What Italy is Teaching Me: What Remains

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

A few weeks ago when we were in Chiavari, we walked the promenade there over and over. Drinks for aperitivo were advertised all over the place, and next to the usual Aperol Spritz I kept seeing something called a Hugo Spritz.

Last night I finally decided to look up what it was and make a non-alcoholic version at home. We happened to have the right ingredients, and Oh My Gosh, it was delicious –  Light, refreshing, and perfect for sitting outside on a hot summer evening!

We were out on our back balcony enjoying the drinks and the view when I noticed my glass was halfway gone. My immediate thought was that I should go inside and make another.

But I caught myself. That thought felt very familiar. For a long time, I thought this was just part of my drinking problem. But I’ve come to realize it’s bigger than alcohol. The deeper issue is scarcity.

If I love the taste of something, the moment I notice it’s running out my mind shifts. Instead of enjoying what is still there, I start thinking about how it’s going to be gone and how I can replace it. If it’s replaceable, half full becomes a signal to refill.

What’s interesting is that this didn’t disappear when I stopped drinking alcohol. I noticed the same pattern with seltzer, soda, and other NA drinks. The object changes, but the thought pattern stays the same.

As I sat there looking at my glass, I thought about the saying: glass half full or glass half empty.

I’ve always kind of thought of myself as a glass-half-empty person, though that never fully made sense. People who know me often describe me as optimistic, sunny, and positive. So why have I always identified more with half empty? I think I finally understand.

This isn’t really about optimism or pessimism. It’s about how quickly my mind shifts from enjoyment to scarcity. The moment something reaches halfway, I stop experiencing what’s still there and start focusing on what’s disappearing. And that mindset can insidiously steal joy.

Way back in 1992, someone told me something that left a deep impression on me. Her grandfather always said to think of the gas tank as empty once it hits halfway. If you fill it before it drops below half, and you’ll never risk running out. That idea embedded itself in me.

I developed this strong need to prevent depletion. Refill early. Stay ahead. Don’t run out. In many ways, that mindset has served me well. I’m organized and prepared. I rarely get caught off guard. But it doesn’t work everywhere. Especially not with life.

When it comes to personal consumption—food, drink, time, energy, even joy—constantly trying to refill or stay topped off can actually rob me of the experience itself. Instead of enjoying what’s here, I’m focused on what’s going to be gone.

Turning 50 and moving to Italy has shown me how much my thought patterns are changing. I know I retired young. And if I live to be 100, I still have half of my life left. That feels very different from thinking half is gone.

I am seeing this now a lot in the recovery community or in conversations with younger people who feel like they’ve messed everything up. They get stuck in thoughts like: I wasted so much time. I’m behind. I ruined things. That’s half-empty thinking.

But the shift happens when you start looking at what remains instead of what’s gone. You still have time. You can still change direction. You can still create something meaningful with what is ahead of you, whether you are 30, 60, or 90. Why not live the remaining years with purpose and be proud of every minute of it?

I’ve spent much of my life focused on avoiding depletion—refilling before things run low, staying ahead, making sure nothing runs out. That mindset can be useful in some areas, but it has also robbed me of presence and joy because I was hyper-focused on what was disappearing instead of appreciating what remains.

The Hugo Spritz ended up being a reminder. Half empty doesn’t always mean lacking. It can also mean there is still plenty left.

Maybe the better question isn’t what’s gone. Maybe the better question is what remains, and whether we can appreciate it before reaching for more or mourning what was lost.

So I sat there and enjoyed the remainder of this Hugo Spritz slowly, savoring it and reminding myself that I still had half left. And when I reached the end, I didn’t want more. It was just right. It was enough.

Life on Life’s Terms. 3 Years of Recovery

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Today. Friday. A day off for me. New moon. 3 years to the date marking my sobriety anniversary.

I sit in the flexible office/yoga/art room. It’s the space within our home that is mine alone.

I sit in butterfly pose on my meditation cushion. I play a yogic playlist that I used to teach with and hadn’t heard in at least 4 years. It is familiar yet new at the same time.

The lovely backdrop of construction noise and banging takes place outside my door and below me on the floor.

In front of me is a pile of stuff that will be used “sometime soon.” Sometime soon started last June when our construction project began.

My husband pops by on a quick work break to say hello on the way to the bathroom. He looks in my office/yoga/art room and tells me the scene is “so you.”

Yes. This is me. Right now in this moment in time. Living life on life’s terms. Construction, piles of things, and me trying in the midst of it all to stay centered and be me.

3 years ago was a different story. I went to bed at 4 a.m. after being in the emergency room for not being able to come off a panic attack. I hyperventilated for hours. I had to appear in court in the morning for an arrest, so I must have slept 2 hours at most. As I lay in the ER hallway (because naturally there is no space on a random February Monday evening), I couldn’t believe the low I had gotten myself into.

I didn’t know where to go, who to reach out to, or what the next step was.

It was then I surrendered. In the hall of Yale New Haven’s Emergency Department. I took the first step that AA’s 12 Steps teaches and surrendered. I lost control. I had no control to start with. Alcohol had control over me. I accepted that.

Every day when I sat down to drink the first perfectly chilled glass of chardonnay, I would turn on my soap opera. Commercials were still part of the app I watched it on at the time, and there was a recurring ad for a program called Aware Recovery. Every day I would think that I should probably call them. There was no time better than the moment to look into this. I put in a request for information on my smartphone right there in the hall in the middle of the night.

Aware Recovery called me back the next morning while I was in court waiting to be seen. I remember telling the person on the phone where I was. I was expecting shock and disgust, but what the person told me is that they’d been in my exact position and they could help. I cried with relief when hearing that. Relief for not being judged. Relief for knowing there is help and knowing that someone in my position was able to come back from something like this.

The next few days and weeks were a blur. Aware Recovery stepped up. At the time, I didn’t know I would need to rely on a community to help me get through recovery or who, if anyone I had already known, would be a part of what I didn’t even know I needed—but it works out if you surrender. It is done one step at a time. Metaphorically. Literally. Step one was to surrender. The moment I did that for real, really real—the rest started to fall into place. You have to want it and to surrender. It’s the easiest/hardest part.

One still needs to work. The community can’t do it for you.

I can write and list all the lessons I learned, thank all the people who played a part—either willingly or unknowingly—to help, talk about the metaphors, the work, the yoga, my own journey—but I’ve done that many times.

Today I’m just thankful for where I am and can attest to anyone who isn’t sure they should, can, or want to quit drinking—that they can really do it. Life is better without it. If you think you need it, it helps you, or it tastes good—some might be true, but there are healthier ways, without the risk of becoming addicted, to get the benefits you seek.

I’m still me, only better.

This was me before—this is me now. I’m just not inebriated, angry, silly, prone to being triggered, or prone to risky behavior—drunk texting, flirting, driving…. It’s just me without the risks, calories, costs, and cravings.

I love to knit. Particularly to knit big, chunky, cozy blankets.

I love plants and gardening.

I love yoga and meditation.

I love reading, particularly spiritual books.

I love living by the water and all things nautical.

I love painting, drawing, and creating art.

Life on life’s terms. It’s an AA term I love. It’s not just people in recovery this applies to. It’s an awesome way to accept life.

I’ve been living through a construction project. My house has been noisy and dusty, and at times I felt like I have been losing my mind. The past 3 years taught me many lessons like this in different ways.

This is life. We can either accept it and feel free or fight it and feel like a prisoner on someone else’s terms. Life isn’t going to stop being hard because you stop drinking. But you will be able to accept life as it shows up without pain.

This is my life and I accept it.

Everyone’s life is different, full of what they love and cherish, and contains stuff, people, and circumstances that they really wish weren’t there.

Who ever said life would be anything other than good, bad, and everything in between?

This is my life. You have yours, and maybe your story—or someone you love’s story—involves addictive substances too. There is a community of us who have recovered from addiction and want to help anyone who wants help in the ways they know how to.

This is one way I know how—reaching out, sharing, sending love, and being available.

Namaste.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

On Non Alcoholic Beverages

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

20 months and counting. This is just my point of view and may not be suitable for all.

10/9/22

Today is 20 months without alcohol for me.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last 20 months, particularly about drinking.

I love to drink. Not just alcohol. Beverages. All kinds—coffee, tea, sparkling water, soda (diet ONLY), Crystal Light… and now non-alcoholic (NA) beer.

I’ve always loved the taste of beer. I think my first experience of beer was when I was around 7 or so. My family and I were coming back from a Sunday afternoon of fishing off the piers of Brooklyn, NY. We didn’t plan to stay out that long, and we had nothing to drink. I was soooo thirsty.

On the way home, we stopped for a family favorite—pizza at Spumoni Gardens. My dad stood on the pizza line with my brothers, and my mom and I were on the drink line. The beer for my father came out first. I had been complaining for hours about being thirsty. The soda was taking entirely too much time. My mom handed me the beer and said, “Just a sip.” I took the flimsy wax-coated cup off the tray and intended to take one gulp, but promptly downed the entire thing. My mom looked at me with horror.

“You liked that?” she asked.

“Yes, I was thirsty,” I replied.

The workers behind the counter handed us the sodas, and the pressure of the line moved us out to the general courtyard, where we sat with my dad and brothers.

My mom was still shocked when she said, “I need to go back on line to get the beer—Esterina drank it all.”

The rest of my family stared at me in awe, everyone asking how I could have liked the taste.

Geez, I was just thirsty, and it quenched my thirst is all. I didn’t understand the big deal.

I had also danced for 10 years—2–3 times a week for most of the school year. I would put on a pink leotard for ballet lessons and a black one for tap and jazz. I was always conscious of how that leotard fit. As I got older and started filling out more, I started to think about calories and the things I liked. I always loved soda, and when I realized that diet soda tasted almost exactly the same, I decided to never have non-diet soda again.

I may have had non-diet soda once or twice since then (I honestly can’t say), but it’s diet soda for me now. At least for the past 35 years, it has been.

As a young adult, I never chose alcohol as a beverage of choice unless it was some fruity, elaborate cocktail on a beach somewhere. Even then, I’d only have one—completely aware of the sheer number of calories the drink had.

But sometime in my early 30s, there was nothing but non-diet soda and beer as an option with pizza somewhere after helping some friends move. I was hot, hungry, and thirsty. I wouldn’t drink the soda, so I had the light beer instead—fewer calories.

And oh my gosh, was it good! Beer and pizza together was amazing. It was Miller Lite that our friends bought. So the next Friday for pizza night, I picked up a six-pack of Miller Lite. Light beer became a part of my life.

Well, fast forward a few years. I met my now husband, who introduced me to enjoying the subtleties of wine. That was a new area for me. Wine isn’t so easy to just have one when there is a whole bottle involved. The addiction took hold from there. Light beer turned into all kinds, and a little wine turned into way too much.

Now I’m 20 months from my last drink and am as happy as I’ve ever been. I don’t miss anything about it. But I do have to give a giant plug to NA beer. I love it! I love it like I love diet soda. All of my life since I switched to diet soda, I just don’t even like the taste of regular soda. It’s so sweet my teeth hurt. When it’s the only option, I’ve often taken a sip to be polite but let the cup sit full.

