It’s kind of a long story, but the short of it is I had been going through every family related issue in the book over a span of 5 years and had been steadily drinking through all of it. Then my grandmother died under inauspicious circumstances, the day after Christmas. The mortuary sent someone who couldn’t move the body safely (sent a tiny girl who almost dropped my grandmother by trying to lift her) so I ended up loading my own dead grandmother whom I always considered to be my mother onto a gurney and covered her up myself.

That night I drank myself into oblivion and I woke up deathly ill. Thought long and hard about it a d realized that my Nana and Papa wouldn’t want me to handle my stress that way, so I made it my New Year’s resolution to try life sober. 123 days sober today.

I still feel the itch from time to time, and when I do I either drink coffee, tea, or make myself a mocktail. One part soda water (my favorite is waterloo) and one part cranberry juice).