The Plot I Missed, and the One I Didn't Want To: What You Lose with Booze
Sleep might be my favorite part of watching TV. If you’re like me, you get maybe one episode in of a show each evening somewhere between the pleas for kids to shower, tuck-ins with a song, and my own bedtime routine. The moment when my wife and I settle into bed—I know it’s not the best sleep hygiene, I know no screens in rooms, but whatever—and settle in for a few minutes of our own entertainment.
I’m an old man—except not really, because even though I’m closer to 40 than 30, I refuse to buy into the 40 is old or over the hill narrative. That said, I do go to sleep around 9:30 most nights, which is also the same time my parents use to pick me up from the early session on Friday evenings from the local skating rink in Muskogee, OK. Back then, I dreamed of being allowed to stay for the second session. What happened in those wild hours between 9:30 and 11:30, I wondered?
That was 5th grade version of me. I no longer wonder what happens then because my alarm is perpetually set for 5am of before, so it just ends up being sleep most nights.
Back to the show. Some nights I make it all the way through without Jill having to nudge me and ask if I’m falling asleep. But on other nights, she does have to nudge me and ask. And I lie of course, “No, I’m not falling asleep,” as my eyes slowly close and I start to doze again.
And it’s a kind of game, how quickly can she catch me dozing so I don’t miss too much of the story-line? And I’m torn on whether this is good or bad. On the one hand, I don’t want to miss part of the show and have to rewind or have Jill give me a recap. And on the other hand, is there any better feeling than your body being so relaxed (and apparently tired) that you don’t have to try to go to sleep, you just slip into it? Like settling into a warm bath, my body instantly relaxes and I’m snoozing soundly.
But when she nudges me, or I wake up, whichever happens first, I have no idea how long I’ve been out. A few seconds, half the show? The other night we watched the Truman show (which I’d never seen) and I dozed somewhere in the middle. I have no idea how long I was out, though my Oura ring asked if I took a 24-minute nap around 7:45. Sure, it’s an odd naptime, and yes, Oura, I did.
And yes, I probably missed a couple plot developments, and yes, I’d heard enough about the movie over the years to piece it together. And yes, the sleep was so good.
And yet, I don’t really know what I missed. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized this is similar to what things were like when I was still drinking. Alcohol offered a reliable way to retreat into myself. To build an internal blanket fort to hide me from the world. Only, I didn’t really know this was happening, at least not consciously. When I drank, whether out socially or at home with dinner and later a tv show after the girls went to bed, I would be physically present. But at some point in the evening, I would end up not there.
Sure, I’d still be there physically, but mentally and emotionally, I’d slip away. And much like the sneaky snoozes during TV shows, I didn’t really know it was happening. I wouldn’t realize I was short with the girls or with Jill. Or, if not short, just not emotionally available. I was feeling good, or at least that’s what I thought at the time, and surely that must have been everyone else’s experience, too, right?
Except, if you’ve ever been around someone who is tipsy or drunk, you know they’re not in the same place you are. It’s really easy to see if you’re on the outside looking in, but almost impossible if you’re the one in the thick of it, even if others are drinking around you.
It’s the reason I could know intellectually my drinking was pretty heavy and probably needed to come to an end. And, it’s the reason that it took a while for that to actually happen. It’s the reason I’d wake up in the morning and type a note into my phone like this one and then continue drinking for another six months:
It’s the reason I could stop in August of 2022 and pitch it to Jill as if it was my idea. When in reality, a couple weeks earlier on vacation when I was in a blackout, she’d said to me: “I know we’re on vacation, but this all has to change when we get home.” That was after throwing a days long pity party for myself after I busted my shoulder just prior to leaving for vacation, and having to go to the beach in a sling. And after I had been very angry with the girls trying to put them to bed that evening, my state of inebriation no doubt drove most of those difficulties.
And, it was the reason that Jill had several serious thoughts of wondering when it would be too much. When she would need to leave, not just the vacation, but our marriage during the latter period of my drinking career. Not because she didn’t love me, but because when I was drinking, I wasn’t who she knew I could be. I didn’t find this out until well over year after I stopped drinking. Sure, we had difficult moments, and sure I drank too much occasionally, but most of the time it was manageable and I was drinking “normally” just like so many people around me.
And yet, while I enjoyed the selfish booze “snooze” and thought everything was going just fine, my wife, who I love more than anyone in the world, was wondering what her life would look like without me in it. And, I just want to underline, I had absolutely no idea. And if that’s not proof that alcohol totally warps your vision of both yourself and reality, I don’t know what is.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “that’s not me, I’m in a good spot, I’m handling this.” I hope you’re right. But if you are thinking that, I also hope you’ll take a minute to consider the alternative, that it might be you, and you just might not realize it. No, it’s not really fun to consider. And yes, I know nothing bad has happened yet. You still have your job, you still get up to work out in the morning, your partner hasn’t left you, you haven’t gotten a DUI. Yeah, I get all that stuff, and I’ll just add “yet.” To the end of those phrases.
That’s partially what kept me going. Sure, there were some bad hangovers and nights driving the porcelain bus, but overall, I still had it all together on the outside. But I didn’t realize how much of the movie of my life I was missing at the same time. So, is it worth it to stop the booze just because the really big, bad stuff hasn’t happened yet? I think so.
And today, on Father’s Day, I’m really grateful to still get to be a dad. Not that I wouldn’t be a dad if I had kept drinking and Jill really had to find a way to separate from me for her own best interest. But it would have looked a lot different. So, I’m grateful for this journey of sobriety or recovery or alcohol-free life or whatever you want to call it. Because I’ll be present and available all day today, and I’ll wake up and get to be present and available all day tomorrow, and keep that streak going. And that’ll be a huge gift to my family, but an even bigger gift to myself.
And, sure, I might doze during a TV show or movie, and while I’m ok missing a few minutes of that, I’m no longer ok snoozing any more minutes of my life.
I hope you had a great Father's Day, Josh!! Here's to presence!
Happy Father’s Day, Josh!! I remember that 5th grade boy!!!