Tiny Buddha

Tag: sober

  • More Energy, Less Regret: Your Guide to a Sober Summer

    More Energy, Less Regret: Your Guide to a Sober Summer

    “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

    We are used to people talking about Dry January or Sober October but rarely a Sober Summer. That doesn’t seem to be a thing—but what if it was? What if it could be your reality this year?

    I knew I wanted my relationship with alcohol to be different at many points in my twenties, thirties, and forties, and in the summer of 2017, I decided, “This is it—I am going to choose a different path.”

    That day in June left me with a terrible hangover the next morning. I didn’t parent well, I ate all the foods I wouldn’t normally, I underperformed at work, and I went to bed early in a fog of regret, shame, and guilt.

    I’d love to tell you that was my last drinking day, but it wasn’t. It took me another two and a half years from that point to get to the start of my sober life. One thing holding me back was thinking about all the things I was going to miss out on. I knew I could do a month of not drinking—I’d done that before—but three months, six months, a year… that felt like a big deal.

    January is sometimes seen as a reset time of year. Perhaps finances are a little tighter, maybe you already drank enough over the winter period, and a break from alcohol is seen as ‘socially acceptable’ in January.

    October has gained traction over the last few years as another ‘break from alcohol’ month. It fits neatly in that point between summer and Christmas and lends itself to a month of non-drinking because we might need a reset after the excesses of the vacation period.

    What I now know, after more than five years of being a non-drinker, is this: We don’t need to be confined to other people’s expectations of when it’s a good time to have a break from alcohol, and also, it doesn’t have to be for a fixed thirty days. We are allowed to make our own rules, challenges, or well-being experiments when we want to and for however long we want to.

    When I initially decided that I was going to set myself an experiment and choose not to drink for one year, I really worried about all the summer fun I might miss out on. I usually switched my regular drinks around for the summer. Red wine and heavy cocktails were out, and rosé wine and spritz cocktails were in… in abundance.

    That first sober summer I worried about how I would navigate a friend’s wedding without champagne for the toast, how I would do a festival without a bottle of beer, and what other people would think of me if I didn’t bring a bottle of wine to a BBQ.

    It all seemed like too much to process and too much to try and work out. In the end, I decided to come up with some strategies to support myself. I had worked for over twelve years in a local government role, supporting people with their substance use and misuse, and it was time to start listening to my own good advice.

    I realized I needed some compassionate self-talk, some scripts to use for other people’s comments, and some practical steps to follow to navigate events where alcohol was going to be served.

    If a sober summer sounds like a good idea for you, then here are five pointers (and some journal questions) to support you in finding your sober serenity.

    1. Be intentional.

    Don’t see drinking as inevitable. Give yourself plenty of joyful thoughts, feelings, and choices around being a non-drinker.

    Choose: How would you like to think about alcohol?

    Examples: I chose to see alcohol as an unnecessary addition to this day. I know that alcohol won’t help me connect authentically with those around me today.

    Choose: How would you like to feel about alcohol?

    Examples: I feel empowered in my choice not to drink today. I feel joyful about being hydrated and clear-headed through this weekend.

    Choose: How would you like to behave around alcohol?

    Examples: I behave in a neutral way around alcohol; I neither want it nor think about it. I behave as if alcohol has little meaning to me.

    Picture it all in your mind’s eye, write it down, and talk to yourself about it. This will support you to make it your reality.

    Know that you are likely to enjoy some physical benefits from a sober summer quite quickly—think improved sleep, better cognitive function, clearer skin, and more.

    2. Have answers ready for social situations.

    What will you say to other people when you arrive at social events, and they ask why you’re not drinking? Do you need to say anything? Will you make it no big deal that you’re not drinking?

    Perhaps you’ll just say, “Thanks, I’ll have a ginger beer,” or “Thanks, I’d like a sparkling water.”

    Do you need or want to say anything at all? You will never owe anyone an explanation for your behavior around choosing not to drink.

    What you drink when you get to a party/gathering/dinner might feel important to you. Is it an event where you will have to choose from the drinks on offer, or is it an event where you can take your own? If you know the answer upfront, you can decide on a plan.

    Want to know what is super important about answers to questions like these? Planning them and then following through. It will do wonders for your self-esteem and confidence to arrive home from a social event knowing you can rely on yourself to follow through on what you decided.