When I first got sober, one day after gardening I craved beer. It had long been a go-to after a very hot day or long hours of work. I remembered we had NA beer in the fridge, but I opted for the diet soda instead. It was just as refreshing.

The next day, I started telling this same story to one of the Aware Recovery companions who came to my house as part of the year-long program I admitted myself to. When I got to the part where I remembered there was NA beer in the fridge, she stopped me with some kind of urgency and almost yelled, “You didn’t have any, did you?!”

“No,” I replied—taken aback that she perceived I nearly avoided a relapse. What did I know? Was NA beer a gateway to drinking again? It seemed to be!

A few days later, I told another companion who was at the house about this treacherous near miss. This one told me that despite being in recovery, she is a bartender and has NA beer and mocktails all of the time. She treated the episode as no big deal.

I didn’t comment. I needed to mull this over. Maybe it was one of those things where there is no hard and fast rule—to each their own.

No one talked about NA drinks in AA. My husband ended up buying a few varieties to try himself, and they were always around the house. But it wasn’t until about a year ago this month that I dared try one.

At my first sip, I was convinced I had beer. I had to go to the fridge and read the can. It wasn’t one of those 0.0% ones. It did claim it was <0.5%. Again, I was scared about this little amount. I looked it up and read there is no way anyone can get drunk from that amount. You would need to drink 40 for any kind of buzz. Your body processes this tiny amount so quickly that even if you could ingest 480 oz in any short period of time, you still can’t get inebriated.

Inebriation-proof and tastes this good? It seemed as too good to be true—like the Diet Coke I still love.

I started drinking them and trying different kinds. They are so good. To me, as good as the real thing—but no buzz. No risk of slurring or not being able to drive.

Nothing came up on my very frequent urine tests with Aware, the breathalyzer, or at the addiction treatment center I went to for Vivitrol shots.

It took me weeks to even think about telling the third companion that I was drinking NA beer. She was the youngest of the group and seemed to be the most receptive to such an alternative thought. As soon as I told her, she piped up that she still goes to bars with friends and drinks soda or whatever non-alcoholic cocktail might be advertised on the menu. She has been doing that for years and never felt tempted.

Not long after, another companion was added to my dwindling number of visits (because I was nearing the end of the program), and this one had a whole list of NA cocktails up her sleeve. Additionally, she didn’t get the AA word that drinking any of these out of a wine glass was the road to ruin, so my guilt about even entertaining such a thought went out the window.

Now, I am not saying this is okay for everyone—to have NA drinks, beers, or mocktails, or to have them in traditional drinking cups. Perhaps if I didn’t take that pause when that first companion sort of scared me, it may have quickly put me somewhere bad. I’ll never know.

It’s often not possible to know when you made the right choice. Usually, you know when you made the wrong one.

But I’m still not saying it’s a great idea or alternative for everyone. It might not be. I am not an expert, and the only experience I’ve had is my own short-lived one.

Not long ago, I opened the question about yes/no to NA beverages to the local town Facebook recovery group I am in… and if one could get their proverbial head bitten off, I would have. Glad I only asked and didn’t tell them I did!! Not one person (not one) thought it a good idea.

The two biggest comments were:

1—When did we ever drink for the taste?
2—Mimicking the real thing will lead back to the real thing.

And I think that might be true for some people—but not all.

Everyone thinks they are different or immune to whatever the warning is. I took pause here and evaluated.

I’ve always had good discipline when it came to food, drinks, and calories. I do realize that drugs and alcohol are a different story and their addictive qualities make that nearly impossible to control.

But I am not having the real thing, and there is nothing addictive to it.

I’ve always been okay with knockoff food versions. My Diet Coke is an example, but there’s so much more. I switched to skim milk in high school when I had money from a job and a car to buy the milk. We only had whole milk at home. Did it taste as good? No, of course not. But it was better for me and good enough. Now I prefer it. But I don’t even drink milk anymore—only almond milk. Another switch that wasn’t as good at first but is now my preference.

Same with sugar substitutes. I never minded SnackWell’s or those fake types of sweets. I prefer making them myself. Yes, like the beer, they taste a little different—but not much. These kinds of things satisfy me without the guilt, and over time I don’t even like the original anymore. The same has been true for me all my life—from milk to tofu over meat.

So in answer to the responses to my question in the Facebook recovery page, I did drink for the taste, and never has the fake version led me back to the real thing. When I switch, I switch for good.

It’s been a full year now since I dipped my toe into NA beverages. So far, I don’t feel any closer to a road to ruin. Do I miss wine? Not really. There are zero good substitutes for it, and in the face of that reality, I am not even interested.

I haven’t really gotten very into mocktails—for the same reasons I never did before with hard cocktails or hard alcohol. The calories don’t seem worth it.

The growth of NA beer is pretty astounding. It is available everywhere. The only place I haven’t come across it is in the Bahamas. But everywhere else I have been since, it’s readily available.

What makes it even more fun is the lack of too many options. There are one to three available choices, tops. So I get to try the one or three varieties and never feel like I’m missing out on the dozen more I could have tried, like I often felt with the real wine or beer I drank too much of.

The truth is I love to drink. I like lots of drinks. I love the taste of beer, and I can have that taste without the consequences. It’s a chance I was willing to take, and knock on wood, it’s been a gift.

Not for a second in the 20 months and counting now have I felt like I was missing out on a thing. I feel great, and I love my life. I love my life without alcohol.

Yeah.

Chinese New Year and the Magic of Your Thoughts

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Last year, right around this time, a trip to the post office may have changed my life.

I was online and noticed a sign for stamps celebrating Chinese New Year. I picked up my phone to look up the date—Friday, February 12, 2021. I wondered why Chinese New Year wasn’t based on the calendar. Later, at home, I popped that very question into Google. I learned Chinese New Year was based on the new moon, and I read quite a bit about the traditions and celebration. Still, I wondered—why this time of year?

A few days later, during my morning meditation routine, I had some interesting thoughts. This time last year, I set an intention during my morning meditation to quit drinking. I would do some EFT (tapping) and imagine burning up the energies getting in the way of doing so.

For the New Year of 2021, I placed a Shiva statue on my meditation table and switched my daily mala mantra to “Om Namah Shivaya.” I also placed a wooden sign I painted above the door frame of my meditation space with this same mantra. Each morning felt fresh and new. I optimistically thought, “Today is the day I don’t drink.” By mid-day, I’d decide to drink, but that would be the last day. It was a futile merry-go-round, and I couldn’t seem to make it stop or find the exit back into the amusement park.

I needed a push. I chose Shiva for that push. Stick with me about why…

In yoga teacher training, I learned a little about Hinduism and the three main deities of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. They are the Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer. In Ayurveda, they can be likened to spring, summer, and fall/winter. Shiva destroys the season of summer each year and ushers in fall, then winter. At some point, Brahma takes over and creation starts over. Spring begins. Simple enough concept.

This particular morning of 2/8, on my meditation cushion, I looked up at this piece I created in 2019. It may literally look like “Chinese” to anyone but me; however, it represents my own conglomeration of beliefs and knowledge regarding Taoism, Hinduism, Ayurveda, the seasons, the directions of the earth, time, and the color wheel. I thought about Shiva and my question of why Chinese New Year falls during this time of year.

While looking at my art, I saw how I incorporated the three primary colors with the three Ayurvedic doshas into four seasons. Was there a distinct point at which spring really begins and winter ends? A time when Shiva’s work ends and Brahma’s begins? How could it not be at this very time of year?

While the ground is frozen and the leaves are long gone, it’s only three or so weeks away from crocuses coming up. Clearly, flowers can’t pop up above ground without some underground work happening first. Buds are already on the trees at the equinox. Mother Nature silently begins her work as the days become noticeably longer, but it’s still very much winter. She must start around now, and why not with a mid-winter new moon? It seems like good timing to me. Perhaps that is when the bulk of Shiva’s work is done for the season.

Still with my conglomerate story?

Shiva is a “destroyer,” but is simultaneously known as a change agent or transformer. When Shiva is involved, it is apparent. In this famous statue, Shiva is shown dancing. He is known as the cosmic dancer, stomping and keeping the beat of the universe moving. The stomping and dancing represent moving things along, transforming life and matter, keeping it all going, and preventing it from being stuck. It’s why I was meditating and attempting to tap into this energy.

Side note: In Christianity, do you know who else is known as the Lord of the Dance?

This particular Monday morning of 2/8, I lamented how another weekend went by and I did not stop drinking. Chinese New Year was that Friday, 2/12—a new start, a new beginning. I would stop by that Friday with the Chinese New Year, no matter what.

I went through my morning routine—meditate, tap, mantra—with the strong intention of quitting the drink woven in. Be careful what you wish for, and even more importantly, how you wish for it.

That Friday did not arrive, at least not in the way I had planned. I wanted to stop by then, and by golly, some forces came in like a lion and made certain that by Friday I was not to be drinking.

I drank that Monday. Forces were with me. There were four very irritating things taking place around me—four really tough things that would irritate and worry just about anyone. Did I face them? No, I didn’t. I drank instead.

What happened next was immediate and undeniable. I had a strong and violent PTSD episode. It wasn’t the first time. I ended up in the emergency room until the early hours of the morning because I couldn’t stop hyperventilating during a panic attack. I was on a gurney, alone, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a pandemic, with a mask on and the future completely uncertain.

In that moment, I knew. What had happened would not have happened if I hadn’t been drinking. There could be no more “tomorrows” where I planned to quit. It had to be now.

I looked up a service I had seen advertised, where professionals come into your home to help with addiction. I submitted a request for information and began enrollment the next day.

The following days and weeks were incredibly difficult. I made a mess of my life. I didn’t live in my home again until April, and my husband and I didn’t live together again until June.

It was the worst of times. It was also the best of times.

I had asked for a Shiva-like intervention, and that is what I received. Not in the way I would have imagined, but in a way that forced me to stop and take a real look at my life.

I don’t know if anything else would have created the kind of pause needed to truly reflect, to understand how I got there, and to take responsibility for the mistakes I had made along the way.

At the same time, I realized that I had been preparing for this moment for years. Through therapy, spirituality, yoga, and self-reflection, I had built tools I didn’t fully realize I had. I knew how to breathe through discomfort, how to seek support, how to rest when needed, and how to process difficult emotions without avoiding them.

I had learned that life continues, that everything changes, and that acceptance is not the same as giving up. It is simply acknowledging what is.

It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than I thought it would be. I knew, deep down, that no matter what happened next, I would be okay—and eventually better.

There were also ripple effects. Others in my life began to respond differently, to reflect on their own choices, and to shift in healthier ways. The impact extended beyond just me.

Not everyone sees it that way, and that’s okay. I trust that there is something for everyone to take from these experiences, even if it’s not immediately clear.

