Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part I. WAKING UP

Chapter 4. Day One

To My Friend, on Her First Sober Morning,

I have been where you are. I’ve lived through this day. This day when you wake up terrified. When you open your eyes and it hits you: the jig is up. You lie paralyzed in bed and shake from the horrifying realization that life as you know it is over. Then you think that’s probably okay, since life as you know it totally blows. Even so, you can’t get out of bed because the thing is you don’t know how. You don’t know how to live, how to interact, how to cope, how to function without a drink or at least the hope of a future drink. You never learned. You dropped out before all the lessons. So who will teach you how to live?

Listen to me. You are shaking from withdrawal and fear and panic this morning, so you cannot see clearly. You think that this is the worst day of your life, but you are wrong. This is the best day of your life, friend. Things, right now, are very, very good—better than they have ever been. Your angels are dancing. Because you have been offered freedom from the prison of secrets. You have been offered the gift of crisis.

As Kathleen Norris reminds us, the Greek root of the word crisis is “to sift,” as in to shake out the excesses and leave only what’s important. That’s what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away. And what matters most right now is that you are sober, so you will not worry about whether the real you will be brave or smart or funny or beautiful or responsible enough. Because the only thing you have to be is sober. You owe the world absolutely nothing but sobriety. If you are sober, you are enough. Even if you are shaking and cursing and boring and terrified. You are enough.

But becoming sober, becoming real, will be hard and painful. A lot of good things are.

Becoming sober is like recovering from frostbite.

Defrosting is excruciatingly painful. You have been numb for so long. As feeling comes back to your soul, you start to tingle, and it’s uncomfortable and strange. But then the tingles start feeling like daggers. Sadness, loss, fear, anger, anxiety—all of these things that you have been numbing with the booze—you feel them for the first time. And it’s horrific at first, to tell you the damn truth. But welcoming the pain and refusing to escape from it is the only way to recovery. You can’t go around it, you can’t go over it, you have to go through it. There is no other option, besides amputation. If you allow the defrosting process to take place—if you trust that it will work and choose to endure the pain—one day you will get your soul back. If you can feel, then there has been no amputation. If you can feel, you are not too late.

Friend, we need you. The world has suffered while you’ve been hiding. You are already forgiven. You are loved. All there is left to do is to step into your life. What does that mean? What the hell does that mean?

This is what it means. These are the steps you take. They are plain as mud: Get out of bed. Don’t lie there and think—thinking is the kiss of death for us—just move. Take a shower. Sing while you’re in there. Make yourself sing. The stupider you feel, the better. Giggle at yourself, alone. Joy for its own sake—joy just for you, created by you—it’s the best. Find yourself amusing.

Put on some makeup. Blow-dry your hair. Wear something nice, something that makes you feel grown up. If you have nothing, go buy something. Today’s not the day to worry too much about money. Invest in some good coffee, caffeinated and decaf. (Decaf after eleven o’clock.) Read your daughter a story. Don’t think about other things while you’re reading; actually pay attention to the words. Then braid your girl’s hair. Clean the sink. Keep good books within reach. Start with Traveling Mercies. David Sedaris is good too. If you don’t have any good books, go to the library. If you don’t have a library card, apply for one. This will stress you out. You will worry that the librarian will sense that you are a disaster and reject you. Listen: they don’t know, and they don’t care. They gave me a card, and I’ve got a rap sheet as long as your arm. When reentering society and risking rejection, the library is a good place to start. They have low expectations. I love the library. Also church. Both have to take you in.

As Anne Lamott suggests, only three prayers are necessary. Mine are “Please!” “Thank you!” and “WTF???” That’s all the spirituality you’ll need for a while. Go to meetings. Any meeting will do. Don’t worry if the other addicts there are “enough like you.” Face it: we are all the same. Be humble.

Get out of the house. If you have nowhere to go, take a walk outside. Do not excuse yourself from walks because it’s too cold. Bundle up. The sky will remind you of how big God is, and if you’re not down with God, then the oxygen will help. Same thing. Call one friend a day. Do not start the conversation by telling her how you are. Ask how she is. Really listen to her response, and offer your love. You will discover that you can help a friend just by listening, and this discovery will remind you that you are powerful and worthy.

Get a yoga video and a pretty mat. Practice yoga after your daughter goes to bed. The evenings are dangerous times, so have a plan. Yoga is a good plan because it teaches us to breathe and appreciate solitude as a gift. Learn to keep yourself company.

When you start to feel, do. When you start to feel scared because you don’t have enough money, find someone to offer a little money. When you start to feel like you don’t have enough love, find someone to offer love. When you feel unappreciated and unacknowledged, appreciate and acknowledge someone else in a concrete way. When you feel unlucky, order yourself to consider a blessing or two. Then find a tangible way to make today somebody else’s lucky day. These strategies help me sidestep wallowing every day.

Don’t worry about whether you like doing these things or not. You’re going to hate everything for a long while. And the fact is that you don’t even know what you like or hate yet. Just do these things regardless of how you feel about doing these things. Because these little things, done over and over again, eventually add up to a life. A good one.

Friend, I am sober today. Thank God Almighty, I’m sober today. I’m here, friend. Yesterday my son turned ten, which means that I haven’t had a drink for ten years and eight months. Lots of beautiful and horrible things have happened to me during the past ten years and eight months, and I have handled my business day in and day out without booze. GOD, I ROCK.

Today I’m a wife and a mother and a daughter and a friend and a writer and a dreamer and a Sister to one and a “sister” to thousands of readers. I wasn’t any of those things when I was a drunk.

And I absolutely love being a recovering alcoholic. I am more proud of the “recovering” badge I wear than any other.

What will you be, friend? What will you be when you become yourself ?

When Jesus saw her lying there and knew that she had been there for a long time, he said to her, “Do you want to be made well? Then pick up your mat, and walk.”

—John 5:6-8