THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON REFINERY29.COM.

Excerpted from Girl Walks Out Of A Bar: A Memoir.

At about 2:00 p.m. one Friday, I rushed into my office at a law firm high above Times Square to call in my cocaine order for the weekend. I needed to beat the rush. I locked my office door behind me and whipped out my phone. My heart pounded with fear that one of the partners I worked with would call or come by before I could get to my dealer and get out of the office. If I caught a cab on Broadway before the real traffic started, I could be downtown in 20 minutes. There is nothing worse for a drug addict than running dry without knowing more is on the way. Now.

My brain was twisted. It told me that because I would be working through the weekend, I needed drugs. I was writing a proposal for work from a major bank that could earn the firm millions in fees if we were selected. A draft had to be circulated by Monday. With cocaine, I would have the focus of a laser pointer to get this done. 

I was 38 when I became addicted to cocaine. Booze, my first true love, had turned on me, threatening to take away my ability to hold down my job. Constantly hungover and no longer able to wait until after work for cocktails, I would slip out of the office at lunch to drink at bars. Upon my return, I would hide in my office for the rest of the afternoon, pretending to be hard at work. 

Morning drinking became the norm when it was the only way to stop the full-body tremors and sweats that woke me up each morning. I kept a glass of cheap red wine or vodka on my nightstand to slam down quickly while rubbing the sleep from my eyes. 

Instead of deciding to get help for what I painfully knew to be a catastrophic problem, I turned to cocaine. I did not view alcohol treatment as an option, in part because I feared being stigmatized at work as weak or unreliable. I had no tangible proof of this stigma, but I pictured a law firm partner considering two associates for staffing on a multi-billion dollar transaction. If the only differentiator was that one had been to rehab and one had not, whom would the partner choose?

That Friday, I called my most reliable dealer, listened for the beep, and then punched in my number for callback. I set the phone down in the middle of the papers on my desk and stared at it, willing it to ring. Buying drugs anywhere in Manhattan was as easy as ordering a pizza, but I couldn’t relax until I got that call.
 

“
BUYING DRUGS ANYWHERE IN MANHATTAN WAS AS EASY AS ORDERING A PIZZA

“

In fewer than five minutes, my cell rang, skittering across my desk as it vibrated. I melted into my ergonomically correct office chair with relief. Before speaking, I sat up straight and cleared my throat as if that would help me sound less desperate. “Hi,” I said, “It’s Lisa on 20th Street.”

“Oh hey, Lisa.” It was the usual female voice I heard on these calls. She sounded like she could be my age, maybe the woman in front of me getting coffee this morning. “It’ll be about an hour or two. That okay, hon?” She would pass my message to Henry, one of the service’s runners. He knew the address well, given the increasing frequency of my calls.

Henry was a good-looking, half-Greek, half-Cuban kid in his early 20s with wavy black hair, full red lips, and scruffy stubble. A part-time business student and a full-time drug dealer, Henry was a smart kid just stupid enough to convince himself that dealing was a good way to pay for school. He looked like any NYU or Fordham student on the street, which is why I never worried about my neighbors being suspicious of who he was when he delivered. He would almost always show up at my door with the New York Post in hand, complaining about Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. 

“Hey, Lisa, what’s going on?” Henry brushed past me into the apartment. He instinctively craned his neck all around to make sure I was the only one home, and I stood back to let him perform his inspection. This happened every time. 

“Not much,” I replied. “You busy today?” It was a rhetorical question, but I asked it every time. There aren’t exactly etiquette rules for conversing with your drug dealer. 

“Always busy, always busy,” Henry mumbled as he made himself comfortable on the couch and unzipped his backpack. I could never get a clear look at the full contents of that thing, although I did catch glimpses of a book or two. 

Not knowing exactly what Henry was dealing helped me block out the fact that he could be handing someone their fatal dose that night. I just needed my cocaine. Addiction had made me apathetic to strangers and family members alike. I missed celebrating the birth of my niece because, while I was riding in a Town Car to the hospital in New Jersey, Henry finally responded to a call I’d put in earlier that day. The driver looked confused when I asked him to return to my apartment, but I didn’t feel I owed anyone an explanation.

“Can I get an eight ball?” I asked. I handed him the beer and yanked together the heavy living room curtains. I had heard that if you could see the Empire State Building from your apartment, the government could spy on you. I could faintly make out the top of the building from my window, so I wasn’t taking chances. 

“Sure, sure. No problem,” he said, pulling out seven miniature plastic bags that each held about a half gram of cocaine, some of it already crushed into a powder. I put $250 on the coffee table, and he counted it. Coming up with the money was never an issue. I made a great salary, lived in a rent-stabilized apartment, and had stopped spending on “extravagances” such as new clothes and vacations. There was also the money I saved by no longer contributing to my firm’s 401(k) retirement plan. I assumed I’d be dead by age 40, so I didn’t need a nest egg.

I couldn’t wait a second longer to open a bag of coke. “Do you want a bump?” I asked him as I spilled about half the contents of one bag onto the mirror I had taken down from the wall.

