The Introverted Alcoholic

Source: Alina Ryabchenko / Unsplash

I used to be an English teacher. Every morning I would get up, pour about seven cups of coffee into a thermos, and proceed to do seven shows a day for teenagers who often did not have reading The Crucible as a top priority. I loved teaching. I was lit up, alive with bringing them Shakespeare and Arthur Miller and yes, SAT vocabulary. It was a great gig. And then, I would come home from my long-running show, take off my shoes and grab a snack, and proceed to decompress on my couch for at least an hour. Oh, and I'm an alcoholic in recovery so back then, when I was drinking, I also added about seven cups of wine to the mix. No thermos.

Then, I got sober and also had children. I did this all around the same time, which was nutty. My second son, Henry, decided to do this thing called Not Ever Sleeping, and I became so sleep-deprived that I was having hallucinations. I stopped teaching around that point. It was a painful decision, but I was just so tired.

I am also an introvert. It took me a long time to realize this because I was a teacher. That's a pretty people-y profession. And, if you get me in a crowd, I am talkative and often (sometimes?) funny. I love public speaking. These are not what people would typically think goes along with "introvert," but that's because we might imagine introversion is just monosyllabic shyness in a hoodie. My brand of introversion embraces teaching and speaking, but then it demands some hardcore decompression period afterwards, something I was very unaware of when I was drinking. Thus, the drinking.

It's funny how getting sober allowed me to start finding out all sorts of stuff about myself. Maybe that's because I was able, finally, to listen, really listen, to me, and not some inanimate object in a bottle.

And here's what listening also got me: a job as a librarian.

Just like a lot of folks have preconceived notions about introversion, they also have thoughts about what it means to be a librarian.

• No, I don't just sit and shush people all day.
• No, I don't sit there and just read books. (I obsessively check them out and read them at home.)
• No, it's not always that quiet. I am in charge of children's programming. We are a noisy bunch.

Introverts and alcoholism pair well. Any sort of dinner party or social gathering often had me pouring a "pre-talking" glass or two of wine. It was like people, even those I knew and loved, felt like a very difficult chore on some awful to-do list. Which is a really awful way to think about friends, family, just hanging out at a baseball game, but I had poured alcohol all over any feelings of discomfort for so long that my introversion had escalated into maladaptive behavior.

Now, I'm sober. And yep, I'm still introverted.

Here is a startling truth that I realized when I finally started listening to me: introversion isn't a bad thing. It's not weird or awkward (well it's a little awkward but whatever). I don't have to attach any sort of emotional marker to it at all. Introversion just... is.

There are days when people-ing is tough. And here is why my new job that I kind of took on a whim just to get myself out of the house in the afternoons, is perfect* for me:

1. I get to talk about my passion. This is a daily injection of joy. People often come in and they are returning a book and I say, "Oh... if you liked that book you might really like this one" and then I get to tell them about it. The other day a lady stopped me on my morning run to tell me that my suggestion to her, The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes was the best book she'd read in a long time. It was a great feeling and I think I might have PR'd.
2. Being a book matchmaker makes me feel like I have a purpose. My brain is jonesing for purpose.
3. I don't have to engage in much small talk. Introverts don't much care for the stuff. We feel adrift in it, or annoyed or tired (or at least I do) because what we really want to do is connect on a deeper level which is weird to other people. In the library? It's mostly ok to connect over books and even puzzles. I had a discussion the other day with a lady about why puzzles make our brains happy, and then I showed her our huge assortment, and it was like Christmas.

The other day, I was having what I call a "black dog day." These are days when my depression (which I have written about before) shows up, skittering around the edges of all my movements, gnawing on my day. I didn't want to work. I didn't want to talk. I just wanted to be left alone. But there I was, at the front desk, when a guy came in and asked for help with the printer. Inwardly, I sighed. This is always a bit stressful because our printer is somewhat touchy. I was brave, and helped him with enlarging and copying some music, but I was still pretty quiet about it. Finally, as he was walking to the door, I asked, "Hey, what instrument do you play?" He turned and smiled and said, "Bagpipe." Come to find out, he's played with The Piano Guys, and we ended up watching the video on YouTube, and I teared up because it was so lovely. I hid the teariness because that is too much emotion for one afternoon with a complete stranger, but it was one of those moments where you think, "Everyone has such lovely stories to tell," and the library can be a place where we tell them.

In fact, being a librarian often feels like being a bartender but with books, not booze, and that's a much better substitution for me.

Source: Angelina Yan / Unsplash

*I did not think about taking the library job when it was offered to me. I just said "Yes." This was very weird because I wasn't looking for a job. I certainly thought I didn't have the time. I was in the midst of working on my third book. But for some reason, I found myself saying out loud, "Yes, I would like to apply," and I did and now here we are. And that, I think, is a "higher power" thing, like all of a sudden I was just gently scooted along, swiftly into a whole new space. A good space. A healing space.