Dear Diary, I want to tell you about my relationship with control.

Leading up to my 27th birthday, I had been itching for a little chaos or thrill. (For my astrology girlies, we know this was my Saturn Return knocking her horns at my door.)

It was the end of 2017, and earlier that year, I ended the relationship with my ex-boyfriend (technically ex-fiance, more on this in another story) of 7 years, so for many months afterwards I was learning who I was on my own and doing a lot of internal work. I started journaling, which is how I got into this little habit you’re reading now, and was spending a lot of time with friends, commiserating life’s ups and downs. But as winter approached, something inside of me was begging to be let out.

I wanted excitement! I wanted adventure! I wanted something…different.

A list began in my head of things I had never done before:

• Skydiving
• Go to Europe
• …try a drink? Woah.

Ok, let me backup here. One very important fact: I was raised Muslim. Which meant that basically anything considered a vice in the secular world was off-limits. Alcohol, drugs of any kind, gambling, etc…all a big fat No-No.

And at this point in my life, I was still a practicing Muslim. Which meant that I prayed 5 times a day, fasted during Ramadan, gave my 2.5% charity, and went to Friday prayers at the mosque whenever I could. I even still wore a hijab. I had already started making my own rules about when I would and wouldn’t wear it – hijab during the week at the office, no hijab on the weekends, a persona my friends dubbed “Weekend Anisah”. But even so, I still never had a sip of alcohol. That felt extreme.

Why?

Knowing this now, you might ask why I was even considering doing something so ~outlandish~. To be honest, I can’t tell you exactly when or why I thought of it.

Part of the allure was certainly because I didn’t make this choice not to drink on my own, it was baked into my life and my upbringing. But even so, I had been around people while they drank alcohol for a few years at this point, and I was never even slightly tempted. I would go out with friends after work, but I always had water or ginger beer without any desire for more. Not knowing what you’re missing is quite powerful.

Back then there was also a slightly unappealing and unnerving thing to me about alcohol and any sort of drug use – the idea of not having control of your own body and brain. The concept of “letting loose” was nowhere to be found in my personal dictionary. Don’t get me wrong. I liked to have fun, but with a lot of parameters because I just didn’t feel safe. Yes, there is a control issue here, I’m aware. And yes, I have worked through a lot of that in therapy.

Anyway. As soon as whatever it was flipped in my brain, I kind of became obsessed with the thought of breaking this streak of lifelong sobriety.

Over the course of December (my birthday is in early January) I started asking my friends, “hey what if I tried a drink on my birthday? Like an alcoholic one?”

We used to make jokes all the time that the water I was drinking at bars was vodka on the rocks. And none of them ever pressured me to have a drink. Honestly, they were always more concerned that what I ordered had no alcohol in it than I was. So when I asked this, it was either met with a laugh to brush it off – because why would I truly suggest this! – or with an “are you good?” look. And the thing is, I was good, I just didn’t fully know it yet.

Birthday Weekend

My friends had planned a party at a bowling alley for me, and afterward we went to a tavern called Dillon’s in Boston. It wasn’t crowded, so we all sort of spread out around the bar. I was standing with two friends, Jamie and Sasha. We got on the topic of why I had been asking if I should have a drink on this day. Somehow I ended up holding Jamie’s cider in my hand, which only had about 2 sips left, as I delivered a many-minutes-long monologue that, if summarized, was something along the lines of:

“I mean I’ve never tried it and I want to. If I just had a sip of this, what would that matter? It wouldn’t change the fact that I’ve been sober for the last 27 years, and having a drink right now doesn’t mean I’m an alcoholic or that I need to continue drinking. Even if I did continue, why is that a problem either!”

This went on for what felt like 10 minutes. Likely going around in circles. Jamie and Sasha stared at me blankly while I spoke at them for however long. And none of us will forget what I did next.

“Fuck it.”

I took the last swig of her cider. “Oh ew.”

Wide-eyed Jamie: “...............SHE DOESN’T LIKE CIDER!”

They started yelling and celebrating, and the rest of the crew who were sporadically around the bar all were wondering what was going on. So they rushed around me and congratulated me, and asked me a flurry of questions. All wondering if this was ok or not, and if I wanted something else. A few of the boys suggested I order a dark and stormy – remember my love of ginger beer?