The idea that what we are searching for may already exist within us resonates deeply with me. The universe doesn’t necessarily give us what we want in the way we expect. It responds to the intention behind it.

If the intention is grounded and sincere, the outcome reflects that. If it’s driven by fear or imbalance, that shows up too.

I’ve learned that being clear about what I want—and being honest about why I want it—matters. There’s a difference between wanting something and needing it to feel whole.

This past year has taught me how much easier life feels when my thinking is clear. Good and bad things still happen, but my response to them has changed.

I’m still learning. I still have instincts that pull me in different directions. But I’m more aware now that my experience of life is shaped by how I respond to what happens, not just what happens itself.

Namaste.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

8 months, but 10 years, A Short Story on an Inconspicuous Path to Overcoming Addiction 

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

It has been 8 months today since I have stopped drinking alcohol.  I feel like the pieces of my life have finally fallen into place. My baseline being with accompanying highs and lows feels manageable for the first time in my life. I no longer feel like a ticking time bomb. 

It’s almost like a switch flipped. The whole thing and the way my life and relationships fell into place is almost miraculous.

But is it a miracle? It feels like it. But when I stop to consider how this phenomenon took place it wasn’t magic. It was years of learning and work. A lot done in smaller, very memorable spurts. But it’s far from a miracle. 

As Alan Watts often said, there is no specific defining moment when an event begins. He challenged his listeners to think about when a war really begins. Or when life truly springs into action. At birth? Now of a proper embryo? When the sperm meets the egg and they mesh? Or is it at the point when there is a twinkle in the father’s eye upon seeing the female that he will procreate? 

My current sobriety journey started at some point. It was part of the plan long ago. It  has been 8 months since I have consumed alcohol. I did take Antibuse. I am on Vivitrol. I did increase my anti-anxiety medication. I did live alone for 2 months and dive headfirst into 2-3x per day sobriety meetings, visits, and activities. Those things made it easier, but the life lessons I learned through spirituality and yoga in past 6-10 years have made it so I may not have needed to start from scratch when it came to the absolutely brilliant concepts of AA where many recovering addicts learn to live a life without addictive substances. 

When I first learned some of the concepts that now use with ease, they all seemed to be “no brainers”. They were some of the most difficult and yet somehow simplest concepts to process and apply. They made sense. “Accepting life on life’s terms”. “One day at a time”. “It’s not your business what other people think about you”. “Nothing changes if nothing changes”. “If you want what you never had, you have to do what you’ve never done”. 

It was almost 10 years ago when I started to proverbially “wake up” spiritually and first began to contemplate that I’m in a participatory saga in this universe.  

This realization not being the norm, it felt jarring for a while. It wasn’t the way I knew the world to be. But it made SENSE. The world flipped on its head for me. I felt kind of lost but also curious and hopeful. 

The idea of “Let Go and Let God” wasn’t new. I went to Catholic school growing up and similar concepts were sort of beaten into my young mind. But I wasn’t taught what they truly meant or how to put them into action.  

It wasn’t until +/- 10 years ago after being divorced and seeing the world through completely different lenses which I, oddly, had difficulty adapting to, that I began to seek out spiritual living. When I listened to Podcasts on what “Faith” really meant. I realized I hadn’t really understood or practiced it. I wanted that. I wanted what people who live contently and simply had. I wanted to Let Go. I wanted Faith in something bigger than myself. 

Religion tries. Schools don’t touch it. Parents never learned it themselves. It took being downtrodden to want to seek it out. It took being curious, feeling scared, and feeling hopeless to consider a different way of looking at the world. It took having the security, intelligence and means in my life to have the luxury of exploring something else while living my current life as it was to test out different ways to approach things. 

TEST them out. Make mistakes. Try again, try something new. Watch the screw up or success. Learn and adapt. 

When I think back over the past decade, there were certain moments where I knew what was taking place was a turn off the current path and there was no road back. Unlike a highway where you can turn around, once we experience or know something; there is no way to unknow it. I am calling them Defining Moments. 

These moments were critical to me, but were any the start or even end to alcoholism? 

No doubt it all let to a more spiritual path. Everyone’s journey toward spirituality (if they get to experience it at all) is different. This was mine. 

When I first felt jarred, out of place, and not like myself – I noticed instantly. Until then I was one of the happiest people I knew. I thought this unsettling feeling would last a few hours. Then maybe a day. 

When a week passed, I realized a week had passed and I wasn’t myself again. I was worried but convinced that any day I’d snap out of it. But I didn’t. It was a time of absolute chaos. I had two tweens, two more young kids and my then fiancé at home. There were changes for everyone, not all being handled well by all the kids and more so worse with some of the adults that were throwing more difficulty at us by not adapting well in their own right and making my household even more disruptive. 

Defining Moment

I remember the very first time I used alcohol to chill out. It was a random weeknight. I picked up my kids from their father’s house. They were upstairs doing homework away from me at their desks) and I was practically home alone in a gigantic house starting dinner and anticipating the arrival of the other 3 household members to come bounding in with loud rolling backpacks, 3 dirty lunch boxes, dry cleaning and BAGs of stuff that needed to be distributed. It was around Jan or Feb 2011. I was OFF. My kids had complained to me earlier about how nothing felt normal for them. I now felt off, irritable, fearful, and uneasy for a few months on & off, but mostly ‘on’. I couldn’t take it. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that if I didn’t make dinner and just went up to my gargantuan gorgeous bedroom to cry that it would disrupt the evening, the sports schedule, homework help, and my husband’s fear that the kids won’t see us as blissfully happy, that our coming together was just all the big mistake that everyone was hoping it would be… you get it. 

With my heart beating uncontrollably in my chest, I contemplated taking a shot of hard alcohol. It worked for me once before in 2009 right before a kid’s party when someone in my life (an alcoholic at the time) gave me a shot to chill out while I ran around at the last-minute putting things together and was completely amped up. I remembered how it worked INSTANTLY. As the heat of the liquor warmed my chest cavity, I felt my nerves unpeeling and my mind slowing down that day back then. Did I really want to go down that path? 

I kept putting it out of my mind, but my mind kept bringing it up. I went over to the liquor cabinet and looked at what we had in there for hard liquor. 

At the time I enjoyed beer and wine. Perhaps a little too much, but I knew my limits and when I was hitting them. I knew how to stop. Days, weeks, and months could go by without thinking about drinking. There is a history of alcoholism in my family, and I always worried about it for myself knowing how much I enjoyed it. I had never abused it though. I never drank alone; would never even consider it.

Until now. 

I KNEW it was a bad move, but it seemed like a viable option. It would have been  viable if it had been  once every two years. But something in me knew that night that if I took a shot that it wouldn’t be the last time. 

As I stood there contemplating whether to do this dumb thing, I heard the peppers and onions I was making for fajitas sizzling in the pan behind me. It sounded like a ticking clock that was reminding me any moment the garage door would open or one of my kids would come down and I’d have to pretend I’m not disturbed and feeling the way I felt that nothing was wrong with me, and that I had an unwavering interest in everyone’s day. 

I couldn’t even tell you what it was that I took a shot of that evening. I can only tell you that it worked. I do know that it was about another week until I did that again. And probably another month or so that it became a sporadic “go to” when I was feeling so “Off” and out of control. Within a year it became the norm to open a bottle of wine before dinner and drink while cooking sometimes after a shot of hard liquor. It helped. That is the tricky thing about alcohol. When used as a medication substitute, it helps. 

It helped at the end of the day. During the day I struggled. I woke up every day with a beating heart. I still had to be “normal” though. I still had work and a house and kids to take care of. I still had to be a mom and now stepmom and think about everyone else’s well-being while my own was deteriorating. 

At the time I van-pooled to work. I loved my “vannies”. It was a welcome relief from home and work twice a day. I laughed and let loose. They were all crazy but normal. More like people I grew up with and felt comfortable with. One of the guys in the van started bible study classes after work on Thursday evenings. I couldn’t van-pool those days since the van left before the bible study began, but I decided it was worth it and drove in myself on those days. At first, I did it to support his endeavor, but I quickly grew to really enjoy talking about a bible piece and delving into a deep introspective talk about what the piece meant and how to live a spiritual life. 

Defining Moment

Not long after on Feb 28 & 29th of 2012 I took a work class off-site on “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”. My intention was to somehow be more organized and streamlined than I already was to deal with the chaos around me, but I absolutely got far more than I bargained for. 

I don’t know if the intention of the class was spiritual or not, but it was spiritual for me. It challenged me to look at the paradigm I lived in. A paradigm I had never considered to be different from anyone else’s. It challenged me to think about being intentional about what I want in my life. The treadmill I was on never allowed me time to think about what was important to me and if it would fit into my life. I just believed that if I went faster, I could fit all things in just fine (important things and things thrown at me). Just Run Faster…

Of course, I knew that wasn’t the answer but there wasn’t time to stop to do anything else. Or was there? The class had us break down where we spend our time. Work, cooking, cleaning, shopping, kid activities. No time for exercise, leisure, taking care of myself or spending quality time with anyone I loved. I often did my nails in the car before I drove to meet my vanpool so they could dry on the way to work. My hair was often wet and braided on the way to work. I was challenged to think about how these activities met my values. Wait – what were my values? How could I be 36 years old and not have thought about them before? 


I left thinking about all the habits but determined to ensure I had the four areas of Habit seven (Sharpen the Saw) in my life. Social/Emotional, Spiritual, Physical, and Mental. 

I was determined, but beaten back because I was a mom first, a wife/stepmother, and an employee. Those were what I made more important than my own needs. Too much of my time was spent in the mental arena of work and focusing on what the  important people in my life considered important, which was school and work. I wasn’t strong enough, or didn’t realize that it wasn’t selfish, to put my foot down and assert what I believed was important. I didn’t know that my body had limits and that if I didn’t take care of it that it would crash and burn. 

I began to look forward to bible study on Thursdays. It was a respite from life and a recipe for how to live. I threw myself into faith. I stopped questioning things I always questioned as a Catholic like the virgin birth or life after the cross. I just absorbed the messages and didn’t ask. 

Defining Moment

It was April 2012. My husband and I were out at our favorite watering hole having wings, pretzels, and beer with my father-in-law. I had been going to the bible study for a few months at that point and had become nostalgic for some old childhood Catholic comforts. I prayed. I read the bible. I read other religious books. I downloaded and listened to church music and found myself surprised to know I remembered the words and would often tear up thinking about all those hours in church with my blue uniform and first friends and crushes. 

That evening my father-in-law asked me if I really believed in the Catholic and Christian concepts. Of course, I didn’t really, but I wanted to; so, I said I did. He pushed in a kind way and asked me if I really, really did believe. I was drinking and I so wanted to be someone who did. Something about the drink, the atmosphere, the diametric opposites of the atmosphere of a bar while thinking about Jesus… At the moment, I felt like something in me just opened. Something about that conversation and my answers of “I don’t question” made it so. There was an actual moment where I let go and felt that I didn’t need to know the answers. All I needed to do was believe. At that moment I knew what it meant to have faith. 