“Sure, just a quick one, though. I need to roll,” he said. I cut a few lines on the mirror with my American Express Gold Card and handed Henry a cut off straw. Guests should go first, I thought, although my palms were sweating in anticipation and my knee bounced up and down. He sniffed two quick lines off the mirror and chugged his beer. 

Before he could finish his cigarette, Henry’s cell phone was buzzing with his next call. “Gotta go,” he said. He zipped up his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the door. 

“Thanks so much for coming,” I said, as if I had hosted a fancy dinner party.

“Yeah, yeah. See you next time.” He was staring at his phone as he walked out. As soon as he cleared the doorway, I triple-locked the door and let out a long sigh of relief. It would be more than 60 hours before I ventured out of my apartment, ate a full meal, or even took a shower. On Monday morning, I had a debilitating headache, a stomach about to retch, and a glass of vodka sitting on my nightstand. I also had a winning business proposal. 

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON FREEDOMFROMADDICTION.COM.

Lisa F. Smith is a writer and lawyer in New York City with more than 12 years of sobriety from alcohol and cocaine. Now the Deputy Executive Director of a Manhattan law firm, she previously practiced corporate finance law at a leading international law firm. Smith is a graduate of Northwestern University and Rutgers School of Law. She serves on the Board of Directors of the NY Writers Coalition and The Writers Room.

Smith spiraled into alcoholism and drug addiction early in her legal career. The pressure and the responsibilities of big firm practice were overwhelming and the need to excel too great. Alcohol and drugs provided her escape. Smith also suffered from an undiagnosed depressive disorder, which she self-medicated with alcohol and cocaine.

After ten years of daily drinking, Smith feared she was dying and checked herself into a hospital for a five-day medicated detox. Although doctors urged her to next complete a 28-day program, she refused. It would have meant being honest with her law firm about her illness and Smith feared the stigma of addiction. She immediately returned to work and began intensive outpatient treatment in the evenings, as well as 12-step meetings.

Years later Smith began sharing her story. She began to write publicly about her addiction and recovery. When she told her work colleagues, the response was supportive and compassionate. Although difficult to share, Smith realized sharing her truth was necessary. She is working hard to rouse conversation about the social stigma and culture of substance abuse within the legal community. Her memoir, “Girl Walks out of a Bar,” will be published on June 7th.

FFA: When did you realize you needed help and how did you ultimately ask for it? How did rehab and the recovery process change your life? Do you have any resources to share with us that have helped you?

LS: I had been an alcoholic for more than 10 years and using cocaine daily for about a year. I had known for years that I needed help but was terrified at the thought. As awful as drugs and alcohol were, the prospect of life without them was even scarier. One Monday morning in 2004, after I had stayed up drinking and doing coke all weekend while working on a client proposal, I thought I was going to die. I was physically sick, emotionally destroyed, and out of drugs. I was dressed for work, laptop in hand when something snapped in me. I said, “I need help.” I checked myself into a detox where I learned about the disease of addiction and that for me to recover, I would need to be abstinent going forward. My life changed in every way possible, including many ways that I couldn’t have imagined, all for the better. I stopped hating myself and became a person I could respect when I looked in the mirror. Twelve-step programs have been essential in my recovery.

FFA:Tell us about your book Girl Walks Out of a Bar? What impact do you hope that your book has on the legal field?

LS: My memoir follows my descent into and recovery from addiction as a high-functioning lawyer in big New York firms. I feel fortunate to be in a position to speak up about this problem. I hope someone will read my story, maybe spot similar behaviors or thought patterns in themselves or someone they love, and do something to stop the progression of the disease before it takes them where I went.

FFA: What can be done within the legal profession to assist those who need help but are afraid to ask for it?

LS: A recent study conducted by the American Bar Association together with Hazelden Betty Ford showed that younger lawyers are at the highest risk of substance abuse. Therefore, education on these issues from the start is necessary. Alcoholism and drug addiction frequently co-exist with underlying mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, which many lawyers experience. They need to know there’s confidential help. There are Lawyers Assistance Committees at bar associations and Employee Assistance Programs offered by employers. Also, law firm orientations for new lawyers should include discussions of addiction and mental health issues.

FFA: How do you deal with your depression and anxiety now?            

LS: When I was in detox, I was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, something I never realized I had. It was likely at the root of why I self-medicated myself with food first, then drugs and alcohol for so many years. Now I treat my depression with prescription medication under the care of healthcare professionals. I also attend 12-step meetings regularly and stay close to others in recovery.

Lisa recognizes there are many like her struggling with addiction in the law firms everywhere. She believes, “the conversation about substance abuse among lawyers needs to be structured and ongoing.” She wants to provide information and educate young lawyers to help them understand that if they need help it’s okay. For more about Lisa Smith’s her road to recovery and overcoming addiction be sure to get a copy of her memoir, “Girl Walks out of a Bar,” this month.

Freedom From Addiction is an online community, support network and resource that seeks to reduce stigma. The organization encourages anyone struggling with alcohol abuse or any addiction to seek help. For more information, visit www.freedomfromaddiction.com/

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

Almost 12 years ago, when I walked out the door of the detox unit after five days, I felt relief. In addition to alcoholism and cocaine addiction, I had been diagnosed with “Major Depressive Disorder” and put on an antidepressant. The detox doctor explained that my round-the-clock use of drugs and alcohol likely began as an attempt to self-medicate. When I really thought about it, I realized that even when I was a kid with a gloomy brain, I found relief in the form of a half-gallon of vanilla fudge ice cream and a spoon.

