Steve welcomes Jimmy back to celebrate the holidays by looking back on what the seasons have meant to us throughout our lives into today, as we are celebrating sober!
Topics discussed include:
Follow Jimmy @jcorn104 on IG, and follow us @gayapodcast. Head over to the Patreon page to hear Jimmy and Steve talk about what life was like in our 20s!
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Steve welcomes Jimmy back to celebrate the holidays by looking back on what the seasons have meant to us throughout our lives into today, as we are celebrating sober!
Topics discussed include:
Follow Jimmy @jcorn104 on IG, and follow us @gayapodcast. Head over to the Patreon page to hear Jimmy and Steve talk about what life was like in our 20s!
Listeners, I NEED YOUR HELP! This podcast is growing rapidly, and I want to make sure we can all grow together, so take this survey and let me know what I'm doing right and where I should focus my attentions going forward to provide the best podcast for YOU possible! CLICK HERE!
Hi everyone, and welcome to Gay A, a podcast about sobriety for the queer community and our allies. I'm your host, Steve Benner Martin, I'm an alcoholic and addict, and I am grateful for convincing both sides of my family to do Secret Santas this year. As of this recording, I am 934 days sober, and today we're welcoming back friend of the podcast, Jimmy, to discuss navigating the holidays queer and sober. Welcome back. Welcome back.
Jimmy:Oh, thanks Steve. Glad to be back. Yes.
Steve:And as a reintroduction, what has your last year of sobriety look like and what changes have been going on with you in your life?
Jimmy:Yeah, so I have been sober for 1,135 days. It's a little over three years sober. Congrats. And I've marked the third year of sobriety on November eight. And I think for me, the, the biggest thing of the last year of sobriety is on the outside, like, my life is largely what it looked like last year. Professionally and personally, I live in the same house. I have the same job. I have largely the same friends. But on the inside, I feel like it was this year or this 3rd year of sobriety. Where I finally really understood why I drank in the 1st place. And so, even though on the outside, it's been a lot of good community and good personal and professional accomplishments. The reason why I drank, it turned out, was I really felt deeply lonely. So yeah, it's felt like a really lonely time a few points over this last year of sobriety and a fellow gay sober friend of mine who also just turned 3 years sober. He felt like it was very similar for him too. So it's been 1 of the harder seasons of sobriety, I think, but I think I'm actually entering into real recovery. So not just the work of not drinking, but really reclaiming. Me, on my own terms.
Steve:Yeah, I mean, what would you say is your favorite part of being sober and in recovery today? Oh
Jimmy:my gosh, okay, so having no hangovers in the holiday season is fantastic. So, like, this past weekend, I, so I'm a musician. And just played a big Christmas concert and had a party at my house afterwards alcohol free but open to any and all people who wanted to be there. So to play a huge concert and then have a party that was completely alcohol free with all my friends here at the house. And then Sunday morning, the next day, get up early. My gym hosted a competition. My team placed third in the division in our division. So to have a concert, do a great party and wake up and slay a competition the next morning with no headache, no hangover. I love that for my sobriety journey
Steve:right now. I love that journey for you. Yeah. I mean, that's great. And it's definitely something where so many times I hear people talk about working out when they're hung over. I don't know how you do that because there are times where I'm just tired in the morning and it's a lot.
Jimmy:Sometimes I don't know how I work out while I'm sober, for the exact same reason,
Steve:but you know, I do it. And what is your favorite part of being queer today?
Jimmy:Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think one of the core tenants of my queerness is being authentic to myself. And so I don't know if it's my favorite thing, but it's definitely the most important thing that piece I just shared about feeling lonely and really leaning into that loneliness. My queerness. teaches me how to lean into that in an authentic way to acknowledge, yeah, I do feel lonely. I feel lonely for, you know, an authentic expression of myself. I feel lonely for you know, queer community or queer friendships or just community friendships. So I know that's not exactly my quote unquote favorite Rainbow and unicorns part of my queerness, but my queerness teaches me to to be authentic and honest with myself, which Therefore leads me to be honest and authentic with the people around me.
