Sharing is scary.

I guess that's why I kept a secret for so long...

Hello and thank you for reading this latest installment of My Secret Sobriety. Your subscription and your time spent reading my words mean more than you realise. This Substack is me telling my story of alcoholism and recovery and is my attempt to provide hope and support to other alcoholics and their friends and family because, we do recover.

This is feeling a bit like an open journal entry rather than a ‘newsletter’. Especially as I’m going to be discussing real life people who are close to me. But the whole point of My Secret Sobriety is to be open and honest, so here goes!

For quite some time my husband and I have discussed opening up to a couple we spend a lot of time with and who we hold dear to our hearts. We’ve known them for many years, but only since I stopped drinking. They have never really asked why I don’t drink. But last Christmas at their house, one of them said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever asked you this before. Why don’t you drink?’ She was already tipsy herself and her husband and gone to the door to let some more guests in. Not ideal timing. I fluffed an answer about my health and my professional work in the Fitness Industry. It made me uncomfortable and made me question why I had spent so many years squirming uncomfortably when asked why I don’t drink. I would hide the truth just to prevent making others uncomfortable. That no longer made sense to me. I’d already started to consider sharing my truth and about a month later I started writing My Secret Sobriety. It’s taken me a whole seven months since I wrote my first Substack about my alcoholism and recovery to summon up the strength and courage to tell these close friends of ours. I’ve told other friends who I see more regularly and that was nerve-wracking, but telling this couple had me tied in knots!

So far, everyone I have told has been extremely supportive and kind about it. I had kept my alcoholism a secret for ten years and a lot of people who are in my circle now didn’t know me ten years ago. I am lucky to have such wonderful, understanding friends and I’ve always known that their reaction would be one of support and love. And yet … I still feel anxious about sharing my deepest, darkest secret.

When I shared on the platform formerly known as twitter that I had decided to tell these friends that I am a recovering alcoholic and that I was nervous, the answers I got were resoundingly in favour and nearly everyone advised me that I should be proud instead of nervous. I loved this and it strengthened my resolve. And I don’t mind admitting that I may have said out loud to myself, more than once, ‘YAS GIRL! BE PROUD OF YOURSELF!’ :-)

A few voices asked. ‘Why? Why do you feel the need to tell them?’ Here’s why.

While I don’t consider being an alcoholic to be who I am, it is how I am who I am. Being an alcoholic is one small fact about me, it doesn’t define me, but this fact did mould the person I am today and I would not have had the experiences or lived the life I have over the past ten years, without having faced down alcohol addiction. I am not Kate the alcoholic. I am Kate the wife, the crazy dog lady, the fitness professional and enthusiast, the successful businesswoman, the proud first-time homeowner, the history geek, the book nerd, the sunny sky worshipper, the hard worker, the loyal friend, the travel lover, and, oh yeah, I’m also a recovering alcoholic. Without having been addicted to alcohol, and overcoming that addiction, there are a lot of things on that list that I would not be today. It’s not my identity but it is an important part of my makeup. Keeping something that integral to my being, secret from the people I love and care about made me feel like I wasn’t being real with them. I wanted them to know the full unedited version of me. I wanted to have a fuller relationship with them by sharing my background with them.

If I was to share (these are examples) that I had beat stage 4 cancer and never been in remission, or, escaped a violent marriage and gone on to rebuild my life as a happy, healthy, strong woman, would anyone question ‘why I felt the need to share?’ It’s what friends do, isn’t it? Share what they’ve been through.

There were a few other reasons why I told them too. First, it seemed a bit nuts to me to be pouring my heart out to strangers online when I was not sharing with the people closest to me. Second, there is something about the way these friends drink at times that’s problematic. My Secret Sobriety is here to give support to those who are struggling with alcohol dependance at any level. I should be open about my experiences as much as possible so that anyone and everyone can ask for help if and when they need it. Finally, I told them for an entirely selfish reason; I couldn’t face any more boozy catch ups with them. Watching people get drunk is really boring!

