“Innsssi—d—e—ooo—rr—ouut—sss—ide?”

I was in complete darkness. I heard my mother’s muffled voice. I felt her hand, separated by something. I could feel her. Then, suddenly, I was terrified. She was terrified. I could feel her. Panicked and small and young and trapped and not yet ready, I could feel everything she was.

Chapter 97

Sobriety works in stages. First, there is a period of hopefulness. The goal of getting better is within reach. It’s almost tangible, this prospect of a fresh beginning.

After a couple of days, the hopefulness lifts and despair rolls in, thick and cumbersome. It brings a great deal of pain, searing physical pain, as your body plunges into withdrawal, but also emotional agony.

No longer numb like when you were using, you are forced to feel it all, every sense heightened to the point of insanity by your brain’s attempts to level up. You want that drink, you want that line, you want that pill, and you’ll do anything for it. You’ll lie to yourself: Maybe I don’t actually have a problem. You’ll get angry: This isn’t fair. Why do I have to deal with this? It’s not my fault. Why can’t I just have a drink? You’ll bargain: This will be the last time. Just one more time. Then I’ll stop. You’ll feel sorry for yourself, pitying the lonely creature you’ve become. You’ll ask yourself where all your friends have gone. You’ll tell yourself they never liked you: Why would anyone like you? You’re a pathetic excuse for a human being. You’ll do anything to avoid facing yourself, to avoid seeing what has led you here in the first place.

And you’ll break.

I got clean so many times I stopped keeping track. At first, I would celebrate the milestones: thirty days, sixty days, ninety days. But I always relapsed. Then I would cycle through it all again. Guilt. Pain. Sobriety. Hope. More pain. Clarity. Relapse. Whenever I decided to sober up, it came at a cost—friendships, relationships, the places you can go, the things that seemed safe. You lose a version of yourself, the version you think people like.

I drank to escape myself. It allowed me a break from my own thoughts; the constant droning of voices telling me I wasn’t good enough, the never-ending counting. A break from the extreme swinging of emotional highs and lows that seemed unwarranted. It was the only time I didn’t have to be perfect.

I realized that I’d hated myself, but when I drank I hated myself a little less. That version of me was funny, honest, open. People listened when she spoke. They laughed. They wanted her. How could I live with myself if I couldn’t be her?

In the weeks that followed, a degree of separation evolved between me and reality. There was a heaviness. My head felt too large to carry. The city was closing in on me.

I spent my days walking the streets. The houses appeared to droop in the humid air, sinking close to the sidewalk, eager to reach equilibrium and rest on my shoulders. Whenever someone spoke to me, it took a few seconds for the sound waves to reach my ears. It took even longer for the words to register. The synapses in my brain were relearning how to fire.