Freshly detoxed and armed with my diagnosis, medication and a commitment to How to Deal With Depression in Sobriety attend outpatient rehab, I was released back into the wilds of New York City to navigate life as a sober person. Theoretically, my depression would be alleviated, allowing me to feel peace in my head without resorting to drugs and alcohol. For the most part, it worked. It would have been helpful, though, if someone had warned me that despite my consistent practice of the new regime, I could (and would) have periodic depression relapses. I learned the hard way that even when life was going great, depression, much like addiction, could raise its ugly head. Despite doing everything right, sometimes I sink back into the mental cesspool. In the past it led me to reach for a liter of Absolut vodka and gram of cocaine.

Depression feels different to each sufferer, but for me, it tends to announce its arrival in the form of overwhelming exhaustion. I feel as if I’m moving underwater—an unseen force seems to resist every effort to lift my arm or move my feet. When I start to get out of bed, it’s as if there is a giant squid under my mattress and it has wrapped its tentacles around me, dragging me downward. Next, the tears start, not because something happened, but because everything happened. There’s no point in being here. Little blackout scrims fall behind my eyeballs, making it impossible to see the world as anything but dark. I can barely get through the day.

So what is a sober girl to do when she goes to 12-step meetings and takes her antidepressants religiously, yet still gets sucked into the black hole of depression? Having gone through these episodes of depression in sobriety more times than I can count, I have learned a few helpful approaches that don’t involve the dive bar across the street from my apartment.

The first thing I have to do is accept it, just like I accept my addiction. When I see and feel the signs of a depression relapse coming on, the best thing I can do is acknowledge its arrival, not try to swim upstream against it. Willing myself not to be depressed and trying to act like it’s not happening does not make it go away. When I’m feeling hopeless, I remind myself that like every other time I’ve had this kind of relapse—this too shall pass. I just don’t know exactly when.

Living with a depressive episode when it has stolen space in my head is tricky. I have to remember that feelings are not facts. Just because my brain keeps telling me that I suck and life is pointless, doesn’t mean it’s true. I have to trust that the hard work I’ve done in sobriety means perhaps I’m not as terrible and the world is not as awful as it seems in the moment. Easier said than done, but if I can convince myself of this, even a little bit, it can slow the downward spiral.

In a depression relapse, interactions with (seemingly) not depressed humans around me are challenging. When someone says, “Are you okay? You seem out of sorts,” I typically tell them I’m a little under the weather, which is true. The few times I’ve said, “I’m just feeling really down right now,” I have received a response along the lines of, “Cheer up! You have nothing to be sad about!” Which, naturally, makes me want to chug a liter of tequila and then break the bottle over the person’s head. So, I’ve learned there’s no need to offer details to other people.

Avoiding them is tough, though, when I have to be in the office all day. So when the end of the day rolls around, I allow myself to do exactly what I need to keep myself out of the liquor store. It may mean breaking dinner plans because I can’t be social, skipping the gym because I feel wiped out, eating a pint of frozen yogurt for dinner, and yes, sometimes blowing off my 12-step meeting to climb into bed. I know a professional would probably advise me to make better choices for three of these actions. Eating well, exercising and going to meetings are all things that would probably help my depressive episode to pass. But, screw that, if I’m depressed, I want Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked Frozen Yogurt. As long as it’s not Stoli, I’m feel like I’m ahead. It’s a good time to remember that any day I don’t drink is a perfect day.

When I fall back into depression, it’s usually lasts about a week. I slowly start to feel myself coming around and getting back to normal. But I pay close attention and if it’s more than a week, I call my doctor. An adjustment to my medication may not be necessary, but I don’t feel equipped to make that call either way. My doctor does, so I leave it to him. When the dark feelings start to lift, I still err on the side of caution for a week or two, not overloading my schedule or putting myself in uncomfortable situations that I can avoid.

I’ve learned to accept that, like alcoholism and drug addiction, depression is a chronic condition and I have to be vigilant about watching for relapses and taking care of myself through them. There’s nothing noble in trying to “power through” depression. My inclination would be closer to staying in bed for a week, but that’s not possible for me and my guess is that seven days in the sack would make me even more miserable.

Now when I see the black clouds forming, I take a deep breath and brace for the oncoming storm. I clear anything unnecessary off my calendar to give myself maximum flexibility. I skip the social phone calls, but I do talk to sober folks. I let myself sleep when I’m tired. And I pity anyone standing between my friends Ben & Jerry and me.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

As a kid, when adults warned me about the dangers of “gateway drugs,” I imagined the pearly gates of heaven manned by a skeleton in a black robe beckoning me with a bony finger. If I dared to take just one puff of pot, I would find myself locked out of heaven and hooked on heroin. I would never be normal again—instead, becoming one of those terrifying creatures they spoke of in hushed tones, a “drug addict.” Never mind that the adults imparting this wisdom probably held martinis in their hands and slowly exhaled Winston cigarette smoke as they spoke.