When I imagined myself sitting down and telling my friends in person, I just couldn't see myself getting those first few sentences out. I thought I would choke, shake or cry. Or most likely, all of those things. As they live in a different town, when we do see them it’s for short visits and I didn’t want them to come to us looking forward to a nice relaxing night away to be hit with a truth-bomb like the one I had for them. I took a more cowardly approach, and I wrote them a letter (we call them emails these days) a week before they were due to visit us. I made sure they were at home alone and told them I had something important I needed them to read. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Jack and Jill,

I have something that I would like to share with you. And I’m not brave enough to tell you in person. And I don’t want it to become what next weekend is about which it might if I told you then instead of now.

It is something that very few people know and something that I have only started sharing with my nearest and dearest over the past few months.

I want you to know because you are very special to us and it’s important to me that I can be ‘real’ with you.

I trust you wholeheartedly, but I do need to stress that I do not want this to go any further. Please don’t tell anyone. It’s extremely personal so you will understand why.

You did ask me about this at Christmas, but it was terrible timing with other people around, so I had to babble some lie. I did not feel comfortable lying but it was not the time and the place to be honest!

The question you asked was, ‘why don’t you drink’.

The honest answer is – because I am a recovering alcoholic. I have been sober for ten years and four months (yes, I am counting) and I have only ever known you both as sober Kate.

Some people find the word alcoholic shocking. The way I drank was shocking. Being psychologically and physically addicted to alcohol was a traumatic and terrifying experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. That’s one of the reasons I’ve not been keen to talk about it. Another reason is the fear of judgment. Of people viewing me differently. Because of the stigma attached to alcoholism. Another reason was because I buried myself in work so I wouldn’t have to think about it! It’s not until this year that I’ve really had chance to properly work through a lot of what happened and make peace with it. 

Mike was there for me throughout. He never enabled me, but he never gave up on me. He made sure I knew he loved me and that he would wait for me to get better. He will hate me for saying this, but he is the reason I am whole again. He was my reason for getting sober. He is the strongest, kindest person you will ever meet.

I know this will be a shock and probably upsetting. I don’t want to upset you, but I would rather you know because I love you and don’t want to keep secrets from you.

I have no problem with people drinking around me or being in the company of people who are drinking. I would have said something if that had been an issue! You don’t need to change anything about you and your personal choices now that you know why I don’t drink.  I don’t crave alcohol one bit, so you are not putting me in harm’s way, and I don’t expect other people to abstain just because I’m teetotal. Please don’t feel weird about drinking around me and don’t for a moment feel bad about all the times you have drunk in my company before. It’s fine! Really!

So, I’m going to let you digest this for a bit.

I love you both so much and I feel really happy that I have family as lovely as you that I feel comfortable sharing this with.

Also, I’m proud of all I have overcome and achieved. I’m not ashamed anymore. So you don’t need to feel bad or sorry for me!

Kate xxx

Their response was so lovely. Shocked, yes, but mostly kind, caring, loving, empathetic, supportive and proud. They had shed a little tear. I felt relieved and so happy to have finally told them!

But then I had to wait another six days before seeing them in person and I found my anxiety increasing daily. I also began to retreat within myself. I felt the walls I had worked so hard to tear down were slowly being rebuilt around me, by me. I started questioning my decision. I’ve never been good at opening up about anything really, and as much as I had wanted it, it was freaking me out. I began dismissing messages from them as silly or pointless and not worth responding to properly. Bizarrely, even while I was thinking this way, I was acutely aware that I was putting up barriers, beginning to push my friends away, ultimately preparing myself for rejection. Because despite me knowing them, and their lovely response to my email, and my logical brain still being in my head, the scared little girl Kate inside still felt semi-subconsciously that rejection was on the cards. I also had mixed feelings about how they would behave when we saw them. On the one hand that I would be annoyed if I felt probed about my alcoholism, like a curiosity, but on the other hand, I’d be angry if they didn’t mention it. I was the not knowing how it would play out that was unnerving me. It was a long six days inside my head! I did plenty of deep breathing!

In my next installment, I’ll share with you how it did in fact play out!

I hope that you will never shy away from telling the people in your life of how you overcame addiction - a disease that many people never recover from - and that you will always whisper quietly to yourself, or shout it from the rooftop, YASSSS I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!

Thank you for reading My Secret Sobriety. Until next time. Kate xoxoxox

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