Without knowing the phrase, I Let Go and  Let God. And do you know what happened when I really really really let go? A whole new world opened to me. Within a few weeks a Bishop Spong book somehow ended  up on my lap. 

Bishop Spong was a Christian Bishop who delivered the teachings of Jesus his whole career  but also secretly questioned. Post retirement he became a mystic and found religion to be allegorical. He had his own theories of how humans developed as a species, and why it was important to take the words of the bible as literal earlier on in our human years. The ideas of us as humans becoming more conscious of being conscious were new to me and absolutely fascinating.

From there I explored discovered a  world of Podcasts from the Centers for Spiritual Living  and Science of Mind. Life as I knew it flipped on its head. The bible made complete sense from a metaphorical standpoint. I stopped going to bible study because I felt in some way, I outgrew the literal interpretation of the bible  that some others were stuck on. The idea of being born again and seeing the world through different eyes was how I was experiencing life. 

The spring and summer of 2012 were when I experienced the most profound changes I had ever experienced to date  in my life, and in the shortest period. I understood things that I couldn’t before from a positively new perspective. All religions and spiritual teachings make so much sense. More importantly they seemed to all be saying the same thing. 

It sounds elementary to me now, but we really do create our own lives, and how we think about it creates our own experience. Nothing made more sense. Our universe is metaphorical. Thoughts are like seeds. You can’t plant a watermelon and expect a carrot. In the same way you can’t walk around miserable and looking at the world like it’s dangerous and then except happiness and freedom. 

One of the more difficult things for me was changing the way I thought when no one else around me was changing. I thought very highly of the people that surrounded me in various ways until I realized most of them were living on a treadmill like I had been. I was so excited to get off and slow down, but they weren’t. I still had to live and work in the same paradigm. I tried to get others off too, but I sounded like a crazy person. Others agreed and had long deep spiritual talks with me, but then walked away and did the same things they were doing before. 

???

I felt alone.

So, I’d drink and read about other people who were experiencing the same thing. 

At the end of 2012 as the holidays approached, I was looking for gifts that would provide experiences rather than more “stuff”. I looked into the adult education programs in my town and aside from ballroom dancing for my husband and I, I decided to sign up for an 8-week yoga class starting the next January as a nice way to kick off the new year. 

I’d only tried yoga a handful of times before either in classes or on my own with videos. But something inside me always knew that yoga was going to be part of my life in a more meaningful way. Just the word itself when hearing it for 30+ years of my life invoked some kind of knowing inside of me. I never disliked it; I just didn’t understand it. I had danced for 10  years and had always been flexible, so I really did not feel anything by doing it. I loved Savasana, lying in stillness, at the end, but often got up from that part because I was always so busy, and it felt like a waste of time. Surprisingly, after just one class, I understood.  Don’t let anyone tell you that an instructor can’t make a difference! Even more surprisingly, not long after I started going to yoga, I realized it had the same effect as drinking. I felt calm, slower, more in control. 

I’d leave yoga class and come home to chaos. It was so jarring and shocking to go from one world to another. How did I deal with it? Wine of course. 

Wine, yoga, and spirituality through podcasts, books and web searches helped me to stay sane. 

Until 2016 when I started yoga teacher training. I loved yoga by that point. I recognized the mind/body/soul connection. I wanted to do it more. I didn’t realize until teacher training how spiritual and deep it actually was. On day 1 of training, I met my two teachers. They were so open about their depression and anxiety. I admired their openness and willingness to share their own foibles. 

It wasn’t until a month and a half later, while thinking about a stressful work event two-day safter it had happened, while driving to work, that I had my first panic attack. It was then that I realized the “Off” feeling I had had for the past several years and for  I was abusing alcohol over, was anxiety. 

It took a few subsequent panic attacks within the next few weeks to realize this was anxiety. Holy cow – I had anxiety! Real clinical anxiety. I wanted help for that, but I did not want to have a mental health diagnosis on my record to get medication for it. I was confused. I talked to the yoga teacher that had anxiety about it and unprompted she shared that while she herself wasn’t on medicine, she did know it was a much faster way to get things under control. She gave no advice but did give me some things to contemplate. I read through forums and decided that the people who took medicine and felt better shared that it was more important to feel like themselves than to have any silly perceived stigmatized thoughts about being on medication .

I read and considered my options carefully for a few weeks while having more and more panic attacks before making an appointment with my PCP.  I started Lexapro. I did not stop drinking. It helped. 

There are no miracle drugs either. Antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds do not instantly work. You must start with really low doses until your body adjusts and eventually learn at what dose you feel normal again. This can take anywhere from weeks to months. I started this crazy mix in March of 2016.

By May of 2016 I just couldn’t go through the motions any longer. At the point in my “career” I was serious about work and loved it. I had fun there while learning new things nearly all the time. I had been in my job for 14 years and knew almost everyone who worked in my very large organization. I felt respected by most people. I had mentored a few dozen employees in an official capacity and many others sought my professional advice outside of an official mentor/mentee relationship. 

Almost overnight that love of work shifted. Suddenly, I couldn’t imagine spending the remainder of life waking up early every morning, donning a monkey suit, and getting in the metal box/trap called my car to commute anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes to work. I was no longer vanpooling because my drive home often involved picking up multiple kids and a dog which at times meant I got home nearly two hours after walking out of the office (in a complete rush of course). 

Honestly, looking back, it was the drama in my home at the end of the day that  was the catalyst that caused the most stress. Nonsensical first world drama that wasn’t exactly aligned with my beliefs but was brought into my house by divorce and blending two very different families.  Beyond the drama, there were responsibilities that required my time and attention but didn’t align with my priorities or values.  

I loved everyone I lived with. I wanted to support them. I wanted to be a team player. But I just couldn’t do it all. The obvious thing to cut back on seemed to be work. I made much less money than my husband. If I cut back to part time, our expenses would decrease by that amount of my half time salary. My ex had moved to another state. My husband traveled often, as did his ex-wife. This left me mostly in charge of logistics of four teenagers. Work outside the home suddenly had no appeal. 

I was exhausted. I was burnt out to the max supporting things that didn’t align with my values,  for kids who had no appreciation for the amount of time, money and effort it required to keep it up.

I had always been a natural organizer. I always had dinners planned, food stocked and prepped, clothes washed and ready for the week. Events were organized on a calendar with duties known ahead of time. I talked to my kids weekly about what to expect and how to help out. But that all went to the wayside when I got remarried. At first it wasn’t that bad. But as the kids grew older and became busier, the chaos took over. 

 I didn’t even know what was going on week to week. Daily there were unexpected events that I should have known about, that affected my time and what I had planned. I couldn’t get others to cooperate and help us stay. My husband’s ex seemed to thrive on chaos and take delight in disrupting any attempt at organization  We failed to establish any boundaries about what we would and wouldn’t do. Our lives and our scheduled seemed out of control and at the whim of people outside our family who didn’t care and refused to collaborate.

The Lexapro helped. Weekly therapy was ok. Yoga was a reprieve. The drinking continued. I’m not sure it was helping any longer, but it was now a habit that I didn’t want to let go. I leaned on it as my evening wind-down. Some days it was all I had to look forward to and when I had to wait to have a drink because of nonstop evening driving activities, it made me even crankier. 

I had written a few blogs by that point. Once I started Lexapro, I decided I didn’t want to keep it a secret. I couldn’t handle my life any longer. I couldn’t work full time, let alone mentor others. I cut back to part-time. I stopped teaching a topic at work (Facilitation) that I had once been over-the-top passionate about. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Everything I thought I knew about myself had flipped. My belief system had turned on its head and no one understood what I was talking about. I felt like the crazy person that was now documented in my medical charts who needed medicine. I was lost. 

What felt good about this particular time – when I came clean about not being able to handle life and needing medicine, was  that I felt loved. People I liked or mentored were surprised and almost happy that I wasn’t a walking miracle, that my  social media posts weren’t the whole story. I felt support like I never had before. Others told me for the first time in my life that they related to my stories and thought I was brave sharing. Me? Brave? 

I’d heard successful, friendly, helpful, lucky… but never brave. Those other things were fluff. They were what I thought I wanted and showed to the world. But the hardest and most brave thing was to be vulnerable. 

In that time – from 2012 to 2016 I was inundated with stress and immersed in spirituality tools, breathing techniques, movements, therapies, meditations, mantras, mudras, pranayama, etc. It was all so new. It made sense. But when I needed it, I couldn’t remember to use anything I knew would work. I’d just spiral into panic. I felt like a failure in some way for not being able to remember these simple tools, but yoga teacher training helped me to realize I’m human and that it could take up to 12 years to change a habit.

12 years??? 

Yes, 12 years. 

That’s pretty  stinking disappointing huh? 

I didn’t like that idea, but after learning much about it and why; it made sense to me, and I accepted that truth.  

Defining Moment

May 2017. I’ve written about it before. I realized I might have PTSD from a history of childhood abuse. It was late in the evening at a 50-hour mandated reporter course I was required to  take to teach  yoga in Connecticut  Domestic Violence shelters. There was a slide up on the screen that described  ME. 

Could I have PTSD? I never considered it before. That was something only war vets had. But that slide described ME. And it was the result of child abuse. It was an “Ah Hah” moment. 

At  that  point it was over a year since I began anti-anxiety meds. I was now working part-time. I was allowing myself to slow down and think. And to feel. Feel all the emotions that I never had time to process. 

That summer I had a major emotional breakdown in mid-July where I decided to admit myself to an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). I used FMLA and spent a month traveling to the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT for four days per week to immerse myself in healthy mental environment with others like me: professionals who chose to spend time at such a place. 

I was unable to attend the program without having to quit alcohol for at least a week before the start and for the duration of the program. UGH. At first, I told the admissions area I didn’t think I could do that. They told me if I could not quit, I would have to go into the sister IOP for addiction. I couldn’t be labeled an addict – so I quit. 

It was at the IOP where I was officially diagnosed with PTSD. During my time there I learned another host of tools for my proverbial toolbox to help deal with overwhelming emotions and breakdowns.  The tools were very yoga-like. They were called different things, had differences of course; but the intention and underlying process was similar.  The more I learned the same types of things the more they made sense and the more I believed they could work. 

The last week or so of the program when I knew I wouldn’t be tested for drinking, I started to drink again. As much as before, even though I knew I didn’t need to and felt quite amazing without doing so. I didn’t want to quit. I rather liked drinking. I loved the taste, the smell, how it accompanied my food. I loved going to wineries and  breweries with my husband. I loved everything about it. 

That fall I began advanced yoga teacher training and delved even more deeply into spiritual practices, tools and beliefs that were aimed at serenity and peace. I found a therapist that spoke my language. The day I walked into her office she had a Pema Chodron quote on the wall, a jiggle jar on the coffee table and gave me a handout on the Ego vs Higher Self. Finally! A person that related to the way I was learning to deal with the world! 