Little did I know, before I hit the age of 10, I would already be hooked on my gateway drug: food. When I ate (and ate and ate) the anxiety and sadness that plagued me as a kid melted away for a little while. I had no idea why. I just knew it worked. So, despite becoming an overweight kid who was teased regularly, I couldn’t get my hand out of the cookie jar. I also discovered young that sips of cocktails I furtively snuck at my parents’ parties afforded me the same relief from the noise in my head as chocolate glazed doughnuts. At the time, I considered that a good thing, even though I knew only adults were supposed to drink.

I never thought I needed to worry about my massive consumption of ice cream or my indulgence in the occasional half-empty vodka tonic. Any mention of drugs and the importance of staying away from a dangerous “gateway,” focused solely on marijuana. By the time I ignored the warnings and smoked pot, I was already well-versed in the ways a giant sugar hit, several long swigs from a jug of wine, or even a couple of Marlboro Reds could alter my mood. Looking back, it seems curious that marijuana, a substance that made me sleepy, hungry and paranoid, was the one so forcefully vilified.

The reasons behind singling out marijuana or any one specific substance may not matter. A recent article in The Washington Post cited studies showing that the important factor determining whether young people turn to harder drugs is the age at which they first use illicit drugs—not the substance. The earlier kids start using anything, including the most common drug, alcohol, the more likely they are to move on to harder stuff.

This made perfect sense to me. I believe what doctors have been telling me since I got sober in 2004: I have a chemical imbalance in my brain that makes me depressed and anxious. I first started self-medicating it as a kid with food, then moved on to alcohol, pot and cocaine—in that order. Each one provided a bit of relief in one form or another. It was never a question of, “Well, since I already smoked pot, I might as well shoot some heroin.” It was just a matter of grabbing whatever was handy to get me out of my head. Drinking and drugs made me feel better, less uncomfortable in my own skin. The substances I chose were less relevant than the effect I was chasing—shutting up my negative and anxiety-ridden thoughts.

Now in recovery, I treat my chemical imbalance with antidepressants and a 12-stepprogram that keeps me from needing other substances for relief. I’m perfectly happy accepting this is how it will be for me and I’ll stay on medication for the rest of my life. To me, it is no different than taking any other medication I need for a chronic condition.

For me, the concept of a specific gateway drug doesn’t fit. I don’t believe that because I experimented with alcohol and marijuana, I went on to become a cocaine addict. I think I had a predisposition toward addiction, thanks to my brain chemistry. I ended up in an environment that exacerbated it and allowed it to flourish. I have plenty of friends who experimented for years with alcohol and drugs, yet never became addicts. I, on the other hand, was an accident waiting to happen.

I think my “gateway” could have been anything. Without addressing my underlying issues, it would have inevitably led me down the road to full blown addiction. That’s one of the many reasons that I know I can never drink safely. Complete abstinence is the only route for me. I have to remember that I never had one drink. I had three, then called my coke dealer and then had ten more along with all the coke I could consume. If I were to pick up a drink today, I have no doubt that the slogan I heard in a meeting several years ago, “ABC: Alcohol Becomes Cocaine,” would apply. I would see that little sign at the bottom of my third drink that says, “Call your dealer.”

When I bottomed out, I was drinking and using coke around the clock. Somehow, I was fortunate enough to get help that allows me to live a great life without drugs and alcohol, one day at a time. The substances themselves were never at the root of my particular problem, though. My brain was. Whether I was using booze or coke to get relief made no difference. But they both had to be eliminated in order for me to treat my underlying issue, major depressive disorder, in a healthy way. Any substance or behavior I would have picked up as a kid to escape from my head was destined to be my gateway drug. And just to be on the safe side, I’m still very careful around chocolate glazed doughnuts.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

Before I got sober, I never met a New Year’s resolution I didn’t consider. If a magazine screamed “This New Year, Go From Fat to Fit in 30 Days,” I bought it. If a talk show claimed to teach me how to get organized, save money or find true love, I watched it. The only exception to this rule, and the promise I never saw on a magazine rack or late-night ad was “Stop Drinking, Drugging, and Destroying Your Life!” That was the change I really needed.

Sometimes my resolutions would come close to addressing the actual problem. I resolved not to drink at lunch, get wasted at family holiday celebrations or call my coke dealer more than once a week. They were all attempts at getting under control something that was far beyond it. For 10 years before I got sober I knew I was an alcoholic, but the last thing I wanted to do was stop drinking, even though it made me miserable and was slowly killing me. I wanted to negotiate with my addiction, to say, “You be nice to be me and I’ll be nice to you. We don’t have to break up. We just need to spend some of our time apart.” But addiction wasn’t having it. It was all or nothing. I could resolve that on January 1st I would stop opening a second bottle of wine by myself on weeknights, but I could never come close. In fact, I was normally so hungover on New Year’s Day that I would start drinking early and have the second bottle already open by 7 pm, less than 24 hours into the new year.

The month I finally got sober was April. It wasn’t thanks to a New Year’s resolution; it was thanks to the fact that I thought I might die and decided I didn’t want that to happen after all. I asked for help and I got it. It was the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done. Recovery has given me a new, wonderful life and made me a better human being.