    3. Avoid summer stress and overwhelm.

    What can you do to simplify your life this summer? Can you reassess the social activities that you were thinking of? Can you say no to some invitations that don’t fill you with joy? Can you do more of what you really like doing?

    See this time as an experiment. If you are not 100% sure about what you love doing in the summer, now is a great time to explore and find out.

    The emotional space created by removing alcohol allows you to reconnect with yourself and identify which social situations truly energize you versus those you merely tolerate with a glass in hand.

    4. Find your peace or your emotional middle point.

    So often we drink in the summer to relax, distract, numb out, or relieve boredom. You can find better habits that support your emotional, physical, and spiritual health in other ways.

    Are you going to enjoy a meditation practice? Are you going to spend more time outdoors? Are you going to start journaling?

    Will you recognize what you want to distract or numb yourself from? Will you recognize why you might need alcohol to make events feel more fun or exciting? What are the things that feel uncomfortable for you?

    5. Try these ideas as an experiment.

    You don’t have to commit to quitting drinking forever if that feels wrong or too difficult right now. Just enjoy what is ahead for the next couple of months. See how you feel doing a sober summer. See if you feel more serene and then reassess in autumn.

    Experiment and explore new drinks. How about a ginger beer, a lime cordial and club soda, or a Shirley Temple? The alcohol-free beers, no-alcohol sparkling wines, and botanical drinks are worth exploring too.

    A sober summer can serve as a conscious experiment in intentionality. It doesn’t have to be about permanent abstinence but rather creating space to re-evaluate your relationship with alcohol on your own terms. Enjoy!

  • Escaping Escapism: From Drinking to Scrolling to Being Present

    Escaping Escapism: From Drinking to Scrolling to Being Present

    “Sit with it. Instead of drinking it away, smoking it away, sleeping it away, eating it away, or running from it. Just sit with it. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Unknown

    I had no idea I had so many feelings until four years ago. I became sober and immediately started overflowing with emotions—emotions I never knew I had.

    I stopped drinking just over a month after my twenty-fifth birthday, in January of 2021. I drank a lot in college, often going out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights every week. Once I graduated, though, my drinking mellowed. I was still going out, but paying for my own drinks (as opposed to the free flow of alcohol at a college party) forced me to drink less to save more.

    Early in 2020, my drinking increased again due to being stuck inside while in an unpleasant living situation. By the end of 2020, though, I again wasn’t drinking much—maybe a glass of wine or two during the weekend. I was, however, smoking weed daily.

    Cannabis, a substance used by many to calm their anxiety, did the opposite for me. Every day after work, I would sit on the front porch and smoke a joint—through rain, snow, anything. I loved the heady feeling of being high.

    When I was high, I felt motivated to become a better person (that motivation, however, lacked follow-up action). I felt like a child again, seeing everything with wonder in my (droopy red) eyes.

    While I enjoyed the effects of weed, I also felt my anxiety, an ever-present being in my psyche, slowly become more intense. One harrowing night, after being up for hours having panic attacks caused by both alcohol and weed, I made the decision to try sobriety.

    I went into sobriety with no expectations. It was an experiment for me, although I had a hunch I was on the right path. Would not smoking help my mental health? Would quitting drinking lower my anxiety? I was about to find out.

    I realized that something changes when you stop engaging with harmful substances, almost like a switch slowly flips the less mind-altering drugs are in your body. Things become clear, like taking off glasses you didn’t know you were wearing. You realize things and remember things, especially things you didn’t expect. Thoughts you had forgotten, memories you thought you blocked, trauma you thought you had released.

    There’s something about the absence of anything mind-altering in the body that makes things abundantly transparent. In early sobriety, I discovered that the anxiety I thought I was healed from was only lying dormant.

    I’ve had anxiety my entire life; some of my earliest memories are of being anxious. I remember starting kindergarten nervous that my peers would make fun of me for the way I chewed.

    By January 2021, I thought I had my anxiety under control. I was on the same medication I had started nine years prior. I was going to therapy regularly. I was familiar with the feeling of butterflies taking over my stomach, the wash of heat or cold that would overtake me during a really anxious moment.

    I did not, however, know how to manage my anxiety without any substances. The second I stopped smoking daily, it felt like all the suppressed anxiety came to haunt me. My legs were constantly bouncing. My stomach was constantly upset. My heart was constantly pounding. I couldn’t go a day without at least an hour of panic attacks.