You’d think all these things would help right? Every Monday I had yoga teacher training all day and would spend that night in Branford alone. As I learned all these healthy messages and things I started to practice, my mind was adjacently taken over with thoughts of alcohol. Where I would buy the wine, what kind I could buy. Should I buy it? I was learning all these healthy things, so why would I poison myself? There was an invisible angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. Every week it was going to be the last week and that next Monday I would quit. I graduated the program in June of 2018, but that “Monday” never came” 

Defining Moment 

There was an infamous incident in July 1993 that was equally as traumatizing as most of my childhood but changed the course of how it was dealt with. Every summer I had a mini break down, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2018 – exactly 25 years later that I realized a pattern.

Once again, I had a mid-July breakdown. This time the police were involved. This time my husband and I lived apart for a few weeks and I made time for mental health. I realized I had to quit drinking because these incidences were alcohol related. I had a problem with alcohol. I said the words for the first time in an email to my husband. I am an alcoholic. I quit on 7/13/18. 

A few days later I had a another defining moment. I was coming home from a mental health appointment to the house in Branford where I was staying alone. One of my neighbors walked up to my car when I got out to tell me that she really enjoyed my blogs. She said she didn’t realize that it was panic attacks she had been having until she read what I was describing. 

She was NOT the first person to tell me that. I didn’t understand. Once I started thinking about my panic attacks, I realized that I knew they were coming from a mile away.  Everyone else who had them seemed surprised by them.  I was not. As I once told my previous therapist (one of the many I didn’t connect with); I almost welcomed the panic attack. It was such a relief of emotion that I felt build up. It was a way to purge. That therapist said that was “interesting”, gave me a funny look and wrote something down on her legal pad. To me it sounded normal, obviously to her it was not.

But that day when my neighbor approached me, it was kind of like the final straw of needing to wonder why I was different. A few minutes after going into my house, in a very actualized moment; I realized I felt panic rising ahead of time because I was triggered. I was triggered because I had PTSD. It took over a year, but I finally understood what having PTSD really meant. 

I was so excited that I broke out a flip chart and stickie notes (my problem-solving skills from my facilitation days) and started to think about all the instances where I broke down and what I felt. Then I thought about where those feelings were coming from and how they related to childhood. Within 2-3 hours I had a list of my triggers and where they came from. It was an exhausting but very exhilarating day. I felt like I unlocked a key piece to my being that I didn’t even know was there. 

Liberating. 

That helped. But it wasn’t a miracle. I immersed myself in DBT (one of the therapies I learned at the IOP). I immersed myself with yogic practices. I was sober. I was picking up on my triggers about 50% of the time. When I didn’t, much of the time I knew how to stop the cascade. I was starting to heal from trauma I didn’t even know was there for more than 40 years. 

I started having an occasional glass of wine about 6 weeks after I quit. For several months I drank once a week or less. And never more than 2 glasses. I didn’t want anymore and didn’t miss it when I didn’t drink. 

Life went on. The holidays came. Drinking was involved in everything, everywhere. All the time. I imbibed. By mid-January 2019 I was drinking every day again. 

At this point I had a lot of tools to lean on. I used them. It wasn’t always perfect. I had little flare-ups but was able to reel them back in and come back to stability. 

For the next two years that was my life. Drinking daily, earlier, and earlier in the day as COVID came around. Occasional flare ups while drinking with the ability to reel myself back in. 

I finally came around to being able to use what I had been learning, but at this point I was an alcoholic who desired to stop drinking, intended to; but never could last more than a few weeks at a time when I did try. 

Then this last February 8, 2021 came around. It was a Monday. I was off from work, and I started drinking early in the day. I won’t get into the specifics of the day but there was a cascade of triggers from early on. At a point in the evening when I should have left, there was nowhere to go. Life was closed due to COVID, and I couldn’t drive to some secluded area because I was inebriated. I had a breakdown. A bad one. Police were involved again. I couldn’t come down from panic and was taken to the ER at Yale.

While I laid in the gurney in the middle of the night in the middle of the hallway at Yale for HOURS, I thought about how I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been drinking for nearly 12 hours straight. I had to quit. I was an alcoholic. 

Most days when I watched Days of Our Lives (my beloved Soap Opera) through an app on the 
Smart TV I had to watch ads. There was this ad for Aware Recovery Care that came on a few times a day. This program explained that they come into the client’s home “Where Addiction Lives” to help addicts recover in their own environment amongst their own particular lives.  Each day as I sat there to watch this soap with a freshly chilled bottle of Chardonnay, I would silently think about calling that program at some time in the near future. If I couldn’t quit on my own. I should be able to quit on my own. “Today” was going to be the last day. 

Today was every day. Tomorrow never came. 

I looked up Aware Recovery Care on my phone at midnight on the gurney in the ER hallway and inquired about their services online. The next day while I was in court Aware Recovery called me back and I set up an appointment that same evening for a telephone intake. That Friday I met my care team and I’ve been sober ever since.

Naturally they came in and at me armed with tools and ideas and quirky slogans. I had heard most of them before. I had been getting pretty good at implementing them. The only thing standing in my way of fully immersing was alcohol. When I was drinking and I was triggered, I did not recognize triggers. Or if I rarely did or was told – I didn’t care. It was in the way of my life.  

In February this year I jumped in with two feet/full body; and used everything at my disposal that was recommended. Aware came in for visits 4x a week at first. I had appointments with 2 different therapists (my previous therapist I held onto as well as an addiction counselor) and a psychiatrist for my meds. I went to AA once or twice a day at first. I went to group appointments. I attended online meetings for trauma. I pulled out my old DBT workbook. I started Antabuse (which makes you violently ill if you drink) as well as Vivitrol (curbs cravings). I upped my anti-anxiety meds. I did EMDR and LOVED it. 

I’ve been healthy ever since. 

I am still with Aware Recovery and down to one weekly visit. I canned the Antabuse (my skin breaking out very badly) and still go for a monthly Vivitrol shot. I can easily remember all the quirky slogans, sayings, tools, reminders, and breath techniques, when I need them. I know the feelings I have as I am having them, and I will pull back and slow down or walk away. It’s easy. It seems like a miracle. My entire life is the same, but everything has fallen into place. Nothing has changed, except my reaction to things. 

But is it a miracle? No. 

It’s been years of learning. Not just passive learning. I have been actively seeking out tools and methods and trying very hard to put what is needed in place. Nothing about it was easy. People at AA have said they don’t believe me when I say I am not having cravings and I feel happy and healthy. They don’t know my story. They might have learned life skills at AA and feel it saved them and I’m just a newcomer who thinks she knows it all. AA is great. But AA’s tools are the same things that I have been striving to master for a very long time. I’m finally getting the hook of it. No miracles. 

Today is 8 months since I quit drinking. But it has been more than 10 years that I have been working at building mental stability for myself. It’s been 10 years since I ever needed it. 

My divorce and subsequent remarriage shook me up and stirred up emotions and trauma I didn’t know I had. I was on such a great path before all this, but I was done growing. I needed a good shake up to grow deeper. I learned so much about myself and people in the last 11 years. I know that this is what I needed. 

Bringing my addiction back to my Alan Watts reference in the beginning of this blog, I must wonder… when did the addiction actually begin? When I started drinking every day? When I had that shot in the early months of 2011 while making dinner? Or before that when circumstances led me to believe that a shot would help? Or during my childhood when the trauma started? 

When did my recovery begin? Was it in February? Or did it start when I began seeking out help for overwhelming emotions even before my body was physically addicted? 

I am also not blind and do realize I can be hit with something tomorrow and be right back to square one in a New York second. I hope not, and I hope all I have learned will kick in and keep me on the good path. I need new habits of a constant check in. I need to continually assess myself and ensure my environment is not triggering. It can’t always be helped, but if it can I will do everything in my power to ensure my mental health is my #1 priority. 

I hope I’m not done learning. I don’t want or need such a big shake up again, but I do want to keep having “Ah Hah” moments. I hope to continue to be amazed at how sensible and deep little things are that sages and very normal people before us has passed down as wisdom. 

It’s been a journey. Some of it wonderful, other parts absolutely horrific. It spanned the range of the highest highs and lowest lows. I loved it all. It’s life. Beautiful, messy, organized, ugly. It all belongs and accepting that it ALL belongs makes it all the sweeter. 

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Quitting the Drink

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I haven’t read it, but there is a book named “Alcohol Lied to Me.” I love the title because it holds true. The stuff is just a lie.

I’ve been meaning to blog a piece about alcohol, but I’m a newbie to sobriety and I don’t feel seasoned enough to give advice or proclaim victory. What I do know is that my life and every experience I have has changed, and I have no desire to feel the way I used to.

Tonight I’m sailing with my husband, Daren. Around 4 p.m., we both started getting hungry. Daren suggested some appetizers. He went down below and a few minutes later appeared with a gorgeous spread of cheeses, olives, crackers, pâté, hummus, and roasted bell peppers.

I cracked open a Diet Coke and took a bite of the Manchego cheese. Oh my goodness—it was so good! It’s the same brand we often purchase, but depending on the temperature and how it’s sliced, it always tastes somewhat different. Tonight it was slightly nutty and had a melt-in-your-mouth consistency. I took a sip of my soda and sampled the Gruyère.

It’s been a while since I’ve marveled at the fact that I experience eating in a totally different way since I’ve quit drinking. It’s been 6 months and 2 weeks since my last sip of alcohol, and shocking to what my old self 6½ months ago would have believed, I miss absolutely nothing about it.

I would not have even wanted appetizers if we didn’t have wine on board. Not that there was a chance—akin to the possibility of an ice cube surviving in hell—that I wouldn’t have ensured there was at least a month’s supply for a small army on board before leaving the dock.

For a long few years before I quit, there was hardly a food I wouldn’t want without wine or beer. White wine, particularly, was my vice. Chilled white wine. It made everything taste better. It soothed my nerves. It made me relaxed. It made me funnier. I didn’t have a problem. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I just really, really loved wine and beer. I could quit anytime I wanted to. I often did. I went back because I missed the taste. My food wasn’t the same without it. I didn’t relax the same. I could quit. I could…

Right?

Haha. So wrong. So, so very wrong.

I quit at least every two months or so and actually didn’t drink for a few days. But then there was a celebration, a party, a fun dinner with friends, a romantic dinner with my husband, a stressful day. Trump said something offensive. I had a good show to kick back with. My soap opera was on. It was Tuesday.

There was always a reason. I was always wound up. I “quit” for a few days every few months, but honestly, I tried to quit every day. Every single night I went to bed feeling like crap and wishing I hadn’t drunk. Every morning I woke up feeling determined to quit. I’d meditate on it. I’d write love notes to my later-day self about how good I feel and why it’s a bad idea. By 9 a.m. each day, I would decide that “today” would be my last day and begin planning when to start drinking for the day—when to chill the wine and what I would eat with it. It was downhill from there.

It was the same sad story every day.

By mid-afternoon, I wrestled with why I even felt guilty. I rationalized that every single person around me drank daily too. I convinced myself I was normal and that craving alcohol was just a normal part of life. I loved it. But I hated it.