So why do I still think that when the calendar page turns to January, I need to start becoming a different “improved” person? Why am I wondering if this should be the year that I resolve to get back to the gym four days a week or eat only organic vegetables? Or both?

It seems that no matter how hard I try to practice “progress, not perfection,” my brain still wants to go for perfection. Couldn’t I sign up for a half-marathon and run it if I really tried? Couldn’t I stop throwing frozen dinners in the microwave every night and learn how to cook?

But I have to wonder whether I want to do these things because deep in my heart I believe they will make me happy or whether I just think they’re things a perfect person would do. If I’m honest, I think the best part about running a half marathon would be telling other people about it and having them be impressed with me. I certainly have no interest in the discipline and training that would be required. If it rained on the day of the race, I know I’d want to bail out entirely.

And the truth is that after a long day in the office, I don’t want to start cooking some heart-healthy, locally sourced dinner. I want to put on my pajamas and catch up on The Daily Show. If I feel like being fancy, I’ll take the frozen dinner out of its tray and put it on an actual plate. That makes me perfectly happy. So why the resolution to cook? Because I think other people will be impressed or like me more or something along those lines if I tell them that I cook.

I realize that this means I have some work to do on myself. But it doesn’t involve running or cooking. If I want to make a resolution, it should be to accept myself for who I am—a sober woman who takes care of herself and does the best she can (most of the time). Early in sobriety, my sponsor told me that what other people think of me is none of my business. The idea that after having finally put down the bottle and the drugs, I would put pressure on myself to try to impress others in irrelevant ways is ridiculous, though very human, I suppose. I don’t need to get others’ approval to like myself anymore. I just need to do the next right thing.

This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t exercise more regularly or eat healthier food. It just means that I should do those things because they’ll make me feel better, and I want to take good care of myself. It’s the change-everything-on-January-1st model that is the problem. My resolutions in sobriety don’t have to be all or nothing, the way they were during my active addiction. Any changes I make can be gradual.

For me, it’s probably also not a great idea to attempt any new routines starting on January 1st. Chances are that I’ll need to cut myself a little slack after going through the holiday season, which I always find challenging. It will also be the dark dead of winter, my least favorite time of year.

No matter what it is or when I start, I should take any changes I make the way I take my sobriety—one day at a time. I have never said that I will never drink again. Rather, I wake up each morning and say, “I’m not going to drink, just for today.” I can treat my exercise and food habits the same way.

I should also remember all of the years that I woke up on January 1st feeling disgusting, sick and miserable. (I use the term “woke up” lightly; I probably had done so much coke on New Year’s Eve that I never went to sleep.) It’s a perfect time to look back, but not stare, at what life was like before, and find gratitude that I don’t have to live like that anymore.

For the most part, I’m proud of what I did and how I behaved in the past year. It doesn’t mean I deserve a prize, but it does mean that I don’t have to run a miserable half marathon the morning after carb-loading on a vegan lasagna that I made from scratch in order to feel good about myself. And I can be grateful, more than anything, for another New Year’s Day sober.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

One of the best things about getting sober was no longer waking up sick to my stomach with a throbbing head and major regrets about the night before. I was thrilled to put hangovers in the rearview mirror. That is, of course, until I experienced my first emotional hangover in sobriety.

After I stopped drinking and using cocaine, I traveled along on a puffy pink cloud for the first few months. I thought that getting clean and sober would solve everything. And the truth was, it did solve a lot. Sure, I had moments of frustration and anger along the way. I moaned about the fact that I had to change my routines with my friends. I whined about not wanting to go to a meeting when I knew I needed to. But after some complaining to my sponsor, screaming into my pillow and smoking an extra couple of cigarettes, I usually got back on track pretty quickly. For the vast majority of the time I was grateful and, dare I say, happy.

It wasn’t until midway through the holiday season of my first year of sobriety that I woke up one morning feeling different, and not in a good way. It was a Friday—the morning after my office holiday party. Nothing horrible had happened. Quite the contrary, I had used every tool in my kit to get through it without suffering. I called my sponsor before going to the party, arrived late and left early, made sure I ate before I went and called my sponsor again on the way home. I hadn’t had a drink, nor had I even been tempted by one.

Despite making it past a major obstacle, when I woke up the next morning my head and my limbs felt heavy. I didn’t want to get out of bed. A palpable gloom had come over me and there was a lump in my gut. Even after I took a shower, I felt exhausted and clammy. It reminded me of how I used to feel when I drank heavily the night before. There was the dreaded sense that I had done something awful, but my brain hadn’t yet come around to tell me exactly what it was. In those days, checking voicemail scared me because there was always a good chance I’d learn about some humiliation from the prior evening.

But I hadn’t done or said anything stupid on the night of the office party. I clearly remembered coming home—a first for one of these events. Tucked away in bed before 10:00 p.m., I had been proud of myself. So why did I feel terrible? I took this question to a meeting.

“You’re having an emotional hangover,” one of the women said to me after the meeting. Seriously? I thought.There’s a new kind of hangover I have to deal with? What could possibly make me feel as bad in the morning as having downed 12 vodkas and a gram of blow the night before?  She explained that even when we get through challenging or emotionally powerful situations without drinking, we might be left with a residual mental and physical reaction that feels alarmingly close to a booze hangover. It doesn’t matter whether the trigger is related to work or family or anything else, we can have that same miserable feeling.

