The trouble is, you think you have time.

Sobriety, change, and the urgency of now. A call to count yourself in and support others on the path.

Credit: Pete Longworth

I was getting a facial recently when the woman doing it asked me what I did for work. I told her I was a writer, which led to me mentioning my sobriety. After a long stretch of silence, she asked, "So, why did you stop?"

I’ve been asked a version of this question hundreds of times in the past ten years, and almost always give the same answer, at least to start, which is, “Oh, I was going to die.” That’s what I said to her as she massaged my face.

She let out a little laugh, but then froze, her hands hovering above me.

“Wait, really?” she said.

Then I laughed. “Yes, really.”

She paused, either surprised or actually uncomfortable, then said, “Wow, I would’ve never guessed.”

This kind of comment used to unnerve me, and I’d find myself launching into a diatribe about how addiction doesn’t usually look like addiction, and it isn’t just ‘alcoholics’ and ‘normal’ people; how problematic drinking is pretty ubiquitous, and on and on. Not because I wanted to make the other person feel stupid or because I was ashamed of how they might see me, but because I needed everyone to know about this mind-bending reality I’d uncovered.

I don’t do this anymore, though I’m happy to talk about it if my conversation partner wants to.

After another beat, she asked, “Can I ask, though, did something happen?” So I told her briefly about the big things that happened in the summer of 2013: a DUI, a couple of extra-terrifying blackouts, and the wedding where I left my daughter in a hotel room, which got me to go to my first meeting.

“Ohh, so you stopped after that?” she asked. After the wedding, she meant. She told me she was a mom, too.

“No, actually,” I said. “It took me another year.”

“Then what finally got you to stop?” she asked, and I’ve never known the honest answer to this question, and I don’t know that I ever will. It was so many things—a constellation of tries and falls and moments of grace and effort and humility and help and mystery. It was me and my efforts, to be sure, but it was also not me at all, and the longer I go on, the more I believe in the latter. The longer I go on, the more I believe that it was just fucking luck. I kept showing up, but I also got really, really lucky. There’s no other way to explain the fact that I’m here when so many others I’ve known, many of whom were not as far down the scale as I was, are not.

And this is what I want to talk about today.

There’s an open-door policy in every recovery ‘room’ I’ve been part of. As there should be, of course. Sobriety isn’t typically a ‘once and done’ kind of thing; it often takes a few tries (though sometimes it doesn’t, and bless those lucky souls!).

I remember finding a certain solace in this early on, and also—if I was really honest with myself—using it as an excuse to keep drinking at times. The idea that I could start tomorrow, or whenever I really wanted to down the line, was seductive. What significant difference would it make, I’d argue, if I began now or after the next whatever: holiday, birthday, weekend, milestone? I’d proven to myself that I could stay sober for a week, two weeks, even three, so it was just a matter of that last little bit of commitment, I thought. Of deciding.

But here’s the thing: sometimes the door closes on its own.

Sometimes we don’t get to decide because the decision is made for us.

You might think, like my friend Abby did, that you’ll start for good after the summer. She was a teacher, and the summers were her vacation, and the school year was stressful, but she knew—because she’d had some good stretches of sobriety during them—that she could handle everything so much better without drinking. So she made a pact to put both feet in after Labor Day. A few weeks later, she drank herself to death in her car two hours from her house. Nobody knows why, or whether it was intentional. She had two young girls.

I know someone else who drove home after dinner with friends and caused an accident that took a life. It wasn’t even one of his ‘big nights’ of drinking, just a random Thursday.

I have too many stories like this, and I see too many people in recovery rooms who have been at it for years, even decades. Some of them have had terrible lows; some not. And I only have compassion for this struggle, and I’m not saying it’s all in their control or that it’s even their fault, but I do know that we all get these momentary openings: these windows of opportunity that slide open here and there.

The impulse to tell someone the truth. To turn left instead of right. To join the meeting, or finally open your mouth, or ask that one person for help. Maybe to drop to your knees and pray.

We get these windows—we see them—and then just as quickly, they’re gone. The window closes, and the urgency is wiped from our memory like it was never there.

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A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the Jack Kornfield quote¹ “The trouble is, you think you have time,” which I first saw back in 2014. I knew it was meant for me right then because it struck my heart like a lightning bolt.

Maybe it’s meant for you today.

The trouble is, you think you have time.

This applies to sobriety, of course, but it applies to anything you know you must do. As a culture, we’re very hurry up and go-go-go when it comes to everything except the hard things. We’re very busy and right now for anything that keeps us numb, dumb, and asleep.

Yes, there’s time for your change to unfold, but the hard work of beginning? It probably had to happen yesterday. It probably can’t wait.

Love,
Laura

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If sobriety is what you know you need to do, comment below. I’ll be here answering questions and helping however I can, and others in the community here will, too. We’ve got a lot of sobriety among us, and we’ve got you. Comments on this one are open to everyone (not just paid subscribers).

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You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).

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1. This has been attributed to the The Buddha, but Jack supposedly paraphrased it.