Six months after my last gulp, I am 100% aware of how unbelievably wrong I was—wrong about every last “good” or “normal” thing I attributed to alcohol.

Like the book title states, “Alcohol Lied to Me.” Food is so much better without it. I don’t even know if I had taste buds with it. I now have the ability to realize I’m full and stop eating. When I drank, I thought I was enjoying food and wanted more because it was so good. I believed that lie too. I’ve already passed the honeymoon phase of realizing this. Tonight, I just happened to remember and feel a bit amazed by how duped I was.

I am now way more relaxed. Somehow, even stressful events don’t bother me like they used to. Food is better. Nothing in my life has changed. I have the same life with the same good, bad, and ugly parts. I just feel differently about them and can embrace whatever it is.

I now experience what I knew before but never practiced—that all those cliché sayings like “this too shall pass” or the Serenity Prayer are actually true. It all passes, like the weather in New England. If you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes. If you do, enjoy it—but be prepared for it to change without warning.

I am in no way cuter, smarter, funnier, braver, or more honest when drinking. I might think I am. But I slur my words, think hurtful things are funny, and lose the filter of “Is it true, kind, necessary?” in the name of being honest. If my mood isn’t good, I can be a bitch. I make really stupid decisions, and I often regret things I would have absolutely not done if I were sober.

Why would I put this poison in my body that turns me into a kooky alter ego?

Because alcohol lies. Because it’s a chemical that makes you crave it. It’s almost like a host that needs more to keep itself alive. It took me as its servant. Everyone else is doing it too. They are actually jumping off the proverbial bridge.

A book I did read that made an enormous difference is “The Naked Mind” by Annie Grace. It inspired me to quit about a year and a half before I was ready to. A huge point the author makes is that it becomes easier if you begin to see it as a positive in your life.

I wasn’t ready to do that at the time, but I understood the message. I might never have been ready unless I hit bottom the way I unwillingly did this year on 2/8/21. While lying on a gurney in the hallway for hours in the middle of the night in the ER, I knew it was time. Episodes like that one were far and few between, but one is too many. People who don’t drink would never end up in that kind of situation.

I didn’t want to be one of those people. I didn’t want to want something bad for me anymore. I didn’t want it to be that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I would leave a dock on a boat without knowing alcohol would be with me. It seemed normal at the time, but there is absolutely, positively nothing normal about that. That feeling is the sign of a problem. It’s so common we rationalize it.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be free from the grip of believing a drink makes anything—even temporarily—better. My intellect knew it, but until I lived it and embraced the fact that I wasn’t missing out on anything, I didn’t want to believe it.

I am happier. I still dance around and act like my clown self. I am missing out on nothing worthwhile. I am missing out on 18 pounds, a lighter wallet, stupid decisions, regrets, headaches, cravings, and obsession with what I will eat and drink next. Good riddance.

That is how I feel 6 months in. I hope to continue. I have plenty of AA people warning me to be careful. It scares me enough not to be cocky about it and to stay the path. But I do want to share that it’s wonderful, and if you even think for a moment you might have a problem, then you do. If you wonder if you can say goodbye to it forever and feel good about it, I’m telling you from a very small amount of experience that you can.

Alcohol lies. Sober is the new cool. I love everything about quitting the drink.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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The Inevitable Scream

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

2am this morning.

I’m taking deep breaths with my hand over my mouth—a long-established, almost automatic practice. My eyes, temples, and the space between them ache. As I write this, I can feel that same pressure building again. It hasn’t been that long since these small acts were even noticeable to me, and now they provide insight into what is happening. Chakra-wise, it’s the voice and wisdom center that feel in pain.

I thought back to one evening about a year ago on my therapist’s couch. When I described “The Scream,” she said, almost immediately and with empathy, “It’s because you had no voice.” Instantly, tears sprang to my eyes. With that sudden understanding—something unknown becoming obvious—my throat hurt. It made sense. It was clear to her, but new to me. I couldn’t wait to tell my husband, but when I tried to explain it later over the phone, it got lost in translation. It lost its potency, and I lost the motivation to explore it further.

The scream I speak of took place in mid-February 1994, just days before my 18th birthday, outside of the Patchogue courthouse on Long Island. The previous summer, on July 9th, was the first time police were involved in the domestic violence and abuse that had been present in my home since I was born, resulting in that February court date. I wanted justice. I wanted something to happen. But nothing did. Because I was still a minor, the case was moved to family court, and my father walked away without consequence.

I didn’t understand what was happening that day. As we left the courthouse, I asked my mother what was going on. At first, she said nothing. Then finally, she said, “Nothing is happening.” With each step toward the car, it began to sink in. Confusion turned to anger, and anger turned into something I couldn’t contain.

I stood behind the car. I didn’t want to get in. The car felt like the box I had lived in my whole life—hot, enclosed, inescapable. They urged me to get in, but I couldn’t. And then it came. A scream I didn’t know existed inside me—loud, uncontrolled, inhuman. I screamed again, and again, and again. They froze and watched me like I was something wild, and in that moment, I was.

When it stopped, I felt different. Not fixed—but released, even if only slightly. I got in the car, went home, and we never spoke about it again. But I never forgot it.

Years later, that scream came back. At first I didn’t understand it. It would happen in my car, at home, sometimes in the middle of the night. It felt like something building and building until it had no choice but to come out. I thought it was dramatic. I didn’t connect it to anything real. Hindsight is something else.

What I now understand is that my body was reacting to something it recognized as danger—something emotional, not physical. The same feelings of being trapped, unheard, and without control would surface in my adult life, especially in situations where I felt I had no voice. My body didn’t see the difference between then and now, so it screamed.

For a long time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew that when it came, I couldn’t stop it. It felt like a complete loss of control, followed by an overwhelming release. Last summer, something shifted. After a particularly intense episode, I began to understand what was happening in my body—how trauma lives there, how it gets triggered, and how the mind and body respond even when the present moment isn’t actually dangerous. That understanding changed everything.

I haven’t screamed in many months now. Not because the past is gone, but because I can recognize what’s happening before it reaches that point. I can get somewhere safe. I can slow things down. I can give myself what I didn’t have then—a voice, space, and awareness.

This post doesn’t wrap up neatly. It doesn’t tie itself into a perfect message. It just is.

I woke up this morning with my hand over my mouth, my temples aching, and a memory resurfacing—reminding me of where that pain comes from. The scream felt inevitable then. Maybe it doesn’t have to be anymore.

Peace.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Lexapro 100 day journal

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Wow… 100 days. I went to see my primary care provider this afternoon for a follow-up on my anxiety and refill on my SSRI. I noted to myself that I have not journaled in a long time about my experience with Lexapro and came home to do so. I put the date I started and today’s date into Excel to see how many days it’s been – since I completely lost count; and to my utter surprise it’s 100 days exactly today. I feel like things are under control. I get anxious occasionally and I did have a panic attack last Wednesday at work. But the last time before that I had a panic attack was 5 weeks prior to then, but it was an incredibly stressful morning. As I told my provider this afternoon, I almost need to feel slightly anxious every so often because it’s my body’s trigger to slow down. If I went up any more on my dose I might not feel anxious at all and push myself too far. I’m in a good place.

And slow down I have! I am smelling the roses. I catch myself unnecessarily trying t o beat the clock for no good reason and I stop to consciously appreciate the present moment, no matter how unpleasant (except for traffic… I have NOT mastered feeling ok with the present in traffic). I am on my back deck. I can hear the trees blowing in the wind. I am not taking appreciating life for granted. I hope I always feel this way. I’m going to try to make an effort because life is better slower and in gratitude. I spent the day weeding the garden with my feet in the dirt. I thought about weeds and good and evil & cleaning/purging and how we need to do that with our minds by meditating reguarly. You can’t weed on occasion and expect weeds will not grow. You can’t clean every so often and think your home will not get dirty. As above so below – you cannot meditate every once in a while and expect to walk around with a clear head and zen outlook.

I loved the journey since I started medication. Someone told me to journal about it and I did. I was so afraid to start my medication. I kept the meds a few days before I began and read about it online obsessively. I was afraid of not feeling like myself. A girl wrote about how she had been on Lexapro for a year. She was artsy and creative and had incredible mood swings before she started the drug. She said she drew and painted so much more passionately before she started and now wondered if she should go off and be her real self again. That scared me. But the 5-10% of people or so who had good things to say, and didn’t have a nightmare of an experience said they were glad to actually feel like their old self again. That is what I wanted. I like being passionate & creative and all that jazz, but I did want to feel like myself. What would be the worse thing? It would be a nightmare and I’d go off and be in the same place I was? My biggest fear was losing myself, but actually – I found myself again. And I’m all the better for it.

March 16, 2016; 10:16pm

And here goes 

About to take my first dose of lexapro. I may be miserable the next few days and worse off. I’m officially someone diagnosed with a mental health condition and I need meds. I pray it works because I so desperately want to feel better. This may be the last of the real Esterina. I love myself. I’m sorry I lost it. I will be better. And here goes…

March 18, 2016; 5:44pm 

Lexapro – Day 2

I am a person who is in touch with themselves. Deeply. I can already feel a difference. This morning when I woke up, it was the first time I woke up and didn’t have the sense of impending doom looming over me in a long time. It was amazing! But I know it’s not working yet because after a few minutes of lying in bed I started my normal anxiety. Only this time it felt different. I was short of breath, but somehow it wasn’t causing pain in my head. It was like it was cut off from my head or something. Then I read a text from Daren that he sent last night. I could hardly see it. The words and font looked kind of different, smaller if anything and a little sharper. I went down to the kitchen and prepared a fresh juice. I went back upstairs to reply to Daren’s texts. It wasn’t until he started making rigmarole plans with different pick-ups and hockey bags and complicated collaboration that the anxiety really started. Only it didn’t even come close to a panic attack. 

Today at work I was able to focus. Focus on one thing at a time. Not as well as I’d like but I was SO SO SO productive. It was crazy! I had energy I hadn’t had in years. Is this what drugs really do? No wonder these are prescription drugs. I almost want to up my dose to the 10 I’m not supposed to start until at least Sunday, but I’ll hold off. 

Driving home felt good. Usually I’m numb and kind of miserable. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I was happy, but I was pretty ‘unmiserable’. 

I laughed like I did when I was younger twice in the past two days. Once about an hour after I took my first pill. I immediately felt a sense of chill about 5-10 minutes later. I did have a few margaritas with Gretchen and Lucy earlier in the evening. I know I’m not supposed to drink and take this, but I didn’t want to say no to hanging with them, especially while Daren was away and I haven’t seen them in so long. And I was suffering SO much with anxiety I didn’t want to wait even another day until I started the journey. So I took it that night. I felt a little chill as I drifted off into bed. I thought back to the day and remembered a funny incident at work. Haha!!! I couldn’t stop laughing. It was like when I was a kid or teenager before I got married and had kids… when I’d laugh all the time. Then yesterday the same thing happened in a meeting. It was a construction meeting and one of the police officers was describing an area that someone requested we do construction in. He was describing the half wall they were asking for and the reason being he said was… he didn’t know the medical term – but it was to give the patients a “shot in the buttocks”. OMG, I started laughing but stopped. I was holding back – I mean this is a professional meeting & all right? I’d heard this shot in the butt story before. Then when someone else was referring to it a few minutes later and he said “to give these shots in the butt” I started laughing again. And like when I was young. I knew it was inappropriate but I was giggling uncontrollably anyway. I couldn’t stop and it was almost embarrassing. Everyone looked at me when I really busted up. With tears streaming down my face. I said “I’m so sorry I’m laughing about this like a 5 year old”. And they all started laughing too. It felt so good. It felt like me raw. What’s funny is that it is me raw. I guess that is what it feels like to have my brain more in balance. 

