This year, two of my three big trips are taking me back to places I’ve been before – but that I visited whilst still in my drinking days.  First, in just over two weeks, I’m going to Tokyo.  I was there for a few days in the summer of 2018 as part of a larger trip that included Kyoto and Thailand, with my then-husband and two of our girlfriends.  This was when my drinking was still moderately under control, and not a secret yet.  I do remember a lot of “walking sake” though (they sell it in tiny bottles in vending machines on the street!), and one incident in the airport heading the Thailand when I thought I was fine but the girls said something along the lines of “just don’t talk to anyone, we got you.”  It was an overnight flight after all, so I had a whole day of walking sake behind me!  But while the drinking was definitely excessive, everyone else with me was on the same page of “vacation drinking.”

Just over a year later, though, in the summer of 2019, I went on what was to be my last vacation before sobriety, and the last with my spouse.  After strong concerns were raised about my daily wine intake, I had “been sober” for three months.  This was when the secret drinking began.  It started off pretty tamely, with a bit of booze after work while watching TV, after my husband was asleep, but soon most of the bottles in the liquor cabinet were either empty, full of water, or had been refilled.  After 90 days of “no drinking” though, I was done (despite concerns from others about that decision), so we went on a trip to the west, ran a half marathon, and boarded a cruise ship bound for Alaska.

Did you know that an “unlimited” drinks package on a cruise ship is not, in fact, unlimited?  I sure didn’t, but I sure did find out quickly.  The cap is set at fifteen per day, more than most people are likely to ever hit, but not me.  My now-ex kept up with me to some extent, hitting the max and convincing our regular bartenders to serve us just one or two extras, but he is a 6’4” man, and the difference in sizes was apparent.  Apparently, there were several nights when I passed out to the extent that he couldn’t rouse me.  And I know that the ship saw whales, but I either didn’t see them or don’t remember them.  

It would be several more months of secret vodka-in-water-bottles style living before I entered treatment for the first time, and 8 months before my current sobriety date, but it’s funny – the concern from others isn’t what bothered me.  It was the fact that I didn’t remember the whales!  What else don’t I remember from that trip, or from my many other travels?  What other memories that should be brilliant and sparkly are fuzzy and flat instead?  How much of my past life, and especially my past adventures around the world, has been erased, might as well have never happened??  It is a question that haunts me.

I remember when I was first sober, I re-read the Game of Thrones books.  I love to re-read.  But when I got to the end of the last written book, there’s a huge twist that differs from the show – and even though I know I had already read these pages, I was shocked.  Like, mouth hanging open, on the edge of my seat, straight up flabbergasted.  It was then that I saw a silver lining of my blurry past conundrum… when I revisit the things that are foggy from my non-sober life, I get to experience them again for the very first time!  There’s the wonder and joy that comes from a whole new experience, while also a tinge of the comfortable familiarity of a thing already known.  When I go back to Tokyo next month, I have some idea of the incredible culture shock I will experience, and there will be moments of nostalgia – but how much will feel as thrilling and novel as it did back in 2018?  I am excited to find out.

I’m nervous about these trips too, though. I went to Tokyo when my pre-sobriety life was still really wonderful, and I was deeply in love. Will it be painful to remember that? Will it shine a spotlight how much I lost in my addiction? And Alaska was the clear beginning of the end. The year following that trip was full of despair, and loss, and stupid, uncomfortable growth. There was hope at the end of it, and the life that came out of it all is so much better than the one I left behind, but the periods of my life symbolized by the trips to Tokyo and Alaska might be very painful to remember too strongly.

In late May of this year, I will take another Alaskan cruise.  This time, I will have a bit over 5 years of sobriety under my belt (not taking my sobriety for granted, this is dependent on about 90 more days of 24 hours at a time).  I will also be with a large group of entirely sober people.  When this opportunity presented itself to me, it felt like an obvious Have To moment – what could be more full circle?  This time I will be fully present.  I will be with people who accept and support my journey fully, without question.  I will feel all my stupid feelings without anything to dull the pain, or the joy. I will, hopefully, remember the whales.