1 Year of #sobergoals

Things aren't always as they seem

About a year ago I got on a plane to Halifax to celebrate my 15th wedding anniversary with Adam.  This photo was taken on our first night there in front of me is oysters (my fave) and an ice cold glass of white wine but even though you can't see that, my mind can because this last weekend of out of control drinking is burned in my mind.  

I look well enough.  I’ve pulled together an outfit.  My hair is freshly dyed jet black.  Earrings and lipstick are on point.  I share this photo because behind those dark sunglasses I'm an anxious mess.  I'm a little bit hungover and already on my second (probably third, let's be honest, it was happy hour) glass of white wine even though it’s 4pm and we haven’t even gone for supper yet.  I had deleted Instagram off of my phone for the weekend because looking at everyone else looking so normal and pulled together was making me crazy.  My stepdad had just gotten a bad diagnosis.  My anxiety was threatening to take over.  But I was functioning for sure and I looked like everything was fine.  I was telling myself everything was fine.  Fine.   

Every activity on this three day weekend centred around drinking because it was my favourite thing to do.  We had drinks at lunch when we landed, drinks in our house we rented, drinks before dinner, drinks on the ferry ride, drinks at dinner, drinks after dinner and finally drinks during Netflix watching before bed.  Drinks are for relaxing!  Drinks are for grown ups!  Drinks are for celebrating and we have so much to celebrate!  Drinks are fun!  Drinks are a lifestyle!  And as it turns out drinks are not for me...

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the shift from normal drinking to problem drinking happened for me but I feel like these things are always hard to put your finger on.  It's a slow shift over time from fine to totally not fucking fine and I've let go of trying to figure out how or when this happened to me and I've moved to being grateful I figured it out at all because I do see this as a very clear before/after in my life.  I could have very easily stayed in that groove of drinking is great with all of life's activities and never realized what a sober life would feel like for me.

Best I can figure is that for at least a year I had been waking up every day feeling like garbage because of my almost nightly 2-6 glasses of wine that I was congratulating myself with for making it through another difficult/amazing/grinding/awesome day with 3 kids, a business to run and the regular cares of the world.  Everyday had something that was deemed "wine worthy" near the end there.  Any little thing would frustrate me enough or make me feel like celebrating enough to justify my nightly ritual.  

Mondays: are hard, drinks!  
Tuesday: the kids were a mess, drinks!  
Wednesday: hump day, drinks!  
Thursday: Friday junior, drinks!  
Friday: fucking eh it's Friday, all the drinks!!!  
Saturday: party party drinks!  
Sunday: Funday drinks!

I knew deep down it was too much.  I knew that I wasn't living my best life or being my best self for me, my kids and Adam.  I knew I was in a bit of a pickle.  Secretly I was googling “do I have a drinking problem?” to which every search offered an escape door especially if looking at sites from the UK or Australia - wow.  The word "alcoholic" haunting me and making me convince myself I'm still fine (a whole other post about how "alcoholism" is stopping people from getting sober).  I was privately seething mad at myself every time the alarm went off at 5:30am to start the day and every morning was filled with shitty, hate filled self talk about how tonight would be different but it still didn't click.

Helpful Side Note: if you are googling things like this google doesn't know.  Ask yourself.  It’s likely there’s something going on that you need to look at and no internet quiz is going to know you well enough to answer that question for you. What it will do is give you a lot worse pictures of what "rock bottom" and "severe addiction" look like and it won't look like your busy family life in any way and you won't likely be anywhere close to sleeping on a park bench and you'll keep going around and around for a lot longer than you have to before you realize that problem drinking doesn't always look like what our society and the internet says. 

Long story short I got sober by accident...  

In Halifax, Adam said “I think we need to do 30 days off alcohol at the end of this trip” to which I responded “You do you. I’m not committing to anything, I'm fine, maybe I'll cut back to 5 drinks a week" (a system I had tried a couple times before that had inevitably failed each time).  Adam was not entrenched in the mess I was and he could see we needed to stop and evaluate but I was terrified to stop but not able to articulate it at the time.  

On our last morning we went for brunch before we caught our flight and by the time we got home both of us were suffering with a pretty nasty case of food poisoning.  I wasn't able to eat for 5 days and I certainly wasn't able to drink drinks for those 5 days.  By day 5 I woke up without the feeling of food borne illness and I was filled with an alarming new feeling in my body and I thought simultaneously: 

"Holy shit I feel better than I've felt in years/Oh no is this because I haven't been drinking?" 