Steve:That is so important And with the holiday season upon us, why don't we like why did you agree to come on for the holiday
Jimmy:episode? Yeah I had to laugh when you invited me around thanksgiving if I could be available for a podcast in December and like I said, I'm a musician and this is in addition to being the most wonderful time of year is the busiest time of year, but like I told you, if you could record kind of, you know, at the mid to late point of December, most of the hecticness would be behind me and it is, and so I suggested to you what would it look like if we did an episode on being queer sober and the holidays? Because between all things, holiday parties, holiday expectations, for many of us, we are either getting ready to go back to family of origin or hosting family of origin, or maybe we're making decisions to not see family of origin because it's too dangerous or triggering or uncomfortable. So, I think having a conversation as we're about a week away from Christmas about what it looks like to be queer sober through the holiday season would be a really. Lovely thing to talk about
Steve:for sure. I know that growing up, the holidays were always a time of year where Every great thing about being a part of a family kind of was shown But also all the cracks would show as everything kind of blew up a little bit easier I grew up in new york on long island, but like very new england with my upbringing What were the holidays like for you growing up?
Jimmy:Yeah, so I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and I grew up in a military family in a military city. My dad was army. And so, and he was a combat veteran. So, in some respects, our Christmases were I don't know, they were just. Quiet. My dad was born in Detroit in 1940, a very quintessential Midwestern Great Lakes State family. And so, therefore, the tradition in our family growing up was Christmas was kind of a very formal. Not just family first, but family only thing. So, for example on, say, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, if you were not part of the household, you didn't get to come inside the house, and you really weren't expected or allowed to leave the house. As a kid, on those days, it was frowned upon, it was seen as weird. We didn't host parties at our house really ever, but especially during the holidays there, there were no Christmas parties for adults or kids in my house. Growing up, my dad was the alcoholic in our family that I grew up with. And so that was the other part of the holidays. You mentioned the cracks being made much more visible. I would say because there were no parties, there was no. Blackout drinking, but there was a, and I became aware of it as a preteen constant supply of alcohol whenever you wanted it if you were an adult, or if you became a teenager, if you wanted to ask an adult. So that's what I remember the most about my holidays. We have a very small family. It was me, my parents, my sister, Julie, who was 15 years older than me and her growing family. And that was it. My grandparents died when I was very young, so it was very small, very closed off to the rest of the world, and just felt weird. The other part of my Christmas traditions growing up was I was active in my church's choir, and so all things like church choir and youth choir, Christmas parties, Or the Christmas Eve services. Those actually became some of my favorite events of the year because it allowed me to leave the house and see how other people do Christmas and to do Christmas or to do holidays with somebody other than my family. And I think it also kind of planted the seeds for why I, as a gay person, loved Christmas, the church that I grew up in, in San Antonio had a big old live nativity. It wasn't a one night thing. It was. multiple nights a week throughout December, and they relied on the volunteers from the congregation and anybody could do it and have whatever role you wanted. So I loved as a young boy dressing up as a shepherd some years, dressing up as an angel other years, dressing up as a wise man, which meant we put on like these I don't think they were real silks, but fake silks, right? But I could kind of like do liturgical drag every single year and put on a different character and learn all these songs and learn all these traditions and do it with other youth and other folks in that community. So it wasn't queer community, but it was still something outside of my house. And I think that's where I Whether I knew it or not, I began to realize the way that we do Christmas in my family doesn't exactly resemble the way that a lot of other people do Christmas and do the holidays, which is to say, if nothing else, they brought other people into their lives. So, yeah, to put my rambling into a couple of clear sentences in my house, the holidays are a very isolated thing. Just the family, nobody else. But as I entered into my teenage years, I realized. Through the church and other places, I got to meet other people and, and do other Christmas traditions.
Steve:Yeah. And that's great. I can certainly relate while my family itself was bigger with my cousins and everything. I remember that I have one cousin who's. Birthday was Christmas Eve, and one whose birthday was the day after Christmas, and there was no combining, so that meant every year, the 24th, the 25th, and the 26th, we were expected to have family gatherings of some sort. All afternoon into the evening. So, my only time not being with my extended family and everything, was in the mornings. And Then, on Christmas morning, Christmas with my parents, again, it was, very perfect, but, God forbid, like, the pancakes were burned, because then my dad might have to turn, the whole kitchen on fire. So I remember, that pressure of having to,, have everything be perfect while also then, like, getting there and then seeing that,
Jimmy:like, my cousins
Steve:and other family wouldn't have that same pressure that, my internal parents and my brother, like, the four of us were expected to have. We'd go, it was, like, a very different dichotomy when we went to the extended family, but I just remember, like, feeling trapped for 72 hours straight each year.