    I was terrified and confused, thinking to myself, Shouldn’t I be feeling better? I thought I moved past these intense feelings ages ago.

    With time, my panic attacks became fewer and farther between. I learned to allow the feelings to flow through my body—my legs would eventually stop bouncing, my stomach would eventually feel normal, my heart would eventually return to its natural rhythm.

    But I still unconsciously tried to find distractions. I drank caffeine, and I scrolled on social media. I read a pile of self-help books without taking any action. Just reading the book is enough to feel successful in self-improvement, right? But really, I was in the same place as I was pre-sobriety. The only difference was I was suppressing my feelings with social media instead of the bottle or a joint.

    Then I woke up one day and recognized that social media was serving the same purpose as substances did. I would get up on the weekends feeling hungover, even though I hadn’t drank the night before. I had, however, scrolled TikTok for an hour.

    Getting out of bed after bingeing social media feels like getting out of bed after bingeing alcohol. I had stopped using substances, but I hadn’t stopped doing everything I could to get away from experiencing everything happening inside me.

    Once I had this realization, I tried, desperately, to process my emotions, to feel my feelings, but the lure of TikTok was so strong. I’d tell myself only five minutes but would be in the same position an hour later with a stiff neck, berating myself for bingeing TikTok yet again.

    Escapism was screaming in my ear, and it was so, so easy to give in. Reaching for a phone takes a second; processing an emotion takes minutes. Which one is easier? Which one is more beneficial? Which one will make me feel better?

    I was stuck in this cycle of wanting to be in touch with my feelings, of wanting to embrace life, but continually falling into the trap of one addiction or another because it’s Just. So. Easy.

    Our phones were designed to suck us in and rewire our brains to use them to escape our lives. And no matter how much I recognize that and how much I want to be fully present every day, I can’t seem to stop trying to ignore my feelings.

    Every day when I get home from work, I ‘decompress,’ using my thirty minutes of allotted TikTok time curled up on the couch. I do feel refreshed after, but I can’t help but think, how close are we to living in the spaceship from Wall-E? How soon will we all be so glued to technology we’ll be physically allergic to human emotion?

    When there were talks of TikTok getting banned in the US, people were freaking out. Influencers who make their income on the app were posting videos on where else they could be found. People were revealing secrets—some influencers even admitted to building their platforms on lies.

    When did we become so dependent on an app? How have we gone from dial-up internet to tiny computers in our pockets that we can use anytime, anywhere in the course of my lifetime? And why are social media apps designed like casinos—to give us little dopamine hits here and there to keep us engaged and addicted?

    When I phrase it like that, social media can be easily seen as evil. However, social media has also done a lot of good.

    I’ve used TikTok to find tips on managing anxiety, on curing migraines, and workouts.

    People have donated the money they’ve made to good causes—to rebuilding Asheville after Hurricane Helene, to Planned Parenthood, and to buy school lunches for children.

    Unknown authors, singers, and comedians have gained fans and recognition.

    How can something that’s done so much good be so bad at the same time? How do we, as humans with pleasure-seeking brains, reconcile this dichotomy? I regularly have this conversation with my therapist, as I recognize how far I’ve come.

    It took two years of sobriety for me to WANT to acknowledge my feelings. Although I had been in therapy on and off since I was a child, my therapy became much more effective post-sobriety.

    I felt like I was on the fast track to healing, like before I had been dragging my feet with my therapist, and now we were running together like athletes. It still took a while, however, to turn away from escapism and embrace my inner world.

    It’s taken another two years to start becoming aware of every time I turn to one of my vices. Life is so busy that it’s easy for me to go a week drinking caffeine every day, or extending my TikTok screen time for fifteen more minutes four times in a row.

    It’s taken years of building knowledge of what makes me feel good (for real) and what makes me feel like substances used to—good for a moment, bad for a while.

    I love reading, and I always feel refreshed after taking some time out of my day to read. Listening to music can always put me in a good mood. How long is it going to take for me to fully let go of technology, of dampening my emotions to avoid unpleasantness? Will I ever find peace?

    Had someone told me four years ago I would be writing about the similarities between substances and social media, I would’ve laughed and said, “They’re both so fun; they make my life better!” But that’s addiction, isn’t it? Even if you don’t have “a problem,” looking to external sources for your happiness will always end in suffering.

