My Mornings Before and After

Before….

I want to put it out there that I’m not ashamed or upset at the person I was when I drank, I don’t think I was a shitty person, I was just doing what I thought the world wanted me to do and used booze to become the person I thought people wanted me to be. I’ll get more into that later….

I still accomplished a lot of things in my life and made my life one I really enjoy. I had a few “rock bottom” moments, but overall I feel like I’ve been good at life. Sobriety has allowed me to ‘level up’ relative to when I was a regular binge drinker. It’s like taking life from a B grade to an A+. I did shit I am not proud of when I drank, but I also had a LOT of fun and don’t regret many of my partying days. That being said, I DO regret all the time I lost, especially beautiful mornings I could not appreciate, days wasted laying on the couch eating crap food and watching crappier TV.

These cartoons star my dog, who I feature in a lot of my work. Pets are incredible and my time and interactions with her are some of the best I have. One thing about my dog (and I’m sure this is the case with many pets) is she has an internal clock that rivals a Swiss watch. This clock does not care what day of the week it is, wake up and breakfast time happen at six-O- fucking-clock no matter what.

When I was binge drinking most Fridays, Saturday mornings were really tough, I would feel the dog nudge, groan, paw at and generally wake my sorry ass up. I took her out and fed her. Often in my stinky sweat pants or shorts in the middle of January. I was a real “sight” to anyone awake to see us (if I saw a jogger or someone getting after it early, I would tell myself the total lie “well they didn’t have any fun last night, what a dork” when deep down I wanted to be that person instead of the tired, sick, anxiety riddled, sorry wreck of a human I felt like at that moment). I’m not too proud to say that bending over to pick up dog poo at 6am on Saturday morning with a raging hangover has made me barf in a snowbank more than once.

So I drew a cartoon about getting the ‘doggy alarm clock. This comic made me laugh a lot more than it should actually, because it was really fun to draw, I giggled the whole time. To anyone with a persistent pet, you know what it’s like and I hope you can appreciate the ultra close up of a wet nose about to jam you in the face.

After…

I didn’t know how much of a morning person I truly am until I quit drinking alcohol. I always knew I enjoyed mornings (I fucking love coffee) but it really had not hit me how much the quiet time I have to myself while I walk my little pal at 6am (every day of the week) means to me.

I never in a million years believed I could be one of those people who wakes up (I still don’t bound out of bed, don’t get me wrong but I get up and stay up) and is truly happy about it and doesn’t long to just go straight back to bed, but would much rather put on my sneakers or snow boots and go for a stroll.

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking the dog out immediately after I get up, but not just out for a potty and back. I go for a nice little 10-15 minute stroll with the dog. I actually look around at the trees and the mountains. I watch her jaunty trot while she picks up her pace in anticipation of breakfast. We sprint together the last 50 meters playing as she nips my heels. I hear the birds, or feel the falling snow or look at the stars if it’s mid winter. I’ve enjoyed more sunrises in the last year than all of my 20s. I am seriously amazed. I’m harping on this because it’s still kind of insane to me that I am one of these people. It is possible to be a morning person and I am so proud of finding that part of me. It feels a bit like I freed this wholesome healthy person I’ve not known since I was a teenager hitting the rink for figure skating practice at 6am before school. Infact, I like the mornings more than that teenager did.