Sober mind, clear intentions
10 years ago I quit drinking alcohol. 10 years ago I was in such a hungover stupor from going on a leg of rock n roll tour over break that I missed my flight home. I was teaching art to elementary school students at the time, in one of the most prison-like charter schools in New Orleans. I had spent months trying to cultivate a classroom of trust, expression and vulnerability, then I missed one of the few remaining days of the semester from booze fog. I had let down the kids who had come to rely on me for a modicum of sweetness and stability within an institution hell-bent on carceral models. I decided to dry out for the remainder of the school year and stay present with its effect on me. I woke up each subsequent day and continued to choose not to drink.
10 years later, those kids are now the same age as my current college students. They are the same age as the students building beautiful communities in encampments on campuses across the country. The same age as the students sustaining a diverse and gorgeous action of solidarity, a wellspring of mutual care, learning, and compassion. One Jewish student said they’ve never stepped into observing their Jewish rituals and practices nor learned about Muslim customs more than in their encampment that is dedicated to ending the onslaught in Gaza. These students–soberly and bravely exercising their grievances with American policy and the institutions that profit off war crimes–are speaking for all people of conscience, continuing a powerful legacy of student activism that has been the catalyst for so much positive change in this country. As I continue to make healthy choices for myself, it is always in service to the young people who have been my guide, my inspiration and my joy. As we move forward to support the students who are facing felony charges for protesting on the campuses of the colleges they pay to attend, fight for care for queer and trans youth across this country, demand a ceasefire to protect the starving and bombed children of Gaza, and urge politicians to provide the housing and healthcare required to sustain life instead of criminalizing abortion—we need to show up soberly, of clear mind. We need to live our politics.
I have written and worked considerably around harm reduction with substance use over the years. This essay is not about that. This essay is about the thing I speak so rarely about—my own sobriety, and what it has taught me. When we speak of reducing harm, we also must speak to our accountability within our own substance use.
Quitting drinking, like quitting anything that numbs us to feeling, will leave one feeling very sensitive. There is a shock, there is an elation, there is so much grief. It doesn’t necessarily hit immediately or sequentially—it can catch the sober off guard. This sensitivity feels acutely pointed towards pain. To the pain of the world. Our own empathy. To the sadness of the past and the ways it has marred and scarred us. I am utterly grateful for this sensitivity, that has been my greatest teacher these past ten years.
The thing about sensitivity is it tells you where you need to go. It tells you when the party is dull, it tells you when you’re having the time of your life, it tells you when you’re scared but also when it matters to move through that fear with grace. Sobriety is just the process of unsheathing a timid voice that we weren’t confident enough to listen to.
I like alteration, especially when it’s expansive. But each year I am less interested in even spiritual substance use—I can explore the realms of space and magic firmly planted in my conscious mind. I’ve come to appreciate the nuances within the fluctuations of my emotions more. There is an entire universe within us. Drugs stimulate the chemicals that are already there. The shifts in hormones, adrenaline, joy, sadness—these take more care, attention and complex analysis than a vision. They are not the prophecies of a dream, they are the continual tides heaving, thrashing, pooling, foaming, calmly lapping, existence as our human selves. I think about almanacs, about the life and death inherent to seafaring, the miraculous gravitational defiance of riding waves, of the detailed acquired knowledge of catching fish…these require sensitivity to ebb and flow. Our bodies are like this too. I am grateful to know how to listen.
It hurts to feel so much when people in this world profit off hurting others! But we can’t close our hearts to that hurting, we can’t solidify this soft flesh, we can’t make armor out of our compassion. We need to feel that hurt and we need to change it, to end it, to bring joy to the ones who are hurting. We need to let go of our reactive, defensive assumptions; we need to bring energy to the parts of our bodies and brains that are passive and nihilistic in the face of injustice. Care, curiosity, openness—these are the guides for a brain that doesn’t wish to numb. It is not the existence of pain that teaches me, it’s the witnessing of how it lives in my body so I know how best to release it.
I’m also not talking about sobriety as a necessary alternative to moderation. I’m not insinuating some spartan protestantism. I’m talking about the decision to not escape through substance use. Yes it hurts to feel sometimes. But it’s worth it. Because I have also felt the intoxication from smelling spring flowers, summer rain on my skin, the unavoidable rise of laughter within me, the liberation of being truly seen, the joy of witnessing the ones I love thrive, the infinite connections that spring from a life of learning.
The struggle for me now is to really recognize where I find these “drugs“ outside of substances—in infatuation, in ceaseless movement, via the internet, in novelty, in intellectual analysis, making meaning, overworking, instability, through media. I find that the converse of the seeker mentality is to just show up day after day, to myself, to the ones I love, to the practices I maintain, to the politics I believe in. Our bodies are drugs, celebration is a drug, cold plunges are a drug, the abundance of sun is a drug—none of these things are inherently bad. How do we let them course through us without overtaking us? How do we let them open up parts of ourselves instead of using them to escape from the wound that needs tending? How do we soften into the painful things that are revealed instead of making them amulets that weigh upon our necks? How do we massage the scars with ointment of care instead of wearing them like badges of ferocity?
Learning to sit with my own wounds and sadness in a way that isn’t self-pitying or self-hating but rather comes from a place of recognition is a way for me to show up for other people in an accountable way. When I understand my hurt I can prevent it from being weaponized against others. When I take the time to witness how hurt or scared I am about something, I am less likely to project it onto others.
Codependency is addictive. What does an addiction to “love” mean within a path towards sobriety? I am always learning more, through slowness, through sensing, how to let love be a guide as opposed to a bind. By swimming gently through the pools of sad waters I find myself immersed in, I can release the addiction to need, to want, to cling, to search, to consume and instead turn sweetly towards nourishment, care, wonder, nuzzling, release. I don’t want to escape. I’ve lived a wild life but now would like to cultivate the mundane, the collective, with stamina. It’s taken ten years to get this far. But I’m in it for the long haul.
Sobriety is always regarded as stilted and adult, when it is in fact the opportunity to become more positively childlike. Our adult addiction to numbness is boring; how can we open up to it all? How can we bring levity to heavy times? How can we bring wonder to a crushing world? How can we allow ourselves to be silly instead of punitive? How can we create a world more like what is actually happening in the encampments–intersectional, intergenerational sweetness; principled, peaceful action; free knowledge sharing?
How can we show up for ourselves as we show up for others? How can we reclaim “self-care” as collective, as the work to continue to show up for what is bigger than our anxieties, our navel-gazing wounds, our spirals of self-interest? May we shake off the cloaks that conceal our fullest selves so we can be in service to those who shake off oppression everywhere. May we liberate ourselves as we seek to liberate people everywhere. May our vision be clear and our hearts be full. May we un-numb to atrocity and end the zionist assault on Gaza.
Photos from the final week of being drunk, 10 years ago