Jimmy:That feeling trapped resembled that, and we would always Joke in air quotes that it wasn't Christmas or it wasn't Thanksgiving until my biggest sister and my dad got into an argument on how to cook the holiday dinner, how to do the table setting. Like everything had to be perfect. And that argument was. Blow up the kitchen, everybody else clear out. And some of that is kind of like national lampoon, family, vacation, funny, ha ha. And then when you realize how much alcohol was involved in all that, you kind of go, Hmm, not that big of a deal.
Steve:Y'all. Yeah. I mean, speaking of alcohol, how did your holiday seasons change when you entered your addiction or that started to like take up more of your life?
Jimmy:So I would say that the holidays didn't change. I did. So I, I would, I mentioned that in either my house growing up, or as my sister and her husband started to, you know, establish their family, we started doing Christmas at their house. This would have been when I was in college and grad school. There was a constant supply of alcohol. So, whether it was you could pour yourself a triple pour of whiskey into your eggnog. Or you know, at Christmas dinner, there might be 4 adults and 5 bottles of wine and we basically each got 1 right? 1 bottle of wine. I would say in my active drinking again, it was never to the point of blackout, but it was constant alcohol. Medication and that feeling of trapped. Like you said, I can't leave this house. I'm stuck with these people. I might as well drink to at least make myself feel either something or absolutely nothing. Or I might as well drink to make it feel like. I belong in here. sO yeah, I think I changed. I just kind of fell into the system like everybody else in my family did. I rarely, I'm not gonna say never, I rarely was the person who went out to the parties to get blackout drunk. You know, there was no New Year's Eve, stay up till midnight and then keep going till the crack of dawn the next day kind of thing. But it was everything had to be the, the search for alcohol. So, whether it was as an adult singing at Christmas Eve services. In between services, there would be a little wine and cheese party at one of the choir members house, I remember going to those and drinking in between services, and then drinking after I came home from those Christmas Eve services, or we would start with mimosas at Christmas brunch right after we opened presents and just kept going throughout the whole day. Or making sure that the gifts that I gave my brother in law were a fine bottle of whiskey that I would just later open up to enjoy myself, even though I gave it to my brother in law everything about the holidays in my active addiction was. I gotta find it. I gotta find the medication and the alcohol that everybody else in my family is doing because we clearly can't stand reality on its own terms.
Steve:Yeah, I mean, so oftentimes, like, my extended family, I don't know all of them even well enough, even though they're family, quote unquote, to know who has a problem versus who doesn't, but I know that,, everyone at my family gatherings growing up was drinking, and so,
Jimmy:As I got to the point where I was able to, and of
Steve:age, to be able to drink, it was nice that, there was no moderation because no one was looking, because everyone was too busy focusing on themselves and how much they were drinking or what they were going through. But, on the flip side, I know how hard it was being around. All of that drinking when I got sober, what was that first year of recovery, like going through holiday seasons and being around
Jimmy:it? Okay. So I mentioned that my sobriety date is November. It's November 8th.
Steve:Just in time. Yeah. Yeah. So
Jimmy:my very first holiday season sober was I was six to eight weeks sober. And in addition to that, it was 2020. So you could imagine I'm Fresh off of the first bout of withdrawal. Right? And it is COVID winter. We don't have vaccines yet. And I, I come from a family oh, let's not mince words. I come from a family that has much more conservative politics than I do. So they did not take COVID. Very seriously which is to say the night after Christmas December 26, 2020, we all go out to a steakhouse in the worst part of the COVID surge. I'm in
Steve:Florida, so I can't say anything.