That morning, it was the combined effect of the suppressed dread about going to the party, the fake happy face I had to put on to get though it and the time spent watching a bunch of people getting drunk. I was so busy trying to breeze through the night as if it were no big deal that I failed to recognize the toll it was taking on me. The inevitable crash left me feeling as if I drank hard the night before.

I’ve had the same kinds of emotional hangovers on mornings after having a vivid drunk dream or spending psychologically taxing times with family or friends. More often than not, I can look back and see that I could have taken better care of myself. Usually it was about the HALT triggers—I let myself get hungry, angry, lonely, and/or tired.

Sometimes I can take myself out of situations I know are likely to leave me emotionally vulnerable. For example, I don’t go to the office holiday party every year. When co-workers cajole me, my answer is, “Sorry, I can’t make it this year.” I try to bow out of conversations that get gossipy, too, because I know that later I’ll feel like I drank two bottles of wine on an empty stomach with no sleep. (I know this because I keep doing it. I’m far from perfect.)

Other circumstances that trigger me are unavoidable. For instance, I still hate parties. Being among a group of people holding wine and cocktails in their hands does something to me that in 11 years of sobriety, I haven’t gotten past. Maybe one day that will change, but for now, it is what it is. So, while I do my best to avoid them, there are occasions when I can’t be the hermit and I need to show up. One of my worst emotional hangovers happened the morning after my wedding. At the party, I was thrilled that everyone was having a great time and I didn’t resent their pretty glasses of wine. But, the next morning, I felt like a beast that had been poked and prodded overnight. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had seen fangs in my mouth when I looked in the mirror.

For me, the fact that emotional hangovers are occasionally inevitable, the same way that drunk dreams and resentments are inevitable, helps me to accept them. If I can do that, recognize what’s happening and try to work through why, pretty soon it will pass. It always does. At least this kind of hangover doesn’t require three Bloody Marys, four groveling apologies and a fistful of Advil to cure.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

At my first few 12-step meetings, what people were willing to share about life before they got sober fascinated me. Whenever a story started about a weeklong bender or a dramatic showdown with family, I leaned forward in my chair and furrowed my brow, intent on not missing a word. These people did the same kinds of things I did, I thought. I can talk to them without shame.

I eagerly jumped in. In no time, I was recounting the cringe-inducing behavior I engaged in before I got sober—from all of the barstools I swore must have been greased before I fell off of the them, to the family holidays I spent spouting off the same story seven times, and, finally, to landing on a locked-down detox unit. The list was miles long, but no one seemed to mind listening. It was a massive relief to not feel judged or humiliated by my past. Once those truths were out there, they lost their power to destroy my self-esteem. I was even able to laugh about the fact that I justified drinking at 6 am by reminding myself that it was noon in France and people drank at lunch there, so I wasn’t the only one drinking.

But then I started noticing that people in meetings were also sharing tales of the not-so-perfect things they did in sobriety. Suddenly, I was confused. If that lady’s been sober for five years then why is she still having temper tantrums in the office? I know we claim progress, not perfection, but what is that? I’m certainly not copping to that kind of behavior if I ever act out like that. I listened warily as I heard person after person come clean about overreactions and dramatic episodes that happened years after they put down the drink. It got to the point that when I would hear the words, “I need to tell on myself,” my ears would perk up.

As a kid, I loved to tell on other people. I freely admit that. I was an insecure little girl who felt better about myself by getting other people in trouble. Run to the teacher to rat out the eight-year old boy who pulled another girl’s hair? Yep. Tell the camp counselor about the kid who took crayons home after yesterday’s art period? That would be me. And it didn’t matter how many times the adults would respond with, “Nobody likes a tattletale, Lisa.” I didn’t care. Other people’s bad behaviors made me feel superior. Thirty years later, sitting in detox, I had to admit that maybe I wasn’t so superior after all.

So how exactly would I become a person who could tell on myself in a 12-step meeting, of all places? Wasn’t this where I was supposed to be a better human being? What would other people think of me if they actually knew what happened inside my supposedly sober head? I thought about how I hated every single stranger on the subway platform most mornings. Would that make me sound like a total maniac? How could I admit that when the pharmacist told me my prescription would take five more minutes, I curled my lip up at her, rolled my eyes, and asked, “Seriously? What is the problem with getting it ready when it’s supposed to be ready?” I also stomped my foot. Can I really claim to be a changed person if I still act like a petulant toddler? If people knew the real me, I thought, they’d never like me.

Based on what I saw in the rooms, though, it was undeniable that people were getting real relief by ratting out their own non-sober reactions to life on life’s terms. No one was judging them. Rather, many people were nodding their heads in agreement at stories of chewing out co-workers as well as innocent bystanders. In fact, I admired their ability to tell the truth and own it. Just like with bad behavior pre-sobriety, putting it out into the open somehow removed the power those actions and thoughts had on people going forward. It made me think of something I had heard—we’re only as sick as our secrets.

