The sweet pop of a cork slipping from the bottle. The cool and delicate stem of a wineglass, the bowl of the glass fitting perfectly into the palm. The sound of ice hitting the bottom of a tumbler, and the Friday texture of the salted rim of a margarita glass, followed by the tang and depth of the lime and tequila.

The rough day at work slipping away as the waitress sets down first the cocktail napkin, then the glass of rum and coke, the condensation on the outside dampening the napkin, which would stick to the bottom of the glass when it was lifted.

A cool wedge of lime on the rim of a glass. A cold beer after being outside in the heat. The schnapps in a cup of hot cocoa after being out in the snow. The raucous camaraderie of instant friends at happy hour. The pitchers, the bottles, the decanters.

Those evenings, the inevitable progression from the clink of the glasses to the chinks in the armor, leading to the brink of disaster.

I used to sip beer from my dad’s ice cold beer cans when I’d open them for him. Seven or eight years old?  Oh, a little sip won’t hurt you. It’s just one.

At fourteen, I began to steal from his stash of beer in the kitchen. My mother would be in the living room watching television or spending a Thursday evening at a prayer meeting. My dad was always at the bar. Nobody was guarding the fridge.

I’d go to my room and drink one, then two, then three. I would sit on the floor, drinking, listening to music or staring at the ceiling. Once, I grabbed two beers and walked up the alley to the school, then onto the football field where I sat in the grass in the dark and drank the bitter stuff, the expanse of grass around me feeling like an ocean, the starry sky overhead like someplace remote.

Eventually, my mom found the beer cans in my room and yelled at me. I cleaned it up, locked my door, and vowed not to drink ever again. Not because I was ashamed of my new habit, but ashamed that I’d been caught.

I was good. I behaved. I got some Jesus, I finished out the remaining three years of high school with straight A’s and then went to college for a year and a half, got married, moved away.

At 21, I celebrated. My first drink in a bar!  Three shots of ouzo and I was out. From 21 to 31, I developed a taste for beer and margaritas, rum and coke, or white zinfandel. Zima or apple pucker, Mike’s Hard Lemonade or Corona with lime.

If one was good, two would be better, so why not three? Hey, those three left over look lonely-why not drink those, too, so that six pack isn’t taking up space in the fridge?

No matter what I drank in an evening, invariably, I would drink until I was hilarious, then keep drinking til I hated everyone, drink some more til I forgave everyone, and then drink til I was crying and ashamed.

Then I would throw up and pass out.

With tequila, I would skip hilarity and forgiveness, and go straight to mean, then argue and pass out.  Tequila was efficiency. Snarky, unforgiving efficiency.

Drinking became something I looked forward to. The first sip would be pleasure. Then I would want more, but nothing was ever as good as that first sip. I would drink faster and faster, until I felt the tethers of my mind disconnecting me from worry and responsibility and anxiety. Only then would I slow down.

Eventually, the feeling each time was more and more fleeting and I would bypass pleasure straight to need. I needed to untie myself from reality, to feel my fingers slip off the edge of that life raft, let myself drift away, let the waters of inebriation slip over my head and into my ears and nose, stop fighting it until I slipped under and lower and lower, the light and rescue pinpoints swirling far above my head.

Falling asleep, I said. I’m not blacking out. I’m just tired.

One night, I went out with friends from work. We went bowling, and everyone took turns buying beer for the rest of the group. There were six of us, so we each took our turn buying a round, so each of us had at least six beers. I think we bowled, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember putting on my coat, but I remember the snow outside stinging my face and slipping into the top of my shoe as I shuffled to my car.

My next recollection was taking off my coat in the living room of our apartment and throwing my keys on the coffee table. I sat down on the sofa, and in a split second realized I couldn’t remember driving home. I just knew that I had consumed six drinks in less than three hours, and had then driven home in the snow.

I sat alone in that apartment, and broke into a cold sweat. What the hell was I doing with my life?

That was January 29, 2000. Nine years ago today.

Tomorrow marks my nine year anniversary of sobriety.

Few people even knew enough to suspect I had a problem. Even fewer knew I had quit drinking. No fanfare, no great proclamation, no preaching to others.

But it was one of the hardest things I ever did, and I did it without sitting in a group of people drinking coffee and comparing war stories about their worst binges, their terrible lives, their shame. I kept it all to myself.

When I drank, for the most part I drank alone, and I recovered, for the most part, in solitude. I didn’t want the alcohol, either the consumption or the quitting, to be the reason I bonded with anyone. The friends I drank with have drifted away, replaced by people who usually have no idea it was ever a problem.

I really don’t talk about it. It’s not a badge of honor, nor a mark of shame. It’s a private war I waged in trenches rimmed with rock salt, in moats where I swam through cheap pink wine. I did not send up distress signals or ask for reinforcements. I crawled out alone, I nursed my wounds alone, and by myself I have gotten through the worst of it.

Life is still a struggle at times.  But I am no longer drowning, and for that, I am profoundly grateful.