I quit drinking several years ago. To get to that point, it was a long painful road for me, the people who cared about me, and a lot of people in my path. I had finally hit a bottom and was on the verge of losing everything I cared about deep down. I was lucky to have a support system that gave me a chance to quit.
The decision to quit wasn’t hard. I was ready. The difficult part was engaging with the past and working a 12-step program like it had to be worked. With help from a lot of good folks, I got through it and started to see the positive impact continued sobriety had on me and my family. I stayed active in the program for years (admittedly, I am due to plug back in). I didn’t have a desire to drink and didn’t have a single close call with slipping back to drinking.
Then in February of 2020, right at 6 months after brain surgery, my inability to handle the impact of my diagnosis almost cost me my sobriety. I was at a conference for work participating in a lot of client entertainment, jumping around from parties, to dinners, to bars, etc. There was nothing unusual about that; I had been doing it as a part of my job for years with no issue. But in the middle of all that activity, my mind starting racing, and I wasn’t prepared.
What I mean is that conference was my first realization that life is going to go on. The real world is going to continue, and I must live in it with brain cancer. I was not prepared for the way that felt. The six months between my surgery and that moment were filled with a lot of distractions (e.g., physical recovery, holidays, MRIs, settling back in at work, etc.). That conference experience was cold water that brought a broader realization things would never be the same for me.
I called Megan from the hotel and told her what was happening. She helped me calm down and think. I pulled up some passages from the 12-step program and read them so my mind would go back to the early days of sobriety which were filled with pain, shame, and fear. Remembering those times brought back a heavy feeling in my chest. When I got home the next day I ducked into an AA meeting for the first time in a long time and just listened to other people share. It helped me level out.
I am sharing all of this because I want to put pressure on myself to be more committed to being sober the right way. I want other people trying to maintain or find sobriety after a cancer diagnosis (or without one) to feel comfortable reaching out. And I want the added accountability of everyone who reads this knowing my story.
Also, there are a few ways I have been able to use my diagnosis as an advantage. First, it’s simple to think about it in terms of quality time lost to drinking. I don’t want to lose a single day with my family because I am nursing a hangover. Second, my health is more important than ever. I want to keep my body as strong as possible to fend off any recurrence or at least be as strong as I can for the next surgery/treatment regimen if that day comes. And last, I just want to do as much good as I can manage to do in the coming years. There is no way adding alcohol back into the mix will help with that.
Couple of resources / links to share on this topic:
Acceptance booklet. This is by far my favorite piece of literature I came across in sobriety. But it is not only for people in recovery. Anyone can benefit from a read: https://www.hazelden.org/store/item/1865?Acceptance-Booklet-Single
More info on my story. Something I wrote anonymously in the LA Bar Journal a few years ago to share my experience: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nM064Yt9qP3-EvfU5tA6tGo-Uqp9VpOh/view?usp=sharing
Thanks for reading.
Nick
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