The Animal Humane Society has an amazing quiz that helps you match with a fur friend of a similar temperament. I hadn’t gotten real enough with myself to get sober - but I thought getting a dog would help give my life some meaning and structure. While my gender dysphoria was extremely diminished by the steps I’d taken to make my body a home, I still had a deep well of shame around my queer and trans identity.Īfter weeks of a pity party I was ready for a change. Drinking started as a way for me to assert my masculinity and turned into a way to mask my shame in finally expressing and embodying it. Wake and bakes began in high school and went from cutesy-edgy-stoner kid to being debilitated by anxiety after that first morning hit - but still doing it anyways. While I finally had my dream body and in a lot of ways my ideal life, I still couldn’t get through the day without drugs or the night without drinking. As Old Dickens likes to say “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”Īfter the final remnants of my dreaded breast tissue left my body, I woke up from anesthesia and immediately asked for a whiskey. Despite this time of growth and self-acceptance, my relationship with drugs and alcohol was worsening. Name changes and body changes and voice changes were wild to weather, but worth it. I was lucky to grow up in a loving family that let me wear boy clothes from an early age, but growing up in the 90s I had no language to articulate that I wasn’t just a tomboy. Albuquerque was the first place I’d ever found a trans community and they gave me the strength to come out to myself and my people. This was a period of many transitions for me, geographically and genderly (it’s a word now I promise). I also knew I was barely able to take care of myself, let alone a pet. I was in heaven - and I knew that I wanted to share all these nature adventures with a dog. I’d venture down to the Rio Grande and follow her curves through miles of forest. Every day I’d wake up to see the pink tinted Sandia Mountains rising from the east.
After decades in the Midwest I headed down to Tiwa Pueblo land in Albuquerque, New Mexico to start a new chapter of my life in grad school. I grew up surrounded by cornfields in the Midwest, but any time I could walk along the dunes on the shores of the Great Lakes or duck into a rare forest my heart would soar. I didn’t grow up in a family very fond of the outdoors, but have always been drawn to animals and plants and the heartbeats and breaths that connect us. Yet, I remained obsessed, often befriending folks and families for the sake of getting in my weekly pet quota. It was a stretch to get my dad on the cat train, and a dog was out of the question. I adored their permanent smiles and waggin’ tails their endless capacity for love and their playful spirit. As long as I can remember my yearly birthday candle wish was for a dog.
Many years and two dogs later I completely understand this sentiment, and firmly believe my dogs helped me get and stay sober. I remember rolling my eyes the first time I saw a bumper sticker that depicted a dog and read “Who rescued who?”
Growing up macklemore topic clean code#
Get 15% off tickets to their next event September 30-Octousing code CLEAN15. Deliver accessible, inclusive, and inspiring experiences for all sober and sober curious humans. Find more of Laz's work on their Instagram: about Sober Voices: Sober Voices is a global community for the sober, sober curious, and allies. It's now an active community of more than 5,000 people around the world - and its biannual conferences are produced by Bell Hart Productions, an event & storytelling studio owned by Mercy Lee Bell and Alyssa May Hart. Laz runs Tempest’s BIPOC group processing calls, and dreams of a world where minoritized people have access to safer and holistic addiction recovery. Laz has toured domestically and internationally as a solo musician and with ensembles. Laz’s academic research focuses on transphobia’s roots in white supremacy, Black and Indigenous liberation movements, and the legacy of Black music in our freedom. More about Laz: They are an academic and artist living on Tiwa Pueblo land. Thank you to contributor, Lazarus Letcher (they/them), for this piece and blog curator, Sober Voices.
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