I NEVER really time off from work. But over the past year or two I’ve probably taken between 6-8 mental health days with some other excuse. I always felt guilty as if I was cheating the system or something. I do it so nicely too. I make sure my work is done, my meetings are covered, I often get online & work throughout the day and answer questions. But overall I felt guilty. Truth is though, I do have a mental health condition and needed those mental health days. My reactions and feelings aren’t normal. I truly am suffering. It took having my first panic attack to realize how unstable I felt. While I don’t treasure them, I do in some way for getting me to realize I really was at a breaking point and needed help. I need help. It feels good to say that. And as long as this medication keeps improving and there are little to no (and fingers crossed for no) side effects then I’m SO happy I’m taking the steps to feel mentally healthy again. I cried coming home from the doctor when the med was prescribed. I felt like a loser. Now I don’t. I read somewhere where someone wrote coming out with a mental health disorder to other people felt worse than coming out of the closet. I felt like I could sympathize. I stared at the bottle. I read the instructions for a medicine the first time ever. I read everything I could get my hands on online about Lexapro. I was scared. When I finally made the decision to start taking it I was kind of excited and not scared anymore. I’m glad I waited the time out because now it feels right. Fingers crossed it’s only on the up & up from here. I want to be me again. 

March 21, 2016; 5:35am 

Lexapro – Day 5

Tired is all I can say. I have no energy. Saturday morning I woke up in full on Fight or Flight mode, only my thoughts were rational and I didn’t try to figure out what was the matter with or try to talk to Daren about all that is wrong in our lives & the world. It was just obvious that my body was reacting to absolutely nothing and I had to let it ride out. My mind didn’t follow it. It was nice, but unsettling. I can’t believe the medication would work so quickly. Saturday late afternoon when I went to take a shower, about 2 minutes into it I was hit a giant wave of exhaustion. Crazy exhausted. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make it out of the shower safely. I did though. Daren came up and made sure I was able to get dressed. Then I went downstairs to the couch and kind of didn’t move most of the night. I got up for about 15 min to eat dinner, but had to lay back down. I slept for about 2 hours before dinner. Then again through most of the movie we watched. Sat night I know I looked at the clock before I fell into a deep sleep in bed, and it was 10:50. I woke up at 7:50, a full 9 hours later! But I was still tired. Saturday evening I switched from 5mg to 10mg. I was expecting to wake up with some wooziness and nausea, but didn’t. I was just super lethargic.

I forced myself out of bed and downstairs for some green tea. Stupidly Daren and I started our quarterly detox too. Probably a bad idea to be detoxing and starting a new medication. I started to gain some energy around noon. I made all the dinners for the week and cleaned up the kitchen & house a bit. Then I took Koji on a very mild 2 mile walk. But when I came home I was exhausted again. I went to take a shower (a very quick one because no one was home and I was afraid I’d fall asleep in there). Then I went to the couch. I couldn’t really fall asleep and I had no motivation to do anything. I had a mini panic attack. I’m not even sure why. I was incredibly depressed and crying on the couch. I was thinking about putting real clothes on today to go to work (no yoga pants) and it just made me so sad. I felt like I couldn’t deal with life. At that time I felt pangs of anxiety, but nothing fight or flight like within me. It was more like depression to be honest. No beating heart or doom & gloom thoughts. I got up to eat and right back to the couch. Until bed. I slept like a log. I had a hard time getting up for work today, but here I am.

 I feel drugged up. I really do. My motor skills are slower than usual. I’m SO tired. I can’t say enough about how little energy I have. And I’m really hungry. Don’t know if it’s the meds or the detox, but just hungry. I hope this wears away. I’m having a hard time caring about anything, especially work. I hope this balances out. Good vibes & lots of love.

March 25, 2016; 5:40am

Lexapro – Day 9

I’ve been SO depressed. I had no energy the past few days. I have been FORCING myself to walk. I drank pink wine & had chocolate last night. I had such forceful cravings. I should be getting my period so that might be it too. Plus I have heard Lex can make your anxiety and depression a little worse. I’ve felt my body in fight or flight a LOT, but my mind has not always taken me there. It has a few times. It’s been a rough few days since I’ve last written. 

Today I’m feeling great so far. I’ve only been up a for a little bit though. I got up & stretched and I put on a mask and gave myself a mani & pedi. I feel good. I feel solid. I still feel anxiousness in my head, but I just feel happy. I want to stay here (as I know everyone does). I NEED to work peace and meditation into my day everyday. It helps. I feel good. Namaste.

March 28, 2016; 12:24pm

Lexapro – Day 12

I had an absolutely terrible weekend at first. I mean terrible. I felt great on Friday. Like my old self. I was productive at work as I was the Friday before. I had a beer Friday night at the Wolfpack game and felt ok for a while. I started feeling a little depressed and by the time we got home I wanted to kill someone. I was so anxious about our ridiculous lives. None of the kids were supposed to be with us, but 3 of them suddenly were. I fell asleep right away but woke up to Kieran taking a shower at 12:15 in the morning. His mother left his belongings behind my car earlier that evening, and then Gabby ran them over while we weren’t home when she borrowed my car. She had to have the neighbors come over and help bail the crap out from under the car. Once I woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep my blood started to boil and my anxiety kicked in. I lost it. I had a panic attack. The next morning on the couch I had another. Overall I’m not really feeling better yet. Today at work I haven’t really done a thing this morning. I’m so completely unmotivated. I know that doctors sometimes prescribe Xanax or something for breakthrough panic until the SSRI starts to kick in. I’m in a weird place. I have my fingers crossed this works. Every passing day I hope I’m one day closer. I did have the energy to get up & do some yoga stretching this morning.

 I know I sound a little rambly. I can’t wait to have motivation again. I did have it on Friday. Today I’m moving in slow motion. I was better this morning. I even did my 5 minutes of meditation that I always intend to do. I did it on Friday too. I really did give me a good sense of peace and inner stillness. Just now I’m SO tired. I’m tired. I’m not doing anything useful for the world. I don’t know what to say. I want to feel better. I just want to feel better. I really do.

March 30, 2016; 5:32am

Lexapro – Day 14

One thing I have been forgetting to mention is the very realistic dreams. People seem to use the word vivid but to me they just seem real. Like it’s real life and I wake up confused about whether or not something actually happened.

One of the things that recently happened to me last Tuesday is that several of my pills went down the sink. I ordered a pill box so that wouldn’t happen. It had 4.5 stars on Amazon so I chose it. It came on Friday (I think… maybe Saturday?) and I’ve been using it ever since. I’m not completely impressed with it. I just thought it would be easier than twisting off that terrible cap every time. Then last night I dreamt of this pill box. The days of the week wouldn’t close. The pills were falling out all in my make-up bag. I thought to myself that I needed to write a bad review and in my mind I thought as a consolidation the company would be mailing me a new one. I wasn’t going to get another one, I was just going to put the pills in a plastic bag instead. Vivid dreams. Realistic really.

April 1, 2016; 5:21am

Lexapro – Day 16

Yesterday was the first day I felt good all day. I think waking up & doing yoga first thing had something to do with it. I’ve also been meditating every morning at work for 5 minutes before starting the day. I’ve been opening the the window and looking out. Hearing the sounds of West Haven waking up. Feeling the cool morning air. Even the day it was raining. It was nice. Today I am in Newington. There is no window. I will try to meditate anyway at 8:15 when morning report starts and I know no one will bother me. 

Yesterday I felt kind of normal or what I imagine other people feel as normal. I caught myself catching my breath a few times and taking deep sighs, but I didn’t try to follow my body to why I felt stressed and just kept saying to myself that I shouldn’t water the weeds (of thoughts). It helped yesterday. It doesn’t always. Hopefully it’s the lex and then hopefully I can remap my brain to do that all the time.

This morning was the first time in 2 weeks that I woke up and didn’t have stress coursing through my veins with my heart beating. I’m trying not to think too much about it because it can go any second, AND thinking about it causes more stress usually. Please God/Universe/Almighty…. I need a clear mind. Peace. Tranquility.

April 4, 2016; 5:40pm

Lexapro – Day 19

Today I feel really good. Saturday I felt overall nothing. Not depressed. Not happy. Just nothing. Unmotivated too. I kind of did almost nothing. I did change out my summer and winter clothes though. Not having the feeling of being too attached to doing anything else or the outcome helped me to just concentrate on what I was doing and do it well. Time flew by. It was kind of nice and it felt nice to look back and see the progress I made with the clothes change. Something simple and it made me feel accomplished. Then for some reason on the way down to Shannon’s wine party later that afternoon, listening to music I perked up. I perked up so much I was singing to the music. It felt nice. After that I went out with Mirta and Elizabeth. We went to J. Timothy’s. I was kind of mellow. I feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes. I feel duller somehow.

Yesterday I woke up pretty motivated. We slept in until after 9 I think. A good night’s sleep felt really nice. I didn’t do much of anything yesterday at all. I made a few foods in the morning to prep for the week. I took my time. Again not being attached to an outcome feels nice. Then I touched up all the white trim around the house. Sometime in the morning while cooking, most of us were at home but all split up doing various things around the house. I was suddenly incredibly motivated to talk to Kieran and Devin about odd blended family situation. What I’m forgetting to write is that on Friday right after I wrote in here Daren copied me on an email to his ex. She was vague about Keiran’s plans so I asked to clarify something. Well…. she went nuts and spouted back that I’m the step-parent and there is no reason I should communicate about her kids plans. I just wrote back again and said I’d like to know what is going on in my own house.

One of the main things I’m learning about myself is that a situation doesn’t bother me as it’s happening; it’s usually down the road hours or a few days later that I’m affected. I think it was because it was how I coped with domestic violence as I was growing up. At the time of an unpleasant experience I am strong and normal. Only later do I allow myself to process. So, as I was happily cooking Sunday morning, I started to process what felt like an unnecessary attack on Friday. I was in a good mood and just felt like I could talk to the kids. Daren was supposed to come home sooner than I thought with Devin so I was kind of waiting for them. But a lot of time passed and I didn’t have the opportunity when I was ready to talk it so I missed it. I really wanted to air things out though, so I thought I would write down everything I wanted to talk to them about and chat together after dinner. Then I thought the kids might get upset and misconstrue my words, so I thought I’d send an email ahead of time so there were no misinterpretations. I thought about what I might write for hours while I cooked and painted. I finally sat down and the thoughts were just pouring out of me. I imagined their mom one day reading it in case they got upset and forwarded it to her, so I was very PC.