One morning, “rigorous honesty” was the meeting topic. Maybe I hadn’t had enough caffeine, maybe I was coming down with the flu, or maybe I had just become willing to let people to see that I wasn’t the first person ever to practice the program perfectly, but I spoke the truth. When it was my turn to share, I said, “If I’m rigorously honest, I have to admit that I’m having an awful week at work and if there had been a bottle of vodka in my freezer this morning, I’m pretty sure I would have chugged half of it. In fact, I wished it were there. This morning, the obsession to drink did not feel lifted. Not at all. I don’t feel like being sober today. I don’t want to be in this meeting. I wish I could drink.” It just fell out of my mouth. And it felt great. Vocalizing those feelings didn’t solve my work problems, but suddenly a drink didn’t seem like the answer to them either.

Now I am a big fan of telling on myself in meetings. Not only does it provide the relief of unburdening myself of a secret, it also does so in a quick and painless way. If I were to confess to wanting to drink to my sponsor, we would be digging into some step work to get to the bottom of it. This could take weeks. If I floated it to my therapist, we’d have material for a month and it would likely continue to pop up indefinitely in forms such as, “Maybe that was what made you want to drink last time?”

No, the beauty of dumping my bad behavior and dangerous thoughts in a meeting is that often times it’s out there, and then it’s over. Sure, someone may approach me after the meeting to see if I want to get coffee and talk about it. Or I might get a few calls or texts checking up on me later in the day. And all that is helpful. But it doesn’t have to become a major event. It can be just another fact in another day of another alcoholic, trying to stay sober one day at a time.

So yes, five-years-sober lady who melted down at work, I understand where you’re coming from. And I’ll make sure to let you know when it happens to me. 

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON AFTER PARTY MAGAZINE.

On the day before Halloween, I walked into a stationery store to grab a birthday card. I expected the place to be filled with season-appropriate fake cobwebs, cardboard black cats and plastic jack-o-lanterns. I was wrong. The witches and goblins had been shunted to a back corner and the store had already been taken over by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s decorations. Cards, wrapping paper and holiday knick-knacks filled the tables and walls. And there were plenty of prominently displayed books about the cheeriest holiday cocktails for your big party. Oh no, I thought. They’re already here. And it’s still 70 degrees in New York City! I wanted to give crêpe-paper Santa the finger.

When I first got into recovery, I was warned about surviving the holidays sober. One of the old-timers at my morning meeting started talking early in November about what she called, “The Alcoholic’s Bermuda Triangle,” Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Please, I thought. Isn’t that a little dramatic? I had survived Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Those were my big three, when my friends were all soaking in sun and partying at the beach. I hadn’t dared test my newfound sobriety with them. It had been a long summer, but I was feeling great. The holidays couldn’t be much worse, right?

As it turned out, they were much worse. Carrying a string bean casserole into my cousin’s house with my parents on Thanksgiving, I slipped on some icy stairs and landed hard on my back. “I’m okay! I’m okay!” I insisted, as they fawned over me and helped me up. Fifteen minutes later, I was sobbing in the bathroom. I’d like to say it was because my back hurt. In truth, it was because as soon as I fell, all I wanted was to go straight to the bar set up for the dinner and start chugging out of the vodka bottle. Instead, I ate double helpings of at least three desserts. Not exactly a success story, but I got through the day without drinking.

I wrapped up that first holiday season with a screaming tirade at the friend who was kind enough to spend a quiet New Year’s Eve with me. He had committed the cardinal sin of daring to drink a single glass of champagne. Let’s just say it was a relief to go back to work after the New Year and put the whole miserable season behind me.

Since that first year, though, I’ve learned a few tricks that have helped me to handle the festivities with a little more grace. It starts with bumping up my program. The holidays are coming whether I like it or not, so I might as well be prepared. While each one is, “just another day,” the cumulative effect of the season, with its constant pressure to shop, travel and socialize—often with people whom I find challenging—is exhausting. I have to take care of myself.

For me, this means going to more meetings, talking to more sober friends and keeping my prayer and meditation routine on track. As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. If I can go into the holidays (which according to Hallmark, now start on November 1st) in a good place mentally and spiritually, I have a better shot at getting through, and possibly even enjoying, the season.

When in doubt, I do service. One of the best parts of my recovery is my commitment to take a meeting to a locked-down detox/rehab facility one Saturday a month. That meeting is never more important to me than it is in November and December. There’s gratitude to be found in the opportunity to make the day a little easier for people who are likely not having their best Christmas. It’s also a huge reminder that if I don’t do the things I need to do in order to stay sober, I’ll end up right back in one of the detox beds I found myself in when I bottomed out. When I hear the door click behind me as I leave the unit each month, I’m thankful.

Doing service also puts perspective on the overblown emotions and resentments that tend to bubble up starting right around Thanksgiving. I’m upset about the fact that I have to drink seltzer and cranberry at my office holiday party? Maybe it’s time to make a phone call to the newcomer I met last week and see if she would like to hit a meeting and have a coffee. Maybe my problems aren’t the big deal they feel like in the moment. If I get out of my own head, I feel better every time.

