I never really cared about anyone else. I found it easier to live in my head a lot. But the trouble is, my head doesn’t like me very much. Never really has, honestly. So after I broke up with alcohol, I had to find new ways to get out of my head. Without getting off my head. And that meant, focusing on other people. Which meant learning to care about other people.

I was a smart kid, but I got bored really easily. When I got bored, I tuned out. I’d get distracted, lost in my own thoughts and drift…

I returned from my Back to the Body Retreat throbbing with renewed sexual energy, and a new-found body confidence…

Just in time for the world to completely shut down.

Great. Now I had all these hot erotic ideas and sexual energy with no where and no one to put it on. I tinkered a bit with some online sexy shenanigans but that just added to my frustrations.

I soon realized these shenanigans were just trying to fill a void. The same void I spent years pouring alcohol into. For someone with addiction issues — not such a great idea.

Plus…

5 things I learned (the hard way) — so you don’t have to.

I like to consider myself good in crisis. And generally good with people. I like to think my breaking point is higher than your average Joe’s (pun intended).

However, I can’t say any of the above is true when examining a recent camping trip in Sequoia National Park for a long weekend.

It was one of those things, a good friend of mine suggested the trip. We had a few people interested (10 at this point). He said he would find a camp site. He didn’t. I…

My last (and only) threesome had hardly been romantic. 2 guys. Outside a lifeguard tower on Venice Beach, late at night. I’d met them at a dodgy bar in Redondo Beach and after some minimal conversation, I’d driven us to the beach at their behest. They hadn’t even bought me a soft drink.

Men are easy: You tug this, suck that. Take it. Done. I hadn’t even been nervous.

Not like I was now.

Now that it was going to be all about me…

It was day 5 of my back to the body retreat and my fifth session with…

I’ve never really been able to get into porn. I can’t relate to some DD bouncing 19-year-old with a butthole that can seemingly engulf a Buick, getting roughly gang-banged while writhing in pleasure.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy rough and dirty sex if the mood strikes. Butt play is a new highly pleasurable discovery for me. But hours of brutal anal sex to the point of rosebudding? No thank you.

In high school, porn set up some unrealistic expectations.

And a large divide. The guys were seriously into it. Meanwhile, us girls were reading Cosmopolitan, Mills & Boon, and Erica Jong — dreaming of romance, desire and suave…

It’s been 312 Friday nights. 72 months. 6 years without booze.

Without pills. Without weed. Without anything “fun”. CONTINUOUSLY.

There was a time when I couldn’t imaging getting through a Friday night without drinking. I didn’t think I was an “alcoholic” — I didn’t drink in the morning, I had a full-time job, a roof over my head. I still had all my teeth.

I told myself I didn’t drink during the week on school nights. The truth was school nights were becoming less frequent. Annoying things, like missing the early train home or a surly friend were happening more often and required a little something to take the edge off.

…

I’d broken up with my boyfriend. Not because I didn’t love him, but because I’m sober and I couldn’t share him with drugs anymore. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to.

I blocked him on messenger, Facebook, sent his emails to spam, etc. And I waited — and hoped — for him to wake up and come knocking on my door.

Then one Friday night about three weeks later, I got this WhatsApp message:

“Are we still together?”

No.

“Good. Thought I’d check. Because I’m going on a date.”

That shook me. I had thought he might…

We met at a picnic. I’d gotten out of work early, and I was in a skirt and heels that made my legs look toned. I caught him looking and it felt good.

I was talking to someone about a date I’d been on (my first and only in the six months since my divorce). The date had freaked me out by searching through my Facebook feed and finding a photo of me, my sister and my dad when I was 18 years old. A photo I’d posted four years ago. It was a little stalkerish.

Anyway, this guy leaned…