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A decade ago we went to the game, knowing that it would be cold and loud and charged with a certain expectation. The Patriots were playing, which meant the day already carried meaning before anything had happened on the field. Families gathered. People observed rituals. The parking lots filled early. It was all familiar.
What was less familiar was my uncle’s stillness. He watched everything. He noticed details. He stood in line waiting to get into the stadium without impatience. He remembered where we parked and joked about that he thought because we parked in row 12; it being Tom Brady’s jersey number as a good sign.
There was a time when attending a football game meant something else entirely for him. Him in attendance, not his presence. He was always there in body, but not reliably in mind. He cheered at the appropriate moments, lifted his arms when others did, yelled and catcalled when others did, but afterward struggled to recall what had actually occurred. The score blurred. The sequence of plays dissolved. The game existed only as an impression, not an experience. “That was a good game huh” in recollections, not “I still can’t believe Butler intercepted Wilson’s pass; that was incredible!”
For years, alcohol shaped the day. Both at home and at in-person games. It determined the schedule, the urgency, the emotions. Tailgates mattered more than kickoff. Halftime was an inconvenience. The phrase “the game gets in the way” was said often, lightly, as if it were clever rather than revealing. Drinking was not an accessory to the event; it WAS the event. The Patriots were the backdrop.
Looking back at this, what is striking is not the excess but the absence. The number of moments lost for the family and for my uncle. The number of places visited without being known. The number of games watched and attended, that were not “really” watched and attended. There was a quiet pride in not remembering, in surviving the trip rather than inhabiting it. He said, it felt, at the time, like participation. He said that years later, he felt like it was giving an E for Effort, the consolation prize for just “being” there.
Sobriety rearranged this. Not dramatically. Not all at once. But slowly, the days spent with real conversations and remembering events widened. Losses no longer required anesthesia. Wins no longer evaporated overnight. He began to remember conversations, colors, plays, the way the stadium sounded at certain points in the game. He could leave at the end without dread. He could drive home without a designated driver or being put in a taxi.
At this game, he stood and cheered as the Patriots sealed the win, and there was no sense that anything else was pulling at him. Besides just jumping up along with thousands of other people, no need to leave his seat, or try to hide surreptitiously taking a swig from a flask. No urgency beyond the moment itself. He paid attention. This, it turns out, is not a small thing.
There is a common belief that joy requires amplification, that certain experiences only reach their full volume with alcohol added. What sobriety revealed instead was scale. That day did not become louder, but it became legible. It held its shape. He remembered it. All of it.
When we left the stadium, the crowd thinning, the lights dimming, he did not rush. He did not forget. He carried the day with him intact. The score, yes, but also the fact of having been there, fully, for something that mattered.
-Contributed by a WestBridge Staff Member
Looking for some resources to help manage Game Day for yourself or others?
Sober Football Party, 7 Ways to Have Fun without Falling Back
Taking Back Game Day: How to Enjoy the Super Bowl Without Alcohol or Other Substances
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