person is someone whose felt gender doesn’t fit with socially constructed norms for their biological sex. Every person is different, but the similarities seem to be that most people like me feel a persistent unease with being associated ONLY with the binary gender. There’s a whole host of ideas and information about the intersection of sexual orientation and gender identity. I can only speak for myself and say that I am happy to consider myself nonbinary and leave it at that. It doesn’t erase my sexuality; it encompasses it.

Some days I feel masculine, others I feel feminine, but most days I feel like someone entirely else. Someone that is just…separate from the gender binary. My biology is female, and I do present as femme (though as I explore this part of myself that might change), but it was such an overwhelming relief to accept this other part of myself that had been squished under layers of booze for years. The they/them side of me was finally allowed to breathe, and it has been beautiful to explore that.

This is what sobriety has given me: Clarity on who I am.

I’ve always felt like a spork; somewhere between both genders, able to work well as either, but not completely identifying as one or the other. Sure, I might look like a spoon, but the truth is I find myself comfortable being a fork as well. Or even better, acknowledging that the spork might be an entirely new third option. Maybe the spork doesn’t want to be seen as an amalgam of spoon and fork; maybe the spork wants the freedom to be any way they want to be.

Maybe they want to be beautifully undefined.

Saratoga Schaefer (they/she) is an author, community builder, and creative. You can find their poetry collection Beautiful After Breaking on Amazon and connect with Saratoga on Instagram at@the_sober_climb, @boozelessbookclub, and @theselkieshoppe

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