March is a transitional month for those of us with seasonal employment. We start to get back into the swing of things. The palpable changes and surges of energy are not limited to small towns, but they are quite visible on a little island with a diminished winter population. By the houses and shops of fishermen, who removed their traps from the water in December, roadsides are lined with new and repaired lobster traps, ready to be baited up and sent back to the bottom of the sea. Bundles of freshly painted buoys provide color to a landscape that has been primarily brown and gray, as they wait to accompany traps to mark their positions on the deep blue surface. At night, a few more lights indicate houses where people have returned from winter travels. The islands are coming back to life.
For some people, January and February are not all about Netflix and cozy reading by the fire. Town office employees, Selectmen and school board members have been working steadily for two months to get the annual town report ready for Town Meeting. Figures have been checked and rechecked and submitted to auditors as part of the preparation for presenting the Warrant. It will be up to the voters to discuss and decide the various budgets, policies and ordinances for the rest of the year.
In March, 1977, I attended my first Cranberry Isles Town Meeting. I had never experienced this form of local government and I was fascinated. One of the last articles on the warrant was to see if voters would allow island businesses to obtain permits to sell “vinous and spirituous liquors.” I thought it was brilliant to have that particular vote taken so close to the cocktail hour. It passed almost unanimously. Last year, when our meeting finally ended around 6 p.m., I know I’m not the only one who was ready to go home and have a drink.
Not only does my March mean it’s time for Town Meeting, it marks the anniversary of the day I stopped drinking 26 years ago. When I moved to Islesford in 1976, I was 23 years old and I really enjoyed my drinking and all of my other raucous pastimes that went with it. I got a job on a lobster boat where I worked hard and stayed sober during the day, and partied hard at night and on the days when we didn’t go out fishing. I was out of school, supporting myself, and chasing the freedom of an adult life. I was living in a place I had dreamed of living since I was a young girl. Life was good. Any consequences of drinking too much were social ones. I was riding my bike or walking to get around, or riding in someone else’s truck, so I wasn’t the one driving to endanger. (Had I lived on the mainland, I doubt I could have avoided seeing my name in the Police Beat section of the Bar Harbor Times for DUI.) Danger, to me, was riding my bike past Elmer Hadlock’s house, high as a kite, and being chased by a half dozen angry hissing geese. It never occurred to me that I might have a substance abuse problem.
It wasn’t until after our sons were born in 1983 that my daily alcohol consumption increased. I felt harried and sorry for myself as a mother of two small babies and I happily left them in Bruce’s care when he came home from a day of fishing. I went to a neighbor’s house to drink wine and sometimes I didn’t show up at home until after the kids were in bed. Just before our sons’ third birthday, a family member went through a 4-week rehab program for alcoholism. I was starting to admit to myself that my habit of smoking pot after breakfast and wishing I lived on Sesame Street could be a sign of a problem. The idea of rehab opened my eyes to my future. I knew I had to stop my drug use and drinking. I was risking my marriage and the lives of my children. I admitted to my family that I was having a problem.
I was told where to find the support I needed to learn to live my life without drugs and alcohol one day at a time. I was scared. What if I failed at sobriety? What if I succeeded? What if I really hated life without my constant companions? What if I could never be creative again? What if nothing was ever funny again? What if I no longer liked my life on a small island? At AA meetings there were other people who knew how I felt. There were no rules, just ideas, understanding and stories from people of how they dealt with the every day challenges of life without having to pick up a drink.
After 17 years of sobriety I thought maybe I could go back to controlled drinking. It didn’t work for me. I quit again at the beginning of March, eight years ago. I am not trying to present myself as better or worse than anyone else because I have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Nor do I want to judge whether anyone else has a problem with it. That is truly none of my business.
On March 10, we will probably have a very long town meeting. I’ll be ready to serve if I am elected as Moderator and I’ll be ready to deal with the feelings I am likely to have at the end of the day. When I get home I will fill myself up with a big glass of water, and with gratitude that I no longer have to drink or use drugs to appreciate how much I love my island life.
-Islesford, March 4, 2012