Make a Lost Drinking Spot Your Sober Vacation

The return of green grass and the budding shrubs signal the coming of spring in most places. For teachers and students, the joy of spring is highlighted by a week off from school, and often, many travel to the nearest beach. While some will make the trip as a sober vacation, many will use the time as I once did: to stay drunk.

Fortunately, I won’t be one of those paying inflated hotel prices just to crowd on to a beach filled with drunken partiers. My wife and I will escape for a few relaxing days at a family vacation house a few minutes’ drive from one of Florida’s most pristine beaches. It has become one of our favorite places to get away from it all and enjoy a sober vacation. That wasn’t always the case.

When I first got sober, I avoided going to the little house like a vampire avoids sun light. While my addiction had made it impossible to make the trip for many years, I still had vivid memories of what a being there would entail. Because my family is full of Normies, or Earth people, there is always beer in the fridge and liquor in a cabinet in the kitchen. Even if I planned to stay sober, the temptation would be in the little house the entire time.

In early sobriety, I didn’t trust me to avoid “accidentally” taking a drink in that environment. It was the equivalent to going to a bar or the liquor store for me. That little house, placed a block from the bay, had always been associated with drinking. I feared it was on the expressway to Relapse City. Friends in recovery had warned me to stay out of figurative barbershops, and this place had always left me with a jacked-up, buzz cut.

Not a Vacation Home

The initial purchase of the house had nothing to do with vacation time. My sister had received a large grant to lead a swamp restoration project and needed a home base. I tagged along to work in the swamp, a place I had always loved. It was meant to be a temporary job until I found something more suited for a freshly-graduated English major. Instead of writing, I spent days wandering through various areas of a place called Tate’s Hell. I worked with a group of scientists, identifying plants, taking soil and water samples, and live-trapping black bears.

In the afternoons, we would hit the beach to wash off grime, bug spray and soothe insect bites. Then, we went to the little house, where I drank until bedtime. The next morning restarted the process. It was a simple, perfect life for a young alcoholic. That perfection was interrupted when the federal government shutdown and froze funding for the project. I left to find work elsewhere. Later, my sister did the same. The house stayed in the family.

My parents picked up the payments, and it became a place to get away from the busyness of everyday life and enjoy the relatively slow pace of a Northwest Florida town. For me, it was always a place to get blasted, most often on Spring Break. It was the one place I was rarely sober on vacation.

A Drinking Spot Only

Most trips to the house included a stop by a liquor store. One particular store that catered to Georgia drinkers who could easily cross state lines to pick up booze on Sundays was a favorite. The neighboring Georgia county like many in the state cut off alcohol sales before midnight on Saturdays. Needless to say, the liquor store had a booming business at least one day per week. Perhaps the sheer volume of Sunday sales kept the prices cheap. Still, no matter how much I bought on the stop, there was always a need for more. Fortunately, most people who stayed at the house left half-full bottles as their beach trips ended, which saved me a little money.

Day drinking seemed to be required on those trips. Rainy days were even better because there was no reason to slow down my drinking for a trip to the beach. Those trips disrupted the “fun” of being drunk away from home. As my addiction progressed, I would wake early to chug a few shots while coffee brewed. After breakfast and before a trip to the beach, I often drank a couple of beers openly. But, I would sneak another few gulps from the closest liquor bottle in the cabinet when no one was looking. After-beach dinners always included a bottle of wine or two and more mixed-drink night caps followed back at the little house.

Looking back, I wonder how I had any fun at all. Most of the memories of my time there are buried beneath a fog of alcohol. Those memories kept me from a perfect sober vacation spot for years. Long after I finally admitted I was an alcoholic, I still shied away from the little house.

Changes in Thinking

As I grew in sobriety, I slowly began to chip away at the things I thought I could never do without drinking. First, I took on basic tasks like yardwork or cooking. I went to grocery stores and convenience stores and managed to come home without beer or wine. Then, I went to restaurants that served alcohol, but always with someone who knew I didn’t drink. As my confidence and trust in my sober safety net grew, I managed to go to cookouts and rock concerts and stay sober.

As my amazing wife, Nina, often says, we can do most things in recovery that we did in addiction. We just do it sober! Still, the fear or uneasiness I felt about returning to the little house in Florida lingered.  How could I possibly have a sober vacation, there?

First Sober Vacation

Finally, I tested the waters and made the trip down. As expected, there was beer and wine waiting in the fridge and a selection of liquor in the cabinet in the kitchen. But, I didn’t even blink at them or check brands and amounts.

I was interested in getting to the beach. (The same beach where I had once made national television as police escorted me and two others away from the water and ended our hurricane-boosted surfing trip.) The sand was still there, but had been shape shifted by development and storms in the decade since I had last seen it. Nevertheless, I instantly felt at home. The little house and the front porch was perfect for morning coffee. The seafood tasted better and the downtown seemed less crowded and annoying. My first sober vacation wasn’t perfect.

I still got sunburnt and had to take a day off out of the sun. The surf wasn’t perfect, but there were a few waves. Two of my favorite beach spots had been washed away by two large hurricanes. However, I still got to see dolphins and even a shark fishing in the shallow waters just off shore. I enjoyed that trip more than all the drunken ones before. A completely new world of beach going opened before me that didn’t include lugging heavy coolers full of beer.

Home Away From Home

The next trips were even better. Nina and I found several A.A. meetings and made instant friendships that have lasted since. Each time we go to the little house, we also check in at a meeting. Members of the groups tease us about actually living in the town, but being meeting slackers because we only show up every few months. We have found other advantages as well.

Without worrying over where to find the next drink, we can make longer day-trips to different beaches. That was impossible in the days before sober vacations. The threat of sobering up or being pulled over by police kept me close to the little house. The overall cost of a trip is much lower since the alcohol bill is non-existent, and we never wake up with a hangover so we get to enjoy more of the day.

Even as I write this, I wonder what new adventures we will find, and what unexplored places that might make the checklist on the coming trip. I also look forward to being around our friends at our home-away-from-home group, even if we are the ones who make the coffee. Most of all, I look forward to the relaxation that comes from being on a sober vacation.