A year ago today you stopped drinking. Back then, a year seemed a long time to go. Back then, you did not know what a year you would be facing. In retrospect, it wasn’t as bad as losing your father; and, in retrospect, it was probably best that you quit when you did. Otherwise, you would most certainly have the problems that you anticipated when you stopped.

You definitely would have started day drinking. At work. That still sounds like a good idea that is really not a good idea.

In all honesty, the chips kept you going at first, partly. The sense of not being alone and of being among other women who were imperfect also kept you going, but the chips were like gold stars and you have always liked gold stars. Chips are little, Mardi Gras doubloon type coins marking your time. You kept them in a tiny bag for earrings or some such thing and wore it on a string around your neck when you went on trips to remind you not to give in when you knew that you would be tempted. It now hangs on the neck of a flask that was a gift when you received tenure. You used to joke that everyone would know when you got tenure because you would show up for class wearing jeans and a t-shirt and drinking out of a flask. You also started to fold an origami crane for every month, stringing them together. Today will be twelve.

Then the pandemic ended the meetings; and to be honest there, too, you had kinda slacked off of meetings because the previous month’s topics always focused on God and Faith. That’s just not your worldview and the effort to translate to your own was not working. Some of the other twelve steps did not seem to be quite right for you either. The sense of connection wasn’t working, and you just kept feeling like maybe you had gotten what you needed from this method and should look for another method. You still hold on to what you can from that one, however, because something is better than nothing.

The best part, at the beginning, last fall, came with finding whatever was on the other side of the Drunk. You had to replace the habit of drinking with something else, first. You discovered Ginger Beer, which you first had to discover was not actually beer, but similar to ginger ale or root beer. In other words, you discovered a world of soft drinks. You also discovered that soft drinks in England and Scotland are different from in the U.S., but that’s another story that involves fizzy lemonade. You got back to knitting and crochet — anything to keep your hands busy. “What are you knitting,” people would ask (regardless of the specific needlework). “A sober person,” you answered.

Then, you discovered whimsy. Roller skates. With hot pink wheels. Acting in a play (that the pandemic cancelled and now you have nightmares of going on stage and not knowing your lines). Dressing up for class. You discovered the joyful, uncorked, drunk feeling without being drunk. You actually enjoyed teaching the shitty, first semester freshman world civilizations class. So much that you were looking forward to this semester and almost asked to be one of the professors who teaches it all of the year because you found a purpose in it.

You discovered paths in your head through the brambles that usually made you sit down and drink. Or, you could just sit an listen and hear through the noise in your head rather than drown it with those sweet sweet bubbles.

You gained the strength to get yourself through the first onslaught of the pandemic, through your mother being on the Grand Princess and being among the first infected. She recovered. Through being unable to go visit her. Through the shift to online teaching. Through the snow in May. Through the overdue on extensions now one last extension now finally submitted awful bibliography.

You probably put a wall of denial up at the end of May, now that you look back. You usually do. “Just get to the end of the semester…”: the mantra from Spring Break on. The summer spread out before you. The garden. Maybe a research trip. Maybe. Certainly research at home and only research. Crafts and projects around the house. Hell, cleaning the house. “Just get to the end of the semester….”

Usually, that works.

You know what happened?

May 31, at 10 pm, you broke your pinky toe. Caught it on an armchair leg, fell forward, and stood up to find the toe at a 45 degree angle to your foot. What a perfect metaphor. The summer went downhill from there.

To skip over your descent into depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, and helplessness, where do you find yourself at Year One? Not at one of those victory moments, that for sure. But then, who has those? They are dramatic story arcs for film.

You miss drinking, but not that much. You miss when you would just have a drink, like on vacation at dinner or lunch, even, or at the end of a week. You miss the fuzzy edges that it gives to the world that lets you feel spiritual. These are the most dangerous moments because they could fool you into thinking “just one won’t matter, right? It’s not like I’m trying to drown anything.” You have to remain vigilant on these moments because you know that that “just one” always makes you think the next one is a good idea, which makes you think the next one is a good idea. While three usually was your limit, there in the last year you would think, “ah, what the hell, have another,” and “well, might as well finish the bottle!” You are still shocked that no one noticed that you were drinking a bottle every night in August last year.

For the calories alone you had to stop! For your liver function!

You miss it also when everything feels like it has gone to shit. No, not everything. When all of the gremlins swarm and make you feel horrible and purely evil at your core and you just want a fast road to “don’t give a fuck.” You could sometimes hold that “don’t give a fuck” feeling with you through the rest of the day. The gremlins swarm quite a bit lately. You don’t let yourself take that road anymore. You’ve seen the sights there and you want something new.

The swarms have made you worthless for any work, but you think that this is a lesson to figure out how to hold them at bay or beat them off. You have to plow ahead; but to where? That you don’t know either. Or can’t have. Whichever.

In many respects, you still have to remind yourself “one day at a time,” and you have not been doing that lately. You’ve always seen the world in terms of oncoming disaster. That was bred into you ever since you can remember.

To be fair to yourself, the world is in immediate disaster. You just hold your breath until the worst of it comes to your door.

Still, one year. Not even “one year down” with the implicit “x to go,” which seems a good sign. You know that you don’t want to go back, but this particular moment, on this particular day, you aren’t sure why you should go forward except there seems to be no other way to go.