That Time I Quit My Job After I Quit Drinking
And 3 secrets to going your own way, too.
A lot of well-meaning folks told me I shouldn’t leave my job. They said I’d be crazy to walk away. It was too great a job. And it really was, which was why I told myself that, too. That I couldn’t leave. That I wasn’t ready. That even though my bones ached to break free and go out on my own, it wasn’t time. That I wasn’t allowed until, until, until (?).
I was afraid to give up what I had because what I had was outstanding by almost anybody’s standards. I was afraid the grass would not be, as is so often morbidly prophesied, greener on the other side of the concrete walls. I was deeply afraid to end a successful corporate career that spanned two incredible decades, for fear of making a HUGE MISTAKE OUT IN THE OPEN HEAVEN FORBID. But I was also afraid to stay, for fear of continuing to hate myself for being so afraid to leave.
So: fear.
Fear was a big theme in my life back then, as was living up to other people’s expectations, which was why booze was a big theme in my life, too. Well, maybe that’s not quite right, I don’t think *booze* can be a theme, exactly. The themes were fear and numbing the fear, I think is a better way to put it. Those were the two “givens” that wrapped around each other like the side rails of a monster roller coaster that boxed me in and shoved me around for a very long time. In the center—all buckled into what I told myself was a safe enough ride that it should have felt “fun”—was me, and in the center of me was a lot of self-loathing and generalized self-petrification I was trying to pretend I didn’t actually feel.
But I was used to hating myself. I had used shame and self-admonishment for so long to tame myself into submission to other people’s expectations (real and imagined; mostly imagined but some still very real), that I mistook my strict obedience for backbone. I had created my entire adult life, and made all of the decisions in it—some solidly badass, some solidly not—from a place of deeply rooted fear of rejection, shame, abandonment, inadequacy and the harsh judgment I assumed would come from all around me were I to make a single false move, yet nowhere I could pinpoint long enough to examine for holes in the logic.
For as long as I can remember, it was as though hanging above every possibility I envisioned for myself of a freer, wider, grander, sweeter, more meaningful life, a big neon-pink sign glowed over the door to freedom in the dark, buzzing, flickering, warning:
DON’T.
YOU.
DARE.
That invisible buzzing neon kept me obedient for a very long time. It kept me small, weak, trembling, and drinking like a fish if fish could be alcoholics which I doubt because #1) fish and #2) we aren’t supposed to say ‘alcoholic’ anymore.
The buzzing pink neon signs of shame burned compliance into me and kept me from moving toward the doorways to what I wanted. They convinced me I couldn’t leave, I wasn’t ready, it wasn’t time. That I wasn’t allowed to do what I knew I needed to do. They convinced me that I was not in charge of my own goddamn life.
Until I got sober.
Until I very much DID DARE.
To put down the drink. To not play along. To cross the line. To do the thing. To defy the expectation that I would shrink, that I would stay the same so nobody around me would ever have to feel different about me. So nobody would know who I really was and therefore they could not reject, punish, or think less of me for it.
I told myself my wants, desires, and feelings didn’t matter until sobriety taught me that every single day matters. That we grow into better versions of ourselves one day at a time, by putting one foot in front of the other. By doing the next right thing. Getting sober taught me the worth of my life. And that I do not owe any of it to anyone. To any job or career or family member or colleague or friend or therapist or anyone with any opinion at all on my life or the way I choose to live it.
But I sure as hell do owe it to myself to live my authentic, genuine, real life out loud, in the flesh, in the broad daylight. I owe it to myself, to my integrity, to my recovery, to be honest with myself about where I belong and where I don’t. To get clear about what I want my daily experience to be, and what I don’t. To be true to protecting my own health.
It’s funny, though it isn’t funny at all, how we can go on marching through our whole lives without ever really believing our lives belong to us. Even the little bits. Even the biggest bits. They all belong to us, and they are all the same size, the big and little bits. Because they are all part of the whole, and the whole is only ever the sum of its parts. You either choose from a place of self-acceptance or a place of self-rejection. It’s not the individual choices as much as it’s the center from which you step out into the world and choose.
It’s the heart that moves the mind; the mind that moves the body.
Heal the heart, recover the mind, free the body.
Choose to drink. Choose to not drink. Choose to stay with yourself, choose to leave yourself. Little by little, sip by sip, movement by movement. Choice by choice, one day at a time.
In a few hours, I will meet my dad for coffee and pastry at an outdoor table in a street side cafe downtown. Right in the middle of a regular Tuesday morning, in the middle of May, in the middle of my year of unknowns. For so long, I told myself it couldn’t happen. I told myself I had to be in an office. I always believed I had to sit still and remain in an office forever. There was no other way.
But I went another way.
I will not be in an office today. I will not be clocking hours today. I will not be answering to anyone today about my whereabouts. I will not be wearing a suit today. I’ll be wearing comfy clothes that feel soft and kind on my body. The weather will be 80 degrees and partly cloudy. The air will smell like the warm lilac-and-lemon-grassiness of spring.
I think I’ll go with a light denim jacket, leggings, low key sneakers, and a crossbody bag. Maybe a cute seasonal knit hat. And bright pink lipstick. Neon pink like those buzzing electric warning signs that used to dare me to not ever, ever dare. Now I wear that pink-shock right on my own lips because I call the shots from now on. I say where I go, what I do, and why.
Meeting my dad is one of my favorite things to do in all the universe. There will be plenty of hot coffee and conversation that will delight, inspire, and make us laugh so hard that the joy of being loved and being alive will ripple through us all week. I adore my father. He adores me. We have known each other for 44 years and to this day we still have a million ideas, thoughts, and stories to share between us. Fingers crossed there’s cannoli, too. :)
And I always thought I couldn’t leave my job because I didn’t have the rest of my entire life planned out without it. And I always thought I couldn’t get sober because planning a life without drinking seemed like a dangerous tragedy too impossible to fathom.
ONE
But here’s the first of three secrets that nobody knows until they take the big scary leap into the arms of the unknown: there is no plan big enough, all-encompassing enough, tight enough, solid enough, foolproof enough, to override your fear of letting go of the certainty you are convinced you need in order to be able to breathe. You have to let go first.
TWO
The second secret is that there is no sacred plan small enough—meeting a loved one for coffee during the calm quiet of any given weekday, staying sober one day (one hour, one minute, one breath) at a time, believing you can have the joy you seek if you do what you know is right for you one choice at a time instead of asking everybody else—not worth facing that fear to keep.
THREE
And the final secret, the juiciest, daring-est secret that the wilderness of your precious beating heart never stops inviting you to believe, is that the unknown isn’t waiting for you with open arms. It’s waiting for you to open your wings.
Upgrade to a paid subscription to gain immediate access to my pre-recorded sober coaching series Love You Sober: Overcoming the 5 Biggest Obstacles to Continuous Sobriety, as well as additional weekly sober nourishment.