Don’t Drink and Don’t Die

I’m trying to stay anonymous at the level of press, radio, films and the internet. That’s what I say, but should some film producer come by, well ……………

Anyway some people who know me read this blog, of course, and I’m trying to keep them anonymous also, and to absolutely protect the privacy of the people I write about. Among other things, I’m a name nerd, and I used a random name generator to name myself and a few others. These names have no significance and I didn’t choose them for any other reason than that they seemed to me to fit the real person. It’s been pointed out to me that it can get confusing because I write about, for example, my partner at work and my partner in life. So here’s the list of pseudonyms so far.

Lydia - that’s me. I was born in 1962, and I got sober in 1984.

Carole - that’s my wife. We met online in 1996, in person in 1997, and moved in together in 1998. Her sobriety year is 1996, and just for the record, I refused to meet her until she had one year sober. We got married in our church in 2005.

Isabel - I usually refer to her as my “best friend from forever.” We became friends when I was five and she was four. We now live a few hundred miles apart, and as of January, 2007, when my mother retired and moved, we don’t end up in the same place at the same time ever. We’ll have to see how this one evolves.

Irene - this is my partner at work. We met and began working together in 1999. We worked together very closely until, in 2006, she left to work next door. She came back to work with me again in February, 2008, and she works with me now. I have referred to her as my “once and again partner,” or similar things, meaning she was once my work partner and now is my work partner again. It gets confusing because people also understand “partner” as used by a gay person to mean romantic partner. Which she is not. At all.

Erika - my daughter, born in 1985 when I was 16 months sober. A sobriety baby.

Nicholas - my son, born in 1988. Another sobriety baby.

Edith - a woman who was my boss for a time, now a friend.

Xandra - a dog we adopted from an animal shelter in 2007.

Elli - my first sponsor.