One of them brought me the drink and I still remember him saying “I’ve never been prouder to have a drink on my tab!” I loved the dark and stormy, and there were more cheers.

The rest of the night was my first look into what the next few years would be like for me. Jamie and Sasha took me to one of the bars in Southie where 20-somethings went to dance and meet people. This is where I learned what a vodka soda was, what dancing with people was like…and what making out with someone on the dance floor was like. We don’t need to get into the details considering they’re very embarrassing and irrelevant to this story. But I ended up having countless nights like this for the next several years. I finally found out what I had been missing out on.

Wild 2018

I’m sure you can imagine that this entire year is full of stories. (We started calling it my Wild 2018, which is funny if you read my last story about how that summer took a turn.)

Like the time a friend saw me holding a craft beer not 2 months after my first drink, laughed and said, “you know we all had to learn how to drink on garbage like Natty Light, but you got to bypass all of that for nice stuff!”

Or that summer when I got a little too drunk and woke up safely at home (thanks to my bff Regina). Somehow I wasn’t hungover, but I also had no phone and lost my favorite bra??

There was also the day I decided I wanted to try weed for the first time, but I never got high, even after a full joint and an edible. (Apparently that’s normal…what did I know?)

All this to say, I had a lot of fun. At the same time, I was nervous about losing myself to these new activities. In addition to navigating the religious rebellion, there was also some alcoholism on my mom’s side that I didn’t want to ignore. So I started to establish some rules for myself:

• I would not drink alone at home. The only time I would have alcohol in my apartment was if I had people over. I later learned that I never had a problem when I was home alone drinking, but I’m still happy I put some boundaries in place for myself at the start.
• There are already some rules in Islam regarding inebriation and praying. 40 days need to pass after your last alcoholic drink for your prayer to be accepted. But it’s also said that if you ask for forgiveness and you have good intentions, your prayer could still be accepted. So basically, I just made the rule for myself that I would never pray drunk and I would be fine.
• I wouldn’t drink during Ramadan for the first year or two. You’ll learn about why this didn’t continue in another story.
• When I wore a hijab, there was a sense of responsibility I felt like I had to uphold in regards to the integrity of Islamic values, so I wouldn’t drink an obvious alcoholic drink while my hair was still covered. (Weekend Anisah only!) Yes, even though underneath it all I was toying with what my relationship with Islam was. If I was still going to appear as if I was Muslim, I didn’t want to be seen by someone who didn’t know me and wonder why a Muslim woman was drinking a beer. Or, even worse, think that was normal for a hijabi, because it wasn’t and isn’t, by strict standards anyway. This was my internal trial, not everyone else’s.

Rules aside, this was a key time period for a lot of changes to the core of who I was.

I was realizing that letting go of some inhibitions is not only exciting and fun, but necessary. I’m not sure I’d describe myself as tightly wound in my early 20s, but I certainly wasn’t easy going. And this is the year I began to soften. I realized that even when I was drunk or a little high, I did still have control of myself, but a lot of minutia that would be a constant swirl around my brain started to fade away and I could fully enjoy myself in those moments with my friends.

The unraveling of my relationship with religion was clearly wrapped up in letting go of some of that control. But I want to note that the easy thread here would be that because I started drinking alcohol it caused the biggest crack of religion in my psyche.

But that’s too simple.

The truth is there had been little cracks popping up everywhere for a long time. And the chaos I was looking for that year was something within me that either wanted to shine a light and fix those cracks, or wanted a sledgehammer to come in and demolish it all. Islam was a guiding principle for me for my whole life, so the rules I made were how I tried to keep it in my life. There’s something used with Muslims (from ~Gen X through Gen Z anyway) called the “halal/haram ratio”*. They have these types of rules established for themselves and are able to make it work, sometimes forever. And for me, these rules worked for a long time.

Until I looked in the mirror one day and realized it wasn’t working anymore.

More on this next month.

🖊️ A.

* Halal - “lawful” or “permitted” in Arabic

* Haram - “unlawful” or “forbidden” in Arabic