Estimated read time: 10 min
I have been sober for a little bit. I took my last drink and drug more than 7 years ago, and some days I like to think it means something. I have long been over my obsession that a drink will do anything positive in my life, and for the most part, even the smell of booze turns my stomach. I no longer seek the excitement that the chaos of drinking caused in my life or that I would cause as an excuse to drink.
Most days, I feel like I have grown into a better person, and I no longer have the emotional ups and downs that were a daily occurrence for me in early sobriety. Even textbook definitions tell me that 5 years is the benchmark for stable or long-term sobriety, and in some ways, 7 years seems like a long time.
Then, a day comes along when all of the high-minded thoughts of myself, and how I have grown in sobriety, get tossed out the window like an open bottle of vodka when the state patrol that just passed by hit his brakes and turned around. I instantly forget all I have to be grateful for, all of my training about acceptance, and become a fussy, little baby.
In some recovery literature, they remind those of us in recovery to watch out when we become Restless, Irritable, and Discontent (R.I.D.). The problem with me is that I realize I’m there AFTER I am already R.I.D. of my normal happy, joyous and free feelings. I definitely struggled with being restless a lot in early sobriety, so much so, that I almost pulled up stakes and drove straight into a relapse. (Check my blog about being chemical free but not sober for more on that.)
At this point in my recovery, the urge to drink about anything hops by faster than a rabbit running from a bloodhound. That doesn’t mean I’m okay or out of danger when the R.I.D. takes over, it just means I get a longer pause to decide to do the next right thing or poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.
What is always surprising is what sets me off…
Most recently, I was at work, a job that I truly like a whole lot even if I don’t love it on some days. Since I began teaching at this particular school, I have also taught the after-school program. Unlike most schools, where the after-school activities are extra-curricular, like sports or fine arts; enrichment, such as, SAT prep or AP test prep; or remedial to help students make up credits they need to graduate on time; where I currently teach, the after school program is a last-ditch life-line for high school students who have been kicked out of every other program for various reasons.
My first week on the job, one of our students was led out in handcuffs for committing a robbery in which he wore the exact same shoes he was wearing at school that evening. And, he had committed the armed robbery on the way home from night school the day before. While these students can be a little rough around the edges, I generally like trying to reach them and give them a shot at their education. I say all of this to let you know why my most recent battle with R.I.D. is baffling.
Due to low attendance in the after-school program over the past few months, another teacher and I have been able to work from home on rotation while the other is in class with the handful of students who show up. We both stay at the school beyond the time for classes to start to ensure that everything is running smoothly, but one of us usually gets to head out a little early. For some reason, I had it in my head that I was going to get to leave early this particular day.
I had taken the longer shift the day before with 10 students, including three that have significant challenges behaving once the class size gets over five so that my partner could leave early. I am such a good person and a martyr like that. My principal even thought I may have been biting off more than I could chew, but we made it through, almost without a scrape.
During the regular school day, I had corralled several situations that could have gotten out of hand, kept my 12 students on track, and helped two finish classes they needed to get one step closer to graduation, all while trying to not hear mumbled back-talking and cursing from these loving, grateful teenagers, who I could have sent packing just by writing down what was muttered. So today, having done such a wealth of good deeds, I knew and could taste the reward of early freedom, which would give me a chance to start on some desperately needed chores at home.
I was about 10 minutes into checking in students when I got a sinking feeling. The principal had gone home sick and one of our students who rarely shows up and is in isolation when he does, came through the door. All of my plans, hopes, dreams, and happiness flew out of the window across the room. A vague recall of the childhood book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, began to float in front of my eyes like a premonition.
Could the other teacher have handled the eight fresh-face learning angels who were waiting for class to begin? I will never know. An impromptu staff meeting consisting of a counselor, an assistant principal/teacher (each of whom literally had one foot in the parking lot ready to get into their cars and be homeward bound), and the teacher who I freed early yesterday, while I wrangled all of those rough, angry, teacher-hating students on my own, (Many of whom showed up to school today.) and myself, began then ended the meeting with the suggestion we split the student group into two classes so that they would be easier to manage. And I boldly raised my objection with a meager, mumbled “okay.”
Inside my head, I was running through a profanity-laced speech of epic proportions, which would put all my co-workers in their places for having the audacity to ask me politely to do my job (for which I am well paid). Irritable could not begin to describe what I felt. I was pissed.
I was pissed at students for existing, pissed at my coworkers for leaving early, and pissed that I had agreed to keep all of those students last night. I was in the middle of swearing a blood oath to avenge all of these wrongs when I realized that my own expectations just sucked me into being Restless, Irritable, and Discontent (R.I.D.).
As I walked five of the eight students to my classroom, I began to calm down, not enough to notice that our splitting up of students was uneven and my coworker is a math teacher, but enough to begin to take stock of what part I played in the situation and where it could be considered that I was wrong– something that used to take days to happen without a chat with a person in recovery and most of the time took both the chat and days and another chat. I also began to feel my irritability get replaced with laughter—not the outside of me laughter, but more of an inside laugh with perhaps a vague smile.
Here I am two years beyond “stable” in recovery and still nutty as a fruitcake.
I stepped into a big pile of people-pleasing, and somehow expected my plans to not stink. I fought with my many character defects and once again lost–as I always do.
I then started to take stock of where I am, not in recovery and not as a person, but where I am right now in the moment. I looked at my students who despite their hard shells and history of poor decisions are just lost and trying to figure out how to get through school.
I looked at my classroom where I have spent the last six years. (The walls are still bare from Covid shutdown and my own lack of decorating skills.) I remember how excited I was when I took this job and set foot in this classroom. How much I wanted to be here to maybe be that one person who makes a difference. The pride I have felt knowing that many of my students have succeeded and the sadness I feel when they fail.
Then, I remembered how I nearly threw away my career when I felt slighted and allowed that feeling to grow and be nurtured with plenty of booze to the point where all I had was booze and no ability to work. Those thoughts, and how grateful I am that I don’t have to drink just to survive each day, pulled me back into the right mindset.
I am exactly where I need to be, doing what I need to be doing, without a care at all about controlling what happens next. And, I remember how I would have given anything 7 years and six months ago to be able to just be a teacher again instead of being a miserable shaking drunk who could only manage to sit in a carport with a cheap bottle of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, thinking of all he had lost.
The RID had run its course. I no longer felt the need to scream obscenities inside or outside my head. I didn’t want to get in my car and just drive at a high rate of speed with no true destination. I wasn’t rapidly firing applications to every place I thought might hire me. As you guessed, I have done all of these before. I didn’t need to call another person in recovery and vent until I saw how silly I was being. (I fully recommend this one. It is by far the most therapeutic.)
I didn’t need to get drunk over it only to wake and find the feelings were still there. (I’ve done this more times than I can count, and never want to do it again.) I acknowledged how I felt, back-tracked how I got there, remembered I am not in control and how grateful I am that this is a problem. There are so many more serious problems that doing a job that I love doesn’t even register.
Then, and perhaps most importantly… I snitched on myself to another person in recovery, which I hope at least one of you are so I don’t have to retell all of this tale to my wife…
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