    Although sobriety hasn’t solved my desire to escape, I do feel a lot better than before, and I continue improving every day. Over time, I’ve learned to accept and sit with my emotions. I know that everything will pass, even the most unpleasant feelings.

    Four years in, I finally understand that vices are a way to run away from feelings. I may never totally escape escapism, but as long as I continue trying to choose presence and awareness, that will have to be enough.

  • Dry January: How It Creates Space for a Better Life

    Dry January: How It Creates Space for a Better Life

    “I think this is the start of something really big. Sometimes that first step is the hardest one, and we’ve just taken it.” ~Steve Jobs

    I’ve had a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol for almost as long as I’ve been drinking. I was mostly a binge drinker through college and into my twenties and thirties. I could drink “normally” sometimes, but I never really knew if I would stop at two or ten. Two felt okay, but ten would land me blacked out and barefoot on the bar, which was never a good look for me.

    It scares me now to think about all the things I did after too many Crown and cokes, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Everyone was drinking heavily. It was part of the culture of the people I surrounded myself with. Hangovers were badges of honor, and blackouts, provided nothing horrible happened, became funny stories to tell the next day over greasy fast food eaten to soak up the vodka from the night before.

    It wasn’t until I got into my forties that I really started to question my relationship with alcohol. In 2016, shortly after turning forty, my drinking went off the rails. At the time I was raising four young children in a blended family, and I was trying to stay afloat in a job that expected more of me than I was capable of giving.

    Despite the stress, by all appearances, I had it all together. Good job, healthy family, a roof over our heads, and a minivan in the garage. But on the inside, I was deeply struggling with depression and anxiety, both worsened by the extent of my drinking.

    As the year went on, things got steadily worse.

    My weekend drinking morphed into drinking one, sometimes two, bottles of wine every night. The hangovers started to last days, taking me out of work and keeping me from showing up for my family. My blackouts got scarier and more frequent, once landing me walking down MacDill Avenue alone and barefoot in the middle of the night with no memory of it the next day. My depression and anxiety became completely unmanageable, to the point that I made attempts on my life twice that year, both times incredibly drunk.

    I tried multiple times over the course of 2016 to stop drinking. But each time, in the back of my mind, I was, as Laura McKowen talks about, looking for the third door. I was sure there was an option between drinking like I was and stopping completely. I wanted so badly to be able to drink “normally,” but every time I stopped and then tried drinking again, I went straight back off the rails.

    Interestingly, it was an ordinary night (or day, really) of drinking in early January 2017 that finally brought me to my knees.

    On January 1, 2017, my husband took the kids to the pool so I could recoup from a cold that I’d been fighting. Instead of resting, I sat on the back porch and drank two bottles of wine. Nothing terrible happened, but I woke up the next morning with a deep knowing that something had to change. I was, quite literally, sick of my own bullshit.

    I once heard John Mayer talk about getting sober, and he said that he asked himself, “Ok John, what percentage of your potential would you like to have?” He decided he wanted 100%, and that couldn’t happen if he kept drinking.

    That January morning, after an ordinary night of drinking, I asked myself the same thing, and it became clear that I was only living up to a fraction of my potential because I spent so much of my time drinking, thinking about drinking, and recovering from drinking.

    I lay in bed that morning for hours with tears of fear and relief streaming down my face. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to stay sober but so relieved that I was calling myself on my own shit. I was finally ready to be done for real.

    Because I was ready at that point, I threw the kitchen sink at it. I journaled, meditated, moved my body, stayed close to quit lit and podcasts on living alcohol-free, and so much more. I made it my number one priority.

    For a while, nothing got as much attention as my recovery. Not my husband. Not my kids. Not keeping up with housework. Nothing. I focused all of my energy on saving my life for several months. And there was guilt around focusing so hard on myself at the expense of giving attention to my family, but, as I look back now, I’d do it again the same way. My husband and my kids have so much more of me now than they did when I was drinking.

    Dry January doesn’t have to be just a month of not drinking; it can be the start of something bigger. It can be the start of building a life that you love. A life that doesn’t have room for alcohol because it is so much better and brighter without it.

    I was able to see this process of getting sober as additive (adding in the practices that support and nourish my whole being) rather than just a subtractive process of giving up alcohol. And this is how I encourage you to look at it. As an opportunity rather than a life sentence. As something joyful and meaningful rather than something punitive. As a chance to build a life you don’t need or want to numb out from.

