The Tower
I used to be fearful of the “scary” cards when I started learning tarot with Crowley’s THOTH deck. The imagery and darkness in these cards triggered my untreated anxiety. Now I know better than to take negative messages from the cards. For me tarot has nothing to do with predicting the future. It’s about self-exploration, about ways of being—it is a vague journal prompt for how to go about your life.
This morning I pulled the tower. This wasn’t unexpected at all. I pull cards for myself whenever the feeling strikes and I usually intuit what spread or how many cards to pull and just let it flow from there. Today I knew one card would suffice and as I was shuffling a few cards tumbled forward and laying on top was, of course, the tower.
major arcana #16 from the dreams unlimited tarot deck
Like I said, this was altogether unsurprising to me. I am 31 and in the lull before the final dip of my Saturn return: an astrological marker that prompts introspection and difficult change from life’s funny little lessons (read: painful as fuck experiences).
I digress: the situation at hand here for me is Sobriety with a capital S. I have flirted with sobriety here and there over the past few (6) years. For me it started as a health thing since I had gained weight in 2019 and wanted to feel comfortable in my body again. Taking stock of my drinking helped me face the fact that the person in the mirror looked so unfamiliar to me. This was when I first started keeping track of my intake.
Fast forward through the years and we can see a montage of hazy nights, binge drinking, dabbling in drugs, money spent that I couldn’t afford, getting behind the wheel when I shouldn’t have, and lots and lots of puking. I was managing my life fine but I wasn’t enjoying myself like I thought I was. Looking back on every drunken night and hungover morning I can see myself saying “it was worth it for the fun” while I lay on the couch too sick to move for the next 12 hours minimum. I’m a smart girl and I can’t fool myself, I don’t think I ever believed it when I said it.
Throughout this time I was getting good at cobbling together streaks of sober days-3, 4, 5 days a week felt like a win for me. I try out new rules just to break them—no drinking on “school” (work) nights, no drinking 2 days in a row, no bar tabs on credit cards. Nothing sticks. Therapy and anxiety meds help me calm down and drink less and less. Still I binge drink once every single week. [note: binge drinking to me qualifies as 4 or more drinks in a night.] It is my social crutch and when I make the decision to allow myself to imbibe to get through a social event, all bets are off. It’s like I turn off my self control switch before any drink even hits my lips.
Now let’s see what happens in April 2025. I get a tickle in my throat and feel tired but no big deal, alcohol kills germs, so I go out with a friend on a Thursday 4/3 and get a little too drunk. Shit, we weren’t supposed to drink on a work night. It’s fine. Come Sunday 4/6 I’m running a little fever but I planned a double date to drink half off wine and throw back some $2 oysters and I sure as hell can’t say no to that. Wouldn’t you know, the alcohol makes me feel great and we drink into the night! I should add here that I was supposed to go on trip the following weekend that I was dreading a little bit because I didn’t want to drink again.
So it’s Monday 4/7 and my illness is getting progressively worse. I get diagnosed with bronchitis and am told to rest but I can’t so I just mask up and work. I get even worse and I cancel my Friday clients. I’m secretly relieved I no longer have to go on this trip to Madison as that entire city is a drinking trigger to me. Three doctor’s trips later, the following Tuesday, I find out I have acute severe pneumonia and if I weren’t young and healthy they would have had me hospitalized. Not the end of the world but pretty scary.
All of this is to say I wrecked the fuck out of my immune system by drinking to numb symptoms of illness. I basically gave myself pneumonia which is why I don’t feel bad for myself. I’ve ignored call after call from outside and inside the house and I’m just totally over it. This past Friday I lost my keys while drinking and this was for some reason my proverbial rock bottom. I pride myself on not losing things and so this stung my ego really hard and knocked me down a peg. I had already started reading Annie Grace’s book This Naked Mind and so after wallowing in my hangover and eating door doashed gyros (hangover takeout is not in my budget), I vowed this would be my last “day 1” and that I would spend my weekend recovering and finishing the book, which I did.
The Tower card is here to remind me that this is another pivotal moment and I need to stay on my fucking toes. I’m already bargaining with myself about a social event this weekend. I’m thinking about where I can comfortably exist, who I can comfortably be around, and what I can comfortably do while trying this whole Sobriety thing out. I have a craving for a martini and a glass of prosecco. I’m mourning “fun” Hailey, social butterfly Hailey, gets naked in public Hailey, fuck it jump in the lake Hailey. How will I unwind, how will I free myself, how will I have any semblance of a social life? Do I even want these things? I’m terrified to find that I am enjoying my alone time so deeply right now that I don’t even want to see anyone. I’m terrified wondering who will be there when I re-emerge, (although I trust and love my support system and know that my loved ones want to see me happy and healthy).
The Tower today, to me, is the deep turmoil I am feeling surrounding this incredibly ingrained and dauntingly integral part of my life. It is the past, the present, and the future of my journey with alcohol (I’m scared to even use the word sobriety here if I’m being honest). From this I will heed the advice that came and stay wary of this potentially treacherous piece of the puzzle that is my sweet life.
<3 Hailey 7/21/2025