While I still have many fond memories from those days, my life today is the life for me and one for which I am constantly, daily grateful.
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It's funny, there was someone who's met me in recent months who was surprised when they saw a photo of me with no facial hair.
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To that person, me living life the way I always had until last fall — no facial hair — was a mystery to her. And that is such a minor thing!
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But, for so many more people — including almost all of the people I interact with on a daily basis — they've never seen me drinking.
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That concept still blows my mind. For so long, "Chris drinking (really, Chris drunk)," was a part of knowing me, part of my persona.
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There were good times, sure. I hosted some great parties, met some wonderful people drunk at parties, met a few boyfriends even.
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But, from damn near the start, there were "issues." There were clear signs (that I long ignored) that this was not going to end well for me.
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One of the first times I got drunk (in college), I ended up missing a train (or bus?) to NYC for a work thing the next morning.
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Over time, though, I'd learn that was ~nothing~. I got in fist fights with my closest friends, I lied to people, I treated people horribly.
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(And, for those who've not met me, I should ~not~ be getting into fist fights.)
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And still, even as thing got worse, I avoided even considering the possibility that my problems had anything to do with my drinking.
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Even when I moved to DC — which happened after I'd been euphemistically "underemployed" for 9 months — things didn't really change.
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I once tried to flag down a cab on Connecticut Avenue and got into a guy's back seat — a guy who was ~NOT~ a cab driver.
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I probably should have ended up in jail that night, or he could have beaten the crap out of me, but someone was watching out for me.
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Some time later, I found out that driver was watching out for me that night: He was a sober guy, and he took me to a friend's place.
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But, even that night, & a similar night in NYC, didn't do it. It turned out that what did it for me was when I just couldn't do it anymore.
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That was June 27, 2010. As I told a friend later, I'd always had an excuse for my drinking: good things, bad things, stress, whatever.
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But, in late June 2010, I found that I had no such excuse, and yet that I was still as out of control as ever with my drinking.
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So, I started dealing with it. I talked to people, I found help, I stopped drinking, and — eventually — I changed my way of living.
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My life over the years since has been such a gift. And that's not because it was all easy (it wasn't) or all good (it wasn't).
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Life has, however, been so ~different~ over these past sober years. ... Just knowing I won't black out or be hungover was a start.
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But since that became my new normal, so much more has come about because I was able to stop all of the lies that went along with all that.
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And, once that became normal, I was able to start dealing with still other things I'd been avoiding. It's just a constant building process.
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And, I'm slow! It took until this spring, for example, for me to really start focusing on my physical health consistently.
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Folks can joke with me about all of my social media-ing about my working out, but that has been very hard earned self-care.
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On Wednesday, I left work early to go to the gym before meeting a friend for dinner bc I'd not made it to the gym on Monday or Tuesday.
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That is a sentence I would not ever in my life have written until this year. I did, however, often leave work early to get to happy hour.
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Now, it's very different. You see me going to plays all the time. It's not that I'm rich. I've just not been buying drinks for 5+ years.
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Seriously, do the math. I was drinking a lot on a lot of nights of the week, plus drinking wine at home on "cooking" nights. So much money.
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So, now, instead of spending money blacking out and regretting my actions, I spend money seeing amazing performances of amazing shows. Win.
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