Page 58 of All the Way to the River

S oon enough I had thirty days clean—which meant thirty days totally off my “bottom lines.”

I earned my first sobriety chip in a meeting that night, and my fellows cheered for me. Their joy in my hard-earned victory made me cry big, ugly tears down my tired but beaming face.

And the next morning, I was back in a meeting again.

God, I went to so many meetings during that time.

I went to twelve-step meetings twice a day when I could—and when there were no meetings available for sex and love addicts, I went to open meetings (meaning “meetings where all are welcome”) for alcoholics and drug addicts.

I went to meetings for family members of addicts, and I went to meetings for codependents.

I went to meetings for adult children of alcoholic and dysfunctional families, and I went to meetings for debtors and overspenders.

I learned just as much about my primary addiction from these other fellowships as I did from my own room.

It was becoming evident to me that addiction is addiction is addiction—that all the ways in which people binge, hoard, numb, act out, control, and self-medicate are just equally desperate attempts to cover up the same deep spiritual pain.

In fact, I don’t think there’s a single room in the twelve-step universe that I don’t relate to or qualify for, at some level or another, because my anxious mind never stops looking for ways to escape its host of human dilemmas.

The people I encountered in twelve-step recovery seemed so beautiful and poetic and inspiring to me that I often developed crushes on them.

(Of course I did! I’m a sex and love addict!) But whenever that happened, my sponsor would gently advise me to stop going to that room for a while—just to give myself the best chance of recovery without romantic distraction.

(“You will eventually learn how to avoid situations that put you in danger,” she said, “but until that day comes, you must protect your early sobriety by staying away from people who can trigger fantasy.”)

So I did as she suggested, and I managed not to hook up with anyone—recognizing, even in my newly sober state, that fishing for romantic contacts in a meeting for sex and love addicts might be the very definition of the phrase “defeating the purpose.”

It was all difficult, but something was happening within me.

Gradually, little by slowly, I was starting to feel well .

There’s an important difference, I think, between feeling good and feeling well .

The world is filled with things that can make me feel very, very good—but before I came into the rooms of recovery, I had never really felt well .

To me, feeling well is about feeling calm, stable, relaxed, connected, and perhaps even honorable.

It’s about being able to sleep through the night without needing to be sedated.

It’s about being able to digest your food, be present to your friends, and breathe.

It’s about feeling like every day has the right number of hours in it, and that your basic responsibilities are manageable.

It’s about being able to set boundaries that foster sanity.

It’s about a feeling of inherent value, and an absence of shame.

In the process of recovery, I discovered that it was possible for me to have days where I didn’t necessarily feel good , but I still somehow sensed that I was doing well —because I wasn’t using or acting out.

I was living in integrity even when it was difficult, and that was something to be proud of.

Soon I had sixty days clean.

It wasn’t easy. There were nights when I would wake up literally shaking and weeping, as some terribly lonely voice within me cried out, Bring someone to me! It’s not okay that we’re so alone! It’s not okay that we’re this upset! Somebody should be here with us!

I learned how to wrap myself in a blanket and rock myself while I cried and shook.

I learned how to gently say to that traumatized part of me, “Honey, I know exactly why you want me to go out there and get someone. I know exactly what you think you’ll get out of that.

But if you’ll recall, we’ve tried that before.

Remember all those times? And bringing someone else into this bed does work, you’re right, in that it heals the immediate loneliness and sorrow—but then it brings a whole bunch of other problems that just end up leaving us feeling more lost and abandoned than ever.

Remember that? Remember how that always happens? ”

I don’t care! the frightened inner voice said. I can’t bear this! I need someone!

“You have me,” I said aloud. “And we have God.”

That’s not enough people! And you and God aren’t even real! I need someone else! I need someone who’s real!

“God and I may not be real, sweetheart,” I would say, “but we’re the only ones here tonight. And we aren’t going to let you hurt yourself anymore, no matter what you demand.”

And so I would somehow get myself through another night, keeping my desperate voices company in the dark.

I took inspiration from stories Rayya had told me about her multitude of withdrawals.

I remembered how she talked about the time she finally put down drugs for good (well, almost for good) back in the early 1990s.

How she’d been released from a halfway house and had then moved back to Michigan for a while to get away from the familiar temptations of her drug-fueled life in New York City.

How she’d ended up living in a dark basement apartment, because it was all she could afford.

How she had to start her career all over again at a local salon, giving shampoos to old rich ladies and trimming people’s bangs.

(She, who had once styled top models for photo shoots for Vogue !

In Europe !) I remember how she told me that she gained weight when she got sober, and got depressed, and felt uglier than she’d ever been in her life.

How, most of all, she was bored as hell during withdrawal— so fucking bored .

But she didn’t use.

She stayed clean.

And over time, her life had gotten beautiful.

That’s when I had first met Rayya, in fact—right on the other side of that sober awakening, right when her life was getting beautiful. I remembered how radiant she had been back then, the first day I met her back in 2000—how proud of her clean time, how joyful about her life.

If she could do it, I could too.

Hell yeah, baby , I kept hearing Rayya say. Stay with it.

So, hell yeah, I stayed with it.

Then I got ninety days clean.

Never have I felt so proud.

There’s a reason addicts keep a day count, I began to understand. It’s because each day spent clean is like a pearl on a string. And you get to keep them all—until you become a pearl yourself.

It is a process that is not without its irritations, I’ll grant you that (ask any oyster), but I came to believe that it was all pointing toward the good and the beautiful.

Keep going , I heard Rayya say. You’re doing great.

So I stayed with it.

And little by little, I began to heal.