Jimmy:Yeah, right. Texas, Florida, they're two wings of the same bird. Yeah. And, and so there, there was just, there was just a ton of fear in that time for everybody. With what the election was that we're still dealing with the fallout of all of that if you pay attention to the news just once, and then the fear of COVID winter without any vaccines and all of that, but then me personally, I'm 6 to 8 weeks sober at, you know, at whatever given holiday it is. Nobody really knew. That I was sober. There were a couple people here in Memphis that knew that I had made this decision on November 8, 2020. I can't drink anymore. It's I can't manage it. I can't handle it, but I wasn't public about it. And I, I was just afraid of what anybody would think of me and what conclusions they would draw about me if they knew that I was sober. So I, I go back to Texas for Christmas with the family. And they can't remember if I did Thanksgiving with them. I did not. I was here. But, you know, I, I shook with fear and trembling as I said no to a glass of wine at Christmas dinner, and I had to deal with the really odd feeling of being sent on an errand to the liquor store to buy. Whatever alcohol was needed, quote unquote, needed for family Christmas celebrations as a person who's 6 to 8 weeks over and does not know how to put up boundaries around his family. When it comes to this stuff it was a crash course on white knuckling. I think that's the only way I really made it through was I just had to white knuckle and even here in Memphis. I remember the. Sorry, little version of a Christmas party that I threw that year was just inviting like, 5 or 6 of my friends to a fire pit in my backyard. And I remember that I opened up my whiskey stash that I was no longer drinking from to my friends. They got drunk to the point of throwing up. So here I am, not drinking, enabling other people's surprise. The other people's drinking that first, that first holiday season sober was, was a hot mess, for sure. But I, I just knew that I was like, whatever it takes. If it's offloading this whiskey onto my family, if it's offloading my stash to my friends, if it's just saying no in the most abrupt way possible. No, I'm not drinking. I, I, I, I, I knew that I couldn't go back to drinking because I knew what happened on November 6, 2020. I told myself I would have two drinks that night and I had, I don't know how many. So it was really scary. And it was really hard, and I think when I came back from that particular Christmas I just kind of sequestered myself in my house for two months and I didn't see anybody. I didn't know how to deal with that at all. It was really hard.
Steve:Yeah, I mean, what advice would you give to someone to learn from those experiences? What would you recommend? How could you have done it differently?
Jimmy:Yeah, I think if I could go back to 2020 Jimmy I think I would just like Gently grab him by the shoulders and say, I need you to take a really big breath and I need you to know that you not drinking is not is both simultaneously, not the huge deal that you think it is because there are a lot of people who don't drink for a thousand reasons. Plus 1 and also you not drinking with your family during the holidays is such a gloriously huge deal. And you don't have to worry about staying sober this whole time. I think I think I just say all you got to do is stay sober right in this moment. You know, you just got to say no to that. Why? You just got to say no to that margarita. You just got to say no to whatever presents all you got to do. You don't have to you don't have to make them like you. You don't have to make them even you don't the only thing you have to do is just say no. And you're doing great. You're being a bad ass for doing this. I think that's just what I would say is this is not the time to do anything more special than just take it one day at a time and be easy on yourself.
Steve:you're so right that just the fact that we're not drinking is just huge and I feel like sometimes we forget that sometimes. But there also, I know that for me getting through that first year of holidays and that first year of firsts, it did help that I was recovering out loud after my first 90 days. I did like my posts and let the family know. But it was nice, because even though my family never drank, it was nice that I was able to also like get out from my home group at 9 o'clock on Zoom. My family all knew, so like, at 8. 15,
Jimmy:8. 20, like they'd all like look at their watch and be like, Steve's gotta go! So like they were all really
Steve:supportive with it but I know that,, not, even for people who aren't recovering out loud, there are ways that they can get through it, whether it be like texting fellows or other program people, or what type of tips do you give people to help stay sober through holidays or tough times?
Jimmy:Yeah, I think the biggest thing if it's holidays or stressful or tough times, I think the biggest thing I know to tell anybody is you don't have to do it all at once. Right? Like, you can't pack a lifetime or even a year's worth of recovery into a day. You know, if all your sobriety practice needs to be for today, the And I think the other thing that helps me navigate really busy seasons is stick to the basics, you know, so for me, it's practice my self care, make sure I'm getting regular exercise, make sure I'm eating semi decently, but you don't want to know how many cookies I've had in the last 24 hours. It's been a lot. It's okay.