I remind myself “No,” is a complete sentence. Being sober allows me to make choices every day, choices I couldn’t make when I was chained to the bottle and the mirror lined with cocaine. I get to decide whether or not to participate in the parties and other activities that surround the holidays. I first read that, “’No,’” is a complete sentence on the wall of a meeting. Now I use it all the time. A friend might ask, “Do you want to join a bunch of us for a holiday dinner at that place we used to go to?” While I might dress it up with, “I’m having a busy week,” or, “I’ve got too much on my plate,” the answer can still be, “no,” even if what’s on my plate is catching up on Homeland. I find relief in not feeling that I have to do anything other than take the next right action for me and protect my sobriety.

I’m not alone. For all of the craziness surrounding the holidays, it’s remarkable how easy it is to still feel alone. There have been years I found myself doing nothing but isolating as much as possible between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Sometimes I had put up a wall between the rest of the world and me and sometimes I just found myself without a lot of things to do.

The best years have been the ones where I’ve been able to find some balance. Yes, I have to show up to the office holiday party, but I can get there late and leave early. And no, I don’t have to go the New Year’s Day brunch if I want to catch up on sleep and watch movies. The only thing I have to do is to put first things first and not pick up a drink or a drug, one day at time. Now, where’s that pumpkin pie?

This article first appeared on Addiction.com.

“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

While those of us going through a 12-step program can talk through step five with anyone we trust, I chose my sponsor, as do many people in recovery. As a fellow alcoholic/addict, she seemed to be the person most able to understand the “exact nature of [my] wrongs.” In step five, the aim is to come clean about past transgressions, which could range from thoughtless petty actions to long-buried sordid secrets. It made sense in theory; I’d usually felt relief in getting things off my chest in the past. However, in the past it had not been these particular things, the most unappealing and unflattering facts about myself I had to offer.

The source material for my step five came from writing out my step four —“a searching and fearless moral inventory.” For that step, my sponsor had given me forms with columns on them that helped me to organize my thoughts and identify situations and patterns of my own behavior that were troublesome. At the same time, this exercise set forth in black-and-white the variety of problems I had created for myself and hurtful things I’d done to others around me. It wasn’t easy, but it was enlightening.

By the time I was done with step four, I was painfully aware of my “potential areas for improvement,” as I might have heard it put in a performance review at work. Less diplomatically said, it was time to ‘fess up all of the selfish, nasty and offensive behavior in which I had previously engaged.

Beginning the Work of Step Five

My sponsor lived in a high-rise building in New Jersey, straight across the Hudson River from Manhattan. I arrived at her place early on a Saturday morning armed with my step four forms for discussion, a giant wad of clean tissues and a full pack of cigarettes. I anticipated a long day. My sponsor was even more prepared than I was: She had ready a 12-pack of Diet Coke, two different kinds of SnackWell’s cookies and a back-up pack of cigarettes.

We started with the Serenity Prayer, which is how we always begin step-work sessions. Then she repeated something that she told me when we first started working together. It had given me great comfort at the time and I now say it to any new sponsee I start working with as well: “Remember,” she told me, “there is absolutely nothing you can say that will make me mad at you or judge you as a human being.” It’s a simple statement, but one that allows for complete soul-baring in a way that I just cannot do with other people. This has always been a centerpiece of sponsorship for me — the existence of this safe space to say anything, no matter how despicable-sounding.

We spent close to six hours that day not just going over the list of awful things I’d done and said in the past, but also digging into why I had done and said them. It’s different for everyone, but my particular motivations almost always traced back to the same fears and insecurities I had carried around since childhood. I did things like lying, backstabbing and pushing others out of the way to get what I wanted not because I thought I deserved what I was after. Rather, I learned, the opposite was true. I didn’t believe that I was good enough or deserving enough to succeed on my own merits, so I’d take what I could from someone else. Screw the other person. It wasn’t pretty stuff. A lot of it fell somewhere between inconsiderate and unforgiveable on the selfishness scale.

As promised, my sponsor didn’t chastise or criticize me for any of the things I admitted. In fact, she shared some stories of her own past that weren’t so different than mine. I also didn’t feel like I was being psychoanalyzed. It wasn’t a confession; it was a conversation.

By the time I headed back into Manhattan at the end of the day, I felt as if I had just crawled out from underneath a gorilla that had been sitting on my chest. The relief didn’t come solely from telling someone else all the terrible secrets I’d been hiding. It also came from getting some understanding of why I had done those things and what I could work on to avoid those actions in the future. At that point in my sobriety, I had come to care about what type of a person I was, something I never cared about when I was drinking and blaming the rest of the world for my problems. Step work was helping me change how I thought about things and, therefore, acted.

Step five helped to dissolve the deep-seated feeling of isolation that came with so much hiding and lying. We say that “we’re only as sick as our secrets,” and now mine were out there, shared with someone I could trust. It wasn’t exactly like the blast of opening a freshly shaken can of soda, but pressure I hadn’t been able to articulate before was relieved, finally.

The other big bonus I discovered is that if I need to find humility, step five will get me there fast. Nothing will stomp out any creeping feelings of self-importance quite as firmly as running down the list of things I did when I was drinking. And if I can find humility, I can stop trying to direct everything in my life and those of the people around me. All I have to be is a friend among friends and a worker among workers. So far, I have found no better things to be.