Wow. Thank you everyone for the incredible support and words of encouragement on my posts about sobriety! I am just blown away by your virtual love. Regular Sierra just wants to go hide under some blankets now, and call it a month… Sober Sierra says, “No,” though.
I wish I could be cool and say putting my truth out there is easy. It’s just me being me! Authenticity rules! Since I can’t be a unicorn, I’m gonna be myself!
But it is a little scary to write about such things for the “general” public. I’ve told many of these stories in the rooms of my 12-step program, but there, I know I am safe. I am among my people. We speak our experiences with little explanation and often, no context. And yet we feel immediately understood. It is the magic of alcoholics and addicts sharing with one another. Connection. Fellowship.
But telling our stories to “normies” (which I am assuming many of you are) is always risky. “Normies” – that is what we addicts and alcoholics call you people who have a “normal” relationship with alcohol. Cute, right?
I don’t really know what it means though, because I’ve never had a normal relationship with alcohol. Apparently it suggests that you haven’t googled how much hand sanitizer could get you high without tearing your stomach apart or gotten drunk on cooking vanilla or hid your alcohol bottles in your laundry baskets. (Spoiler alert – alcoholics always hide their bottles in laundry baskets.)
See? If you read that last paragraph and internally gasped or nervously chuckled? You’re probably a “normie.” If you read it and laughed out loud and shook your head? You’re probably “one of us.” I mean, maybe not?… But probably. ;-)
Risky to say these things out loud.
OK. So I’m going to keep sharing the next 23ish days because it’s National Recovery Month, #Sweatember, and the marketer in me totally respects being on brand. Also, maybe you’ll read something that resonates or explains the confounding brain of an addict or helps you offer up love when you just want to serve someone a swift kick in the pants.
Maybe you’ll even feel compelled (or guilted?) in supporting my fundraising efforts for The Phoenix: https://fundraise4phoenix2020.funraise.org/fundraiser/sierra-catcott
All this to say – Thanks to you all, I am excited to do more but everytime I press “post” my heart is going to skip a couple of beats and my stomach is going to drop. Because, I’m certain, this time… THIS time, I’ve shared too much. I’ve taken too big of a risk.
Per usual, however, I’ll keep turning back to the wisdom of my personal patron saint, Mary Oliver, and you know what she says? “Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.”
Thanks for checking out this risky and wild place. I love it here.
thebustache 