Realizing how amazing I felt without booze was terrifying but in that moment I knew something had to change.  There was no "rock bottom" for me.  There was no horrifying accident or near miss and truthfully, I was drinking at the same rate and frequency as many other people I know and love and follow on Instagram it was just not ok for me anymore.  This was the fork in the road.

I didn't fit the traditional alcoholic narrative because as it turns out there are all kinds of drinking problems that don't look like Leaving Las Vegas.  My drinking was a problem for me and might not be a problem for other people because drinking problems are as complicated and varied as the humans experiencing them.  Alcohol had morphed from a light, fun life add on to the thing controlling my activities, my happiness, my patience, my joy and my well being.  It was a huge part of my identity and giving it up was not easy.  I've had to pull apart all the things that I love to do because of booze and figure out what I really want to do with my evenings/weekends/free time.  

Full disclosure: on July 31st 2018 I accidentally stopped drinking and stayed completely booze free for about 3 months because I had a couple glasses of white wine at my mom's wedding in October with no effect.  Tried another glass of wine on Christmas day and dumped it down the sink.  Had a glass of wine with friends in January, maybe a glass on a date night or two in February and then on March Break we went to Cuba where I had two days that I had white wine with supper but mainly drank virgin stuff (remarkable for an all inclusive!) and then when we got home we hit a rough patch.  That last weekend in March this year I had 2 glasses of wine on date night on Friday, opened a bottle of wine at home on Saturday which I had a small glass of and then I spent all day Sunday obsessing about when/how/where/why to drink the rest of the bottle and said "NO FUCKING MORE OF THIS. IT IS NOT FOR ME" and poured it down the sink.  I literally felt like I was being controlled by something inside me that was more concerned about booze than anything else.  Is that addiction?  Maybe...but it doesn't really matter what it's called and I'm not sticking around to find out.  I have too much at stake and not drinking has been so shockingly amazing I can't see going back to anything remotely close to "before".  

So since April 1st I have been 100% alcohol free without really trying.  I no longer want anything with alcohol in it.  It turns my stomach to think about having it right now which makes it really easy.  4 months.  I still count July 31st as the time I woke up to the fact I was immersed in problem drinking.  I still think about what happens if we travel somewhere where the wine is amazing (France, Italy etc.) will I want to be sober then?  Will I stand out and look weird if I abstain? Deep down I still have the FOMO about drinking like "could my life be more amazing with a bit of booze in it?" but I know in my mind that not drinking has given me way more than drinking ever has even when it was just fun. These are the thoughts that circle around in my mind about what I'm giving up by choosing not to drink, it's really very little compared to what I've gained. 

Side bar on grief and sobriety:

Losing Gary without having drinks every night was very strange.  When my dad died drinking was our main method for coping.  I drowned all of my sorrows for many months after dad died and it was fine for then I guess, I don't really remember thinking about it at all.  I remember feeling really numb a lot of the time.  I remember trying to dissipate each wave of grief with wine but still having to face the wave the next morning anyway with a hangover on top of it.  Going through losing someone now and doing it without drinking has been a whole other type of thing.  Overall it's way better but sometimes the feelings are enormous and without booze you just have to sit with them, snuggle right up and let them move through you like breathing searing hot air into your lungs and waiting until it moves out of you so you can heal the pain and damage it caused.  Without booze the grief is what it is and the joy you feel immensely while grieving is also what it is, not numbed down, not shut off.  Just deep deep sadness and earth shattering joy and around and around it goes.  It's a real trip.

In the end it's not about what I'm avoiding, it's about what I'm having.  I'm having clear headed mornings.  I'm having calm, peace, clarity.  I'm having a strong desire to write.  I want to get the house in order.  I'm having a feeling of control over my body in a way I have never experienced.  I'm having a desire to do stuff I never really wanted to do since I was a kid (swim! bike! hike! play! dance!).  I want to hang out with people and have big talks that don't end in a slurry mess.  I'm having no fear that I said something inappropriate or nonsensical the night before.  I'm having a great time without the one thing I thought was making my life so much more rich and it's a huge fucking surprise to be honest.  If Adam told me a year ago what I would be feeling like a year after giving up drinks I would never have believed him but I will always be grateful for him pushing us to try to do it a different way because it lead me here and here is pretty amazing.  

PS: if you see that something in your own life needs changing when it comes to booze I've found The Temper super helpful as an alternative to traditional quitting drinking supports.  AA was not for me as I don't buy into the alcoholic definition and I don't believe a male God can help me.  Any other questions please reach out!  I'd love to talk.