Mythologizing Rock Bottom - by Patrick Maguire
Before we get started – this post focuses on recovery from addiction. I believe it’s an incredibly important topic that we need to discuss far more – and with far more nuance – than we do today. But I don’t want to pretend that I can do justice to the tremendous and wide-ranging impacts addiction has on all of us. I can only share my story, and what has worked (and hasn’t) for me.
It was winter of 2022, and in a few days I was going to head out to Minnesota to spend Christmas with my family. None of them were fully aware of the extent of my drinking, and the holidays were traditionally a time for some pretty serious consumption of alcohol. 2022 had mostly been a good year for me in my long journey towards sobriety. I had cut back quite a bit, and had stopped entirely for a few months. But between a bad breakup and my fortieth birthday, the end of the year had been a struggle, and I needed a reset. So I wrote my family a simple email, saying I wasn’t going to drink while visiting, and got just the response I needed. No questioning of my decision, no telling me why I was actually fine, just friendly acceptance and accommodation. That ended up being my first sober Christmas.
This story wasn’t the crucial turning point in my journey with alcohol. This wasn’t the moment when everything became clear to me and I finally saw the error of my ways. This wasn’t even the moment I stopped drinking for good. But it was the last major hurdle I needed to clear to prove to myself I was capable of sobriety. One of dozens of hurdles I had been overcoming over the last four years, from the time I first said out loud that I wasn’t happy with my relationship with alcohol.
