What It's Like To Be Sober For 12 Years

“I’m Suzanne and I’m an alcoholic.” The first few years I said those words, I was filled with guilt and shame. I didn’t want anyone to know the secret details of my life — the early-morning vodka to calm the shakes, the drinking and driving, choosing alcohol over my children — and how, no matter how much I wanted to stop drinking, I just couldn’t. For years I craved (more than anything else) the one thing that was destroying my life. It didn’t make sense to me at the time and it certainly didn’t make sense to anyone else. I worked overtime to keep my alcoholism a secret; my life was spiraling out of control, full of chaos and most definitely unmanageable. I hated myself as much as I loved being drunk and numb.

After years of failed attempts at sobriety, something changed. I became scared of myself — scared of where my drinking would land me. Jail? Death? My children were slipping away from me too so I decided to try sobriety one more time. This time, I was ready to give it all I had. I went to rehab for six months. I woke up every day and made a commitment to stay sober for 24 hours and in doing so, I began to cultivate self-love little by little. I started to rebuild my life as a new, improved and sober version of me. But still, the shame and guilt lingered.

I was newly sober but still hiding my alcoholism. I hoped no one would find out about the old me. How would my new co-workers feel if they knew I had just completed rehab? What would the parents of my children’s friends think of me if they knew I had received a DUI? And what if my sisters knew that I used to hide nips in my purse and wine under my bed? I did everything I could to hide my past but in doing so I realized I was pretending that I was somebody else.

Being an alcoholic is who I am. And it always will be. Today, I am an alcoholic who doesn’t drink. An alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in 12 beautiful years. But that old me — the one who loved drinking more than anything else — gave birth to the new me. The alcoholic and sober me are connected and I can’t hide the old me or shame her or pretend she didn’t exist. Nor do I want to now.

Through AA, sobriety and my faith, I learned how to love myself. I learned accountability and forgiveness, gratitude and humility and I learned that what other people think about me is none of my business. Learning to love myself entailed loving and embracing all versions of myself, including the drunk one. Somehow, in this 12-year journey from drunk to sober, I did find love for the old me and with it, I stopped caring what they might think about my past and I started to forgive myself for it.