Steve:It's just,
Jimmy:it's fine. It's Not you don't need everybody on your team, but you do need a couple people who just just not tolerate you being sober, but celebrate you being sober. And and I had those people, even in that 1st holiday season, who, like, we don't understand why Jimmy's doing this, but we know it's important to him. So we're going to support him in this. And to have even in that first holiday season of sobriety, just two or three people back in Memphis and a couple other folks around the country who, who knew that I was trying to practice this sobriety really helped. So that's what I would say one day at a time. That's it. That's the fundamental. You don't worry about tomorrow's sobriety. Just do today to keep doing your self care, whatever it looks like exercise, journaling, eating pretty. All right. And then three, you don't have to have a whole. Army on your side, but having two or three good friends that celebrate and support your recovery is essential.
Steve:Yes, certainly is. And using those three tools, what are your holiday plans
Jimmy:for this year? Yeah, so I, it's been fascinating to, to watch my holiday seasons change. This is my, this is now my fourth holiday season sober. And I know that for about three years I didn't host any kind of social gathering in my house. At all. None. I, and I was terrified to. I I, even though I was an out and proud sober man, I was still living with the belief that I can't host a sober party. I can't host a sober gathering. Nobody's gonna want to come hang out with a boring old sober guy. And not drink whiskey. And you know, this was the year, 2023 was the year that said, screw it. I'm just going to start inviting people to my house every once in a while for whatever. And so, like I said, in the intro, I hosted my annual Christmas party this year. I did have to explain to a couple of people, no, there is no alcohol here, but. There's the hot chocolate. There's the cranberry cider. We got a lot of different options here, right? So to be able to host a bunch of people here regardless of whether or not they drink and and to really enjoy the time was was really lovely. So that's that was. What this year's non family holiday season look like coming up, I will be driving to see my family on Christmas weekend. So I'll leave Saturday. My niece got married over the summer. So this is her husband's 1st Christmas with us. So we're going to welcome him into our fun little dysfunctional family. hE survived Thanksgiving, so we'll see if he survives Christmas and, and I'm just so grateful that I'm in a place of my healing and my recovery and my sobriety that I can observe my family. I can maybe even take part in a little appropriate gay uncle stir the pot when it's healthily appreciated because what's a gay uncle. We're not going to serve the pot at least a couple of times. Right? But I, I, I feel like I can be myself for the most part. Even if it is in a super red county in suburban Dallas, I mean, I still have to code switch as a queer person and not necessarily with my family, but just in that area. sO I know how much energy I can spend and how much time I can spend with my family before I got to pack the car and come back to. My safe little happy space here, so I'll spend a few days with my family and then 1 of my graduating seniors is giving his senior recital on December 30th and I'm very proud of him and look forward to hearing that program. And we'll miss working with them when he moves off to college next year. And then, like, that 1st week of January. I'm I'm doing nothing. I don't go back to teaching until the 7th of January. I think I'm just gonna keep my tree up all the way to epiphany and just enjoy it for myself. That's my plan. Like, I'm leaning into I'm boring. I'm a boring. Late 30 something gay man, and that's okay.
Steve:That is okay, no, that sounds like an excellent plan, and you need that time for yourself, for sure. So, what is one thing you're looking forward to in your personal life for 2024?
Jimmy:So, I, Like, I just said, rest December. Yeah, that that week between Christmas and New Year's and especially that 1st week of January is. Is is is going to be delightfully boring and then as for the New Year, I haven't given a whole lot of thought to it. I know I'm anticipating 1 of your questions. I haven't. Set any new year's resolutions. I actually won't do that until the end of January. I have a whole process that I do with that. And it takes a weekend, so I, I don't have any big plans or intentions for 2024 right now. And I'm quite all right with that. That's all right. It's one day at a time. Rather just finish this year on a good note.
Steve:Excellent. Sounds good. And then how would our listeners find you if they want to connect or a week from after this episode comes out, find out what those resolutions are.
Jimmy:Yeah. So I am an Instagram boy, so you can find me on Instagram. At JCO 1 0 4, that's J-C-O-R-N zero four.
Steve:Perfect. I am an Instagram guy as well, so you can follow us while you're at it at Gay a podcast. And from more time with Jimmy and I head on over to our Patreon page where we'll spin the Postshow topic wheel. And be sure to follow us wherever you're listening right now so you can get these new episodes every Thursday. Until next time, stay sober Friends.