One year ago, I was drunk each and every day; every minute of every hour of every day of every week. If it was sunny, I drank. If it was rainy I drank. If I was in one of my rare good moods, I would drink. Most of the time, I drank to escape my problems, many of which had been caused by drinking.
Your get the idea.
Now, as I approach one year of sobriety, a first in nearly 15 years, I have finally learned how to live life on life’s terms.
Yesterday was an all around shitty day. It was a day that, one year ago, I would have taken and pickled.
I came into the office to finish my taxes. Last year, after I got out of detox and rehab, I pilfered my 401(k) to pay off the massive amount of debt that I had constructed. If my drinking was a god, then the debt that had built up was like the statue I had built paying homage to it. I had been putting off doing my taxes because I figured I’d owe Uncle Sam a few hundred bucks, and I wanted to wait until the last minute to deal with it.
I sat down and accessed TurboTax, entered in my W-2 form and the three 1099-R forms.
FUCK UNCLE SAM!!
TurboTax has this cool feature that doesn’t just show you what you owe immediately. Instead, it has a little number ticker that starts counting up the money you owe dollar-by-dollar once you hit submit. When the ticker finally stopped, I probably should have shit myself, you know, to really illustrate my shock and disbelief. TurboTax said I owed the IRS $3,990 in Federal and $550 in state taxes! That’s just about enough to get Elliot Spitzer a blowjob and the hooker a cab ride home. I wasn’t mad. I was just, well, shit-my-pants shocked. That figure was not the taxes I had failed to pay on my 401(k). I had done that when I took the money out in the first place. That was just the penalty.
Like I said, one year ago, I drank on any occasion. A kick in the nuts of this magnitude would likely have caused me to request a few days off so that I could really drink to it.
There was no drinking. There was no resentment. It sucks that I have to somehow give all of this money to the IRS, but what can I do about it? I just have to deal with it. This is what being a responsible, sober adult all is about.
I had called my dad when I saw the taxes I owed. I wasn’t calling for money. I was calling for advice. That was a remarkable feeling – calling for financial advice, rather than financial assistance. Again, drunk David would have tried to ask for money because he could not live up to his responsibilities. Sober David just wanted to reach out for some help.
My Dad called me later on and we talked about how awesome taxes are. I like talking with my Dad. He is getting deployed to Iraq soon with a firm called MPRI, and I’m going to miss him. My dad also told me that my brother’s dog, Godzilla, ran away earlier yesterday during a thunder storm. Godzilla was my dog as well and probably the sweetest dog in the world. I really hope he comes back – not just because of how much of an awesome dog he is but because my brother really loves that dog.
That last paragraph has four reasons that would have led me to drink a year ago: taxes, my dad going to Iraq, Godzilla running away, and my brother being sad. I didn’t drink though. I had a good conversation with my dad, told him I loved him and then called my brother and told him I was sure everything would be fine.
Being sober and thinking like a sober adult may not be something that is such a big deal to most people. For me, it is a big deal.
On April 25, 2008, I will have been sober for one year. I’ll keep everyone updated. I have some stuff I’d like to say.
- David C. Garcia