    Choosing to stop drinking is one of the most courageous decisions you can make. But courage alone isn’t enough; it takes tools, support, and a willingness to try new things to truly thrive.

    If you’re reading this and thinking, “That’s me,” I want you to know you’re not alone. The road to living alcohol-free isn’t easy, but it is possible—and it’s worth every step.

    When I started my journey, these tools became my lifeline. They gave me the structure I needed to reclaim my life, and they can do the same for you.

    Find Connection

    Johann Hari famously said, “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection.” Go to meetings (and there are so many options other than AA these days, my favorite being an online meeting platform called The Luckiest Club founded by Laura McKowen).

    Find a sober friend to help you stay accountable.

    Search for sober Facebook groups in your area and post a query for anyone wanting to meet for coffee.

    Lean into the love of your family and friends who may not be sober but support your journey.

    Whatever connection looks like for you, find a place where you can talk about your decision to not drink. Find people who know what it’s like to navigate a world soaked in alcohol without drinking. Talk about the challenges and talk about the triumphs. Whatever you do, don’t keep it inside.

    Find Support

    There are so many avenues for support these days. You can reach out to a therapist or coach. You can engage the help of your primary care doctor. You can find medication-assisted therapy and talk therapy online.

    It’s important to reach out to professionals who can help guide you in the right direction. With so many ideas and recommendations out there for how to quit, it can be incredibly helpful to talk with someone who can help you sift through your options and figure out what will move the needle the quickest.

    Try New Things

    Dry January is the perfect time to try new things. If something sounds interesting, give it a go.

    I tried watercolors, knitting, pulling tarot cards, every type of meditation known to humans, and so much more. Not everything stuck, but trying out different things occupied my time, challenged my mind, and gave me some useful distractions for when cravings hit. The things that did stick (Muse Headband meditations, journaling, and pulling tarot cards) are still the things that I credit with keeping me sober today.

    Meditate

    Meditation has been a game-changer for so many in recovery, and there’s a good reason for that. The smart and rational part of our brain (our prefrontal cortex) largely goes offline when we’re drinking excessively. Meditation is the best way to regain access to this part of the brain that makes healthy decisions.

    There are so many techniques to try. Emotional Freedom Technique, binaural beats, biofeedback (MUSE headband or the like) meditations, guided meditations…just to name a few. It doesn’t matter how you do it, just that you do it. Aim for three to five minutes to start and build from there.

    Educate Yourself

    There are tons of amazing books on sobriety these days. Memoirs and “how to” guides abound. Two of my favorite books for early sobriety are This Naked Mind by Annie Grace and Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker. There are also some great podcasts out there (a quick Google search will point you in the right direction).

    It’s important to hear stories of other people’s struggles and successes. It’s useful to learn about the effects of alcohol on the brain and body. We all know that knowledge is power, and knowing the truth about alcohol very often gives you the power you need to be done.

    As you move into January this year, remember, it’s not about what you’re giving up but what you’re making space for. This month could be the beginning of a deeper transformation, one that helps you uncover the best version of yourself. The tools, support, and determination you need are within reach—this is your moment to take a breath and leap.

  • Celebrating Six Years Sober: Here’s How I Did It

    Celebrating Six Years Sober: Here’s How I Did It

    “I chose sober because I wanted a better life. I stay sober because I got one.” ~Anonymous

    Seven years ago, I never thought I would be able to say that I have been six years sober! I didn’t think I was physically addicted. I never got the shakes, never morning drank, never drank daily unless on vacation, never got a DUI (even though that was lucky), and never lost a job or a relationship because of drinking. I was, however, incredibly emotionally and mentally addicted.

    I am fifty-six years old and started drinking in high school. Except when pregnant, I drank 90% of all weekends from the ages of seventeen to fifty. I never did anything socially without drinking. If I couldn’t drink, I just didn’t go. If I had to go, I got out as soon as I could. My whole life was built around my weekend drinking.

    I loved drinking in my twenties. We would go out every Friday with our friends, get pretty wasted, have a ton of fun, wake up Saturday with a small hangover, wait for it to go away, and then party again on Saturday.

    Sunday was for eating crappy food, recovering, and getting ready for the workweek. I spent my weekdays going to college to get my teaching degree and then working as an elementary school teacher. I loved my life!

    I loved drinking in my thirties. I had two beautiful kids, a great teaching job that I loved, a pretty decent marriage, and great friends.