 When I was finished, I felt spent. I sent it to Daren first for his advice. I had no idea how he would react. I asked him to read it and disappeared to take a shower. I felt a huge release and a little panicky. I think a few weeks ago before the lexapro I might have had a panic attack. But I didn’t. I did feel shaky though. Daren came upstairs after my shower to tell me that it was beautiful and that I should sent it right away. I did. Then he told the boys to read it. Kieran did, Devin had some kind of mishap with receiving it. We kind of openly talked about a few things after dinner after Gabby left the table. Then I left Daren and Kieran to talk while I took Koji out for a walk. I know I left the door open for them to talk about some stuff more openly than likely they ever have since I’ve known them at least.

 After that I was kind of numbish again. It’s nice to be numb. I thought I would be upset not feeling so hard, but it’s kind of peaceful. This morning I woke up with more energy than I’ve had in long time. I did about 15 minutes of yoga, no meditation. Had coffee. Actually listened to music again & sang! And I’ve been moderately motivated at work. Not as much as I normally am, but much more than last week. That’s how I am! Thanks for listening.

April 7, 2016; 5:56pm

Lexapro – Day 22

I’m so so so tired of not feeling like myself. I’m tired of feeling blah and uninspired. I’ve been escaping with reading. I don’t want to deal with my bullshit life. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’m not doing well. I can’t say this medication is working. I had no control over my mind today or my emotions. What can I say?

April 22, 2016; 5:21am

Lexapro – Day 37

Let today be the start of something new. It’s earth day. We had a beautiful full moon last night & now one this morning. I’ve felt good the past few days. I want to somehow get out of working at the VA, at least full time. I know it doesn’t work for me anymore and I’m just not that interested in the politics of it anymore. Not sure what to do. Wish me luck in discovering whatever it is.

April 27, 2016; 12:49pm

Lexapro – Day 42

What inspired me to write is the walk I just took. I’m walking much faster and with much more gusto. I have been walking since 2003 at lunch nearly every day in rain, snow or shine. I have been walking with gusto for years. I never stopped walking, but I did stop walking with gusto. I still took the stairs, but never with conscious thought anymore. Walking the stairs made me pant. I’m not panting anymore 🙂 I don’t even know when that happened :-). I can’t smile enough about this.

 Everything else in my life stayed the same. It’s my body that is different and calmer. I am enjoying the little things more. Things that used to stress me out matter a bit less, but excitingly enough I’m more excited and engaged with them if that makes any sense.

 What likely stopped me from completely falling to pieces are the good habits that I had already. Like taking the stairs, walking daily. Getting up early to stretch and having a quiet cup of coffee. Eating fairly well. I had lost any and all motivation. I hated doing all those things. But the act of doing them out of habit helped me not to delve into a downward spiral. I’m proud of myself for not giving up and just going through the motions even though I wasn’t there and couldn’t care less about it. It still helped even though I couldn’t feel it at the time.

 All else is ok. I am not loving my job like I never had before. Not since the early days in the Coast Guard as a non-rate have I stared at the clock and mentally counted the hours and minutes until I would get to leave. It’s been a while. It kind of stinks. I liked being engaged more, but I feel a call to do something more. I wrote about my experience with stress in my blog esterinaanderson.com. It was cathartic. I had it posted to facebook. I’m not sure if I already journaled this or not, so I may be repeating myself – lol. Just wanted to catch up. 6 weeks. Feeling good.

May 12, 2016; 12:37pm

Lexapro – Day 57

Happy happy lunch break. It’s been a while since I’ve written about my lex experience regularly these days. I’ve been feeling better. My physical anxiety has not gotten better – only mental. I can think so much more clearly. The biggest thing I did yesterday was actually write to my acting boss & the director to ask to work part-time and if that’s not possible I understand that they will have to replace me. I basically said in a very nice way it’s part-time or I just can’t. I told them about my stress. I told them it sounds like I’m sharing something personal but I’ve shared it publicly. I haven’t heard back yet, but I do have an appointment (requested by the director himself) for today at 2pm. It has to be about my email I imagine.

The strange thing is that I’m not worried about this meeting at all. What is the worst thing that can happen? They fire me and I stay home & relax and garden, take care of Koji, read, cook dinners for the family, pick up kids who need rides. Shop for our food and not have it delivered? Clean my own house & not have a service come?  Like normal people… 

I can think about opening a yoga studio and start an hour bank in my town. I’m still fairly young, I have skills that are worthy, and I have motivation to do good for the world. If I can’t do it at my job where I’d like to, I’ll do it somewhere else. That I know for sure.

In some weird way, I’m really oddly not tied to the outcome as much as I may have once been. Is it the lexapro? The yoga?  My intentions I’m a bit better about setting? I don’t know… but I’m happy and I threw something out there that I can’t take back, and whatever happens it won’t be what I’m doing now… and that makes me SO happy. Hugs & lots of love to all beings.

June 24, 2016; 7:51pm

And as I read back through all of this and previously journaled day 100; I’m in an awesome place. I still don’t know what’s going on with my job! I’m working 3 days a week for now, but don’t know if it will be in my current position or any myriad of possibilities. Who knows? I’m ready for anything! It’s been a while since 3/16 when I journaled “here goes”. No regrets! For anyone ever wondering if it’s worth its, for me… it was.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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The connection and beauty of two negative recent events in my life 

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I have a deeper appreciation for life and moving through my day than I’ve ever had before. Two things happened in the past few months that helped me come to this realization: I started taking an SSRI, and I had outpatient knee surgery. Two very different things for completely different reasons—but in all honesty, both were the result of moving through life too quickly and absentmindedly. Both have completely slowed me down (and fattened me up just a little!), and it’s not all a bad thing.

Back in March, I quite literally lost my marbles and, thankfully, became fully aware that fooling myself into sleeping more, doing more yoga, or meditating more often was not going to be my cure. Truthfully, I was no longer able to do any of those things in a way that felt meaningful. Yoga still felt good physically, but it didn’t slow my thoughts or help me “just be” like it used to. Meditation was a joke. I sat there diligently, but I couldn’t stop the racing in my head.

I did everything I could to keep up with my life. I was (and still am) one of the most organized people I know. Everything was as efficient as possible. No time management tip was going to help—I would read them and think I could write a better article myself. I was stretched thin. There was no room for error. One small miscommunication between family members and the entire chain of well-planned events and pickups would fall apart. No way to live.

A few days before the marble-losing, I went to a routine Thursday morning report-out for senior leadership. As usual, I prepared at the last minute—rushed, but still pulled together something polished and well-coordinated. I walked into the conference room, my employee pulled up the presentation, and I slid my chair under the large dark wooden table.

SLAM.

I hit my right knee hard on one of the table legs.

There were the usual reactions—“Oof,” “I heard that,” “You didn’t need that knee anyway!”—and I shrugged it off and kept going. About 24 hours later, during a meeting with my small team, I noticed my knee hurt. I wondered why as I pushed through the agenda, then remembered hitting it the day before and briefly questioned why it took so long to register. That night at dinner with friends, it hurt more.

The next day, Daren and I went into the city. We were so busy and stressed that I didn’t think about my knee at all. The following morning, seemingly out of nowhere, I had my first long-overdue panic attack. I cried the entire way home. I noticed my knee hurt, but it wasn’t until late the next night—around 9 p.m.—that I realized how swollen and red it had become.

Daren was at hockey practice. I wanted him to look at it, but I fell asleep before he got home.

Long story short, the next few weeks were filled with panic attacks and knee aspirations. The panic worsened quickly. I realized I had to start medication—I had nowhere left to cut back. And have you ever tried to “relax” while in a nonstop adrenaline rush? It doesn’t work.

Once I started the SSRI, I began to notice how often my body was in fight-or-flight, even as my mind started to calm. It was eye-opening. I had been living like this all the time.

I first went to urgent care five days after the injury and was told to rest and monitor it. It stopped hurting—but it didn’t stop swelling. So I ignored the advice. I ran on it, did yoga on it, and didn’t call an orthopedist for three weeks. Who has time for this?

Eventually, I was getting it drained every couple of weeks… then every week… then it started swelling again almost immediately after each visit. At one point, the doctor tried to drain it and nothing came out. A wall had formed. Surgery or live with it.

It’s funny—my knee felt like a physical version of what had been happening mentally for years. Rushing. Ignoring warning signs. Doing the bare minimum to manage something that was clearly deteriorating. Until I hit a wall—mentally first, then physically.

It wasn’t until I had no choice but to deal with it that I realized how much my lifestyle was harming me. My body is all I have—why wasn’t I taking care of it?

After medication adjustments and a few rough weeks, the panic attacks lessened. And then I had surgery.

I’m not claiming I’m a changed woman, but I’ve had some of the most relaxing weeks of my life.

Since March, I’ve rediscovered the library. I’ve been reading a book a week—fiction. Nothing intellectual. Nothing self-improvement related. Just stories.

I’ve started getting bi-weekly massages. Daren and I have been spending more time at home—making the outside of our house beautiful, sipping cocktails, watching fun TV (not documentaries—actual fun TV). I’ve been coloring mandalas. Visiting local shops. Sitting in coffee shops with a matcha latte and a book. Writing for fun.

I’ve even started going back to sleep in the mornings when I don’t have to rush.

That, in itself, feels like a revolution.

My whole life, I woke up ready to go. Even when I was exhausted. There was always something to do. Something waiting. Something urgent. My dad used to bang on our doors and tell us we were “sleeping our lives off.”

Now… I listen to my body. And sometimes it tells me to rest. And I do.

After surgery, I slowed down even more. I slept. I sat outside with my leg up and a book. I noticed things. I wasn’t rushing anywhere.

One morning, I walked slowly down my own street and realized I barely knew it. The houses, the details, the quiet beauty of it all. It had always been there—I just hadn’t.

Later, on the ferry, I looked at my legs—one swollen, one not—and felt grateful just to have them. In the shower, I noticed their strength, their design, how they carry me through life.

I ate breakfast and actually tasted it. I thought about how each raspberry grew—slowly, over time—until it was ready.

I want that.

Slow growth. Presence. Awareness.

We spent the day outside. I modified yoga to meet my body where it was. The trees were alive with spring. Food tasted better. Life felt softer.

Healing—mentally and physically—is happening in small increments. Just like those raspberries.

This morning, I woke up early when Daren left to drive Kieran to work. I started writing this… then stopped.

I opened the blinds. Listened to the birds. Laid back down. Let myself rest.

I want to live like this more.

I’ve already asked to cut back hours at work—and thankfully, the answer was yes.

I don’t want to need medication or injury to slow down. I want to choose it.

We all need to live a little more and “do” a little less. Be present more and absent less.

Every single moment matters.

And I’m finally ready to live in them.

Namaste.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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