My last drink was October 7th, 2016. It was definitely whiskey, but I can't remember if it was bourbon or rye. Rye, I think, because I was making Manhattans. I still had oxycodone from a previous surgery, and I was chasing drinks with pills. I was killing myself.
A friend helped save me. But sobriety also didn't cure me. I was still angry and selfish and dishonest. When anybody tried to love me, I hit back. I didn't just retreat or pull away. I was cruel and deceitful. I was distrustful and suspicious of even those closest to me. When I stopped drinking, I had nothing to blame for my behavior. If I'd cared to do any self-reflection or the hard work of psychotherapy and behavior modification, I would have realized that I was seeing who and what I'd become. This was my baseline, the real bottom, and it made me sad.
This last birthday is the first one since getting sober that I actually forgot. It came and went, and the only reason I remembered is because my wife got a late calendar notification. Usually I'm very aware of where my sobriety clock is. Sometimes this gives me anxiety as though I'm on a high wire and the longer I'm sober, the more difficult the balancing act becomes. I worry that I'll fall back into old habits.
The routine I worked hard to establish at the beginning of this year has frayed. During the pandemic, I haven't been as vigilant about attending online meetings. I haven't talked to my sponsor in a few months. Hell, the last time I wrote anything for this website was six months ago around my actual birthday. I stay up late scrolling through Twitter or clicking through (read: not reading) articles in The Guardian. The only thing I've been marginally good at sticking with is baking bread.
In June, I was really fortunate to get a shout out from Alison Roman on her IG story, and a few Austin folks followed me and reached out for a loaf of bread. I've baked steadily for the past four months and reconnected with old friends, met new friends, and found a pretty loving community. In my quest to bake a loaf of bread for every person in Austin, I've baked for about fifty people. Not bad.
Instead of counting down the days to my fourth birthday, I was getting ready to bake for four people. I pulled my starter from the fridge, let it come to room temperature before feeding her, and looked at my calendar to plan out baking times and delivery days. My operation is rudimentary. I only have two proofing baskets, and I bake one loaf at a time in a Challenger Bread Pan. So four people is about my limit for a weekend bake.
One of the loaves was for a fellow Austin baker (Bakehat) who wanted to exchange our bread. I dropped off a boule on his doorstep and picked up a neatly wrapped batard made with rye, cornmeal, and freshly milled whole wheat all from Barton Springs Mill (who deserve their own separate blog post because they are just the finest people). As soon as I got home, I ate a few slices of this bread with just cold butter. Incredible. Such a gift. It's so good in fact that just writing about it here made me get up and get some more. Seriously, go to his website and order some bread so you can see for yourself.
I could taste the time and craft that went into baking this bread. The care and thought that went into selecting not only the ingredients but weighing out the proportions of each. The perfect amount of salt balancing the sour from the fermentation. The crumb was creamy. Whole wheat and grains tempered by water and time and technique. I ate the bread for a snack, with dinner, and again the next morning with coffee (and now, of course, while I type this one-handed).
The reason I don't charge for bread—even just to offset the cost of ingredients—is frankly because I don't think it's good or consistent enough. If I'm honest, I get nervous every time I bake for somebody else. I worry that I'm going to fuck it up, get the proportions or the timing wrong, or that it will just plain taste bad. I don't think it would be fair to charge somebody for my bread. To be even more honest, not charging people gives me an out if it's bad. That's kind of a shitty thing to admit, but there it is.
I am trying to be a better person. More thoughtful of how I hurt friends who don't speak to me anymore. I failed people over and over even after promising that I could change and be better. I'll do better, I promise. They were right to finally recognize the bullshit and get out. The thing is, I have a hard time accepting that anybody would choose me. I don't mean for that to come off so self-pitying. I mean that in the most rational, objective way possible. I've always had a hard time recognizing my worth to others which means I think people are lying to me when they say they love me. So I make them feel like shit for caring.
It's really difficult to explain this. It's October, so imagine that it's Halloween, and you're out trick-or-treating or you're at a party with all of your friends, and you're having a good time and enjoying everybody's costumes. Underneath the makeup, the masks, you know you're with friends. But imagine if you weren't able to tell that people were in costume. Like if you were standing next to Freddy Krueger but you really believed that it was Freddy Krueger. My brain puts everybody in a scary mask, and I can't see the person underneath. I can't tell that I'm surrounded by friends. This is not an excuse.
When somebody messages and asks me for bread, I thank them. I tell them l appreciate that they messaged me and how happy it made me to bake for them. That's not an act. I see it as a transaction—bread in exchange for rationality. For a brief moment, I can understand my worth.
I didn't celebrate my sober birthday this year. I wasn't even thinking about it. For once, I wasn't thinking about myself. I wasn't spiraling or wallowing. Instead, I was weighing flour, water, and salt, getting my hands and my kitchen messy, baking in a hot kitchen with an oven blasting at 500 degrees. I was listening to music. When the dough needed to rest, I took a break to read a new book. I was feeling gratitude and peace. For once, I had hope that I could do and be better because I was baking bread and thinking about you.