    We moved into a brand-new neighborhood with lots of new families and quickly made plenty of drinking friends! Every weekend we went to block parties or got together with neighbors, drinking while the kids were playing. The kids were having fun, we were having fun, no one was judging my drinking, and nobody had to drive—perfect! I was still great at my job, felt pretty successful as a mother, and was happy!

    Things started to shift in my forties. I think the biggest thing that changed was the severity of my hangovers. They were getting out of control. I was still having fun when drinking, and there was no way I was giving that up, but the hangovers were becoming two- to four-day events that just crushed me.

    During my forties, I started making deals and promises to myself. I spent hundreds of hours reading self-help books about drinking less, spending entire summer breaks trying to figure out why I could not cut down, adding thousands of pages to a journal and hundreds of entries to my blog. I could write a book!

    Why was I starting to drink on Thursdays (Thirsty Thursday) and on Sundays? Why would I find myself waking up at 2:00 every Saturday and Sunday morning with extreme anxiety, heart palpitations, and nausea and mentally torturing myself about how I hadn’t kept my promise to myself and yet again drank too much?

    I was starting to have more instances of embarrassing behavior, where I basically lost it while drunk. I would wake up so ashamed of myself, so disappointed in myself, making promises to myself yet again but also not understanding why I was having such a hard time keeping them.

    I mean, I wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t like my father. Now he was an alcoholic—losing many teaching jobs, requiring us to always move and me to attend six elementary schools, going completely off the grid on a bender, getting DUIs, losing his family—choosing alcohol over us. That wasn’t me.

    I had a great job, great family, great friends, and a great credit score, and I was a responsible, loving, caring human!

    I remember reading once that people who struggle with alcohol might feel like they’re standing on a burning bridge, trying to figure out why it’s burning instead of just getting off the damn bridge! I spent years on that bridge while the flames were destroying me. I hated myself while also keeping up the facade that everything was fine.

    I spent at least five to seven years in this pattern—drinking Friday and Saturday at least, having extreme physical, mental, and emotional hangovers Sunday through Tuesday, beating myself up, and promising myself that I would not drink the next weekend.

    I would feel so firm about that decision until Wednesday night, when I convinced myself that I was not that bad, that I didn’t need to stop, that I could control it, and then I’d spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday planning my drinking for the weekend.

    I would plan a party, a get-together, or an outing so I could say, “Well, I can’t stop drinking this weekend.” Over and over and over. I felt like I was on a torture hamster wheel, experiencing Groundhog’s Week every week for years. It was exhausting!

    I was just dumbfounded as to why I couldn’t figure this out. I am an intelligent, loving, caring woman who is not an alcoholic! I have a master’s degree, for God’s sake! Why couldn’t I keep my promises to even drink less?

    Here is how I finally did it.

    One Saturday, June 10, 2018, I was at my sister’s house, drinking, of course, even after promising myself I would keep it under control. I was probably on my second bottle of wine playing cards at around 11:00.

    My husband wanted to leave, and I didn’t want to stop. He left, and my brother-in-law drove me home around 1:00 a.m. Of course, I woke up feeling terrible. I felt like such an embarrassment, such a failure. I just wanted to take some pills that I had left over from a surgery. I almost did.

    I didn’t want to kill myself; I just wanted that day to be over so I could stop feeling so bad. I just wanted to go to sleep to stop thinking about what a miserable POS I was, but I couldn’t sleep because I was sweating and nauseous, my heart was racing, and my mind would not stop beating me up.

    My husband, who had always supported whatever I wanted to do, probably to the point of enabling, never got on me about my drinking or hangovers. He just wanted me to be happy, whatever that meant. He supported my drinking or quitting.

    He said to me that day, “Either quit drinking or be an alcoholic—you choose.”

    He was pissed, and what he said devastated me. How could he say that to me? Couldn’t he see the personal hell I was already living in—how much I was already beating myself up? How could he be so mean to someone suffering so much?

    Somehow, I got through the day of crying and anger and misery and made it to Tuesday, and guess what? I wanted to drink again the next weekend! What the hell! What is wrong with me?!?!

    All day Tuesday, June 13, and Wednesday, June 14, I had the most intense internal battle I have ever had. One voice reassuring me, “You are fine; you just slipped up. You are strong, not an alcoholic, and you can do this. Just try harder! You have a little drinking problem that you can beat. It is all about moderation management and harm reduction.”

    The other voice was pