The Memory of Smells and the Reality of Early Sobriety

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October 1, 2025

I have more to write today but I wanted to get done a funny thing from my young adulthood before I forgot.

When I was in my early twenties, I worked briefly at a coffee, chocolate, cards, and gifts store called Cristopher’s. They sold a ton of coffee beans because it was before Keurig existed. It was a dream to smell coffee and chocolates all day long. One of my daily chores was to scoop all the coffee beans out of each bin, 14 in total, and wipe the inside of the bins clean with a wet cloth. I didn’t mind because it killed time, and I got to smell all the flavoured coffee beans. One of my favourite bins was the hazelnut coffee beans. This morning I made a coffee with a hazelnut Keurig pod and the smell took me right back to the cozy store and the smell. I remembered doing my little tasks of cleaning, dusting, and ringing up purchases and talking to the customers, many of which were regulars.

It was a warm cozy safe place that I really didn’t appreciate at the time because I was young and full of piss and vinegar. I was left alone for eight-hour shifts and no breaks some days and at the time a girl around my age had been kidnapped from a tanning studio when she was working alone, and she was raped and killed. Instead of speaking to the owners, I reported them to labour relations, gave my notice, and they got in trouble. 

I should have talked to them, but I was very self-righteous at that age and unfortunately, we left on a left on a less than positive note. They were very hurt because we were like family. While I can’t change the past it does make me sad and reminds me that talking things out, even if it’s uncomfortable is the more loving thing to do, even if it turns out badly.

Well, this story of my memory took a turn I didn’t expect because it was supposed to be short and humorous, believe it or not. The humorous part is that my name is Angel and the husband and wife who owned the store were Joseph and Mary. Customers thought this was hilarious especially at Christmas time.

It is surprising that just a smell can turn into written therapy. I am very uncomfortable talking things out and dealing with negative emotions. This discomfort is one of the many reasons I am detoxing right now from drinking one to two bottles of wine on a daily basis.

I am starting a life of sobriety, and it scares the living daylights out of me. I have very little in the way of healthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress, expectations, conflict, relationships, responsibilities, and pretty much daily normal life. My only coping mechanism was to drink until everything felt fine.

This was a nice and worthwhile revelation today that being real with the people we care about and being brave enough to talk things out is what living an authentic life is all about. Right now, with only two days sober and a great deal of determination, I feel like one big raw nerve and can’t deal with being that authentic at the moment but hopefully once I have some sobriety under my belt my emotional resilience will be strong enough to get me there.

My Counsellor told me I Sounded Like a Teenager and I’m 56 Years Old!

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Ok, so now that I’m over being pissed off at my counsellor for saying that I sounded like a teenager when I was expressing once again how I am not interested in sex since menopause, and I feel obliged to still participate in sex because I worry that my boyfriend will leave if I don’t, I had a revelation, she was right! Not only was she right, I was wrong and I was lying to myself.

I admire her for being brave enough to call me on my bullshit. They weren’t the words I would have used, but it turns out that it’s super refreshing to have someone say something in totally blunt terms to get a message through to someone they care about when nothing else has gotten through to them. In today’s emotional environment, if you are not completely understanding of everyone’s problems, misbehaviour, or decisions, then you’re a bad person. It has left me with the distinct feeling that my relationships miss the depth of the friendships that I had in my younger years. I feel that any misstep will lead to the loss of a relationship. This possibility of loss brings back the feelings of loss from past close relationships that ended abruptly or just faded away to nothing.

So now, like the insecure child that I thought I left behind when I became an adult, I find myself surrounded by relationships that I never let grow, develop, and possibly die. These shallow connections aren’t what I want out of life. I want to have real, deep, possibly messy relationships, and I want to risk losing some people in my life in exchange for this deeper connection with true friends and not just acquaintances who really don’t know me.

Truth be told, I still like sex a lot, but not when I’m tired and stressed, and not when I feel obliged to perform. My boyfriend did not put this pressure on me; I did it to myself. For one reason or another, we have barely had sex this month, and guess what? He is still here, and he’s not mad or resentful. He’s the same wonderful man I found six years ago.

Yes, my counsellor was right; I did sound like a teenager. I was also wrong, I still like sex very much, and I was lying to myself that I had to do something I didn’t want to do to keep my relationship.

Being honest with myself and trying to deepen relationships by being my real self is going to be an interesting journey. I have believed my lies, public persona and the excuses I made for shielding myself from pain for so long that I don’t know where to begin. So I’ll start here, where I am today.

Getting Healthy or Something Like That . . .

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I’ve spent just shy of a year working on my mental and physical health. I felt overwhelmed all the time, trapped in circumstances that I couldn’t seem to change, and so I drank. I drank wine pretty much every day for so many reasons, good reasons, lame reasons, and I hid it so well that only when I overdid it did my daughter or my boyfriend notice. But it was like walking a tightrope all the time because I knew that when I crossed that invisible line, I became a beligerent, angry, emotional mess. This part of myself felt justified in saying everything that came out of my mouth then.

Some people might say that that part of me is the true me and that I’m letting my real feelings out, but the sober me disagrees. The sober me loves her people and appreciates the life she has, and the other me, the one on the other side of that invisible line, is mean and spiteful, envious and self-pitying and has come very close to losing relationships because of her sharp tongue and relentless anger, and I hate her. If someone told me I would be guaranteed never to see that part of me again if I cut off my arm, I would do it. So why is taking alcohol out of my life worse than cutting off my arm?

This is my conundrum. So I see a counsellor, and I journal, and I count my drinks and log them on an app, and sometimes I get through a day or two without drinking. But my liver has toughening tissue, my blood pressure is high, and I am 40 pounds overweight. I know it’s just a matter of time before the drinking leads to irreversible health issues if I don’t clean up my act.

On the upside, I joined a gym that suits my short attention span and need for variety and am getting stronger. This makes me feel better about things. Along with this blog, I want to get back to the things I love and try new things that might replace wine. But it’s been a long, slow road so far. I try to remember the saying that goes something like “fall down nine times, get up ten.”
I would love to hear from anyone who resonates with this. How are you doing, my friend? Tell me about your journey, and maybe we can fumble along together.

Hello World!

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I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have much time left on this planet and that I’ve veered off the road of who I am as a person and what I wanted out of life so much while becoming a teacher, wife, mother, single parent, care-giver, and friend that I don’t really know who I am or what I want out of the remaining years I have on this planet.

So this is where I begin. This is definitely not a guide to show people how to do this successfully. This is a Columbo-style collection of realizations, developments, and hopefully insights from me on my journey to figure all these things out. I hope you are amused, entertained, and possibly even offended at times by the nuggets of knowledge and stories I’ll share with you.

Thank you for finding my blog! I look forward to sharing my journey with you and hearing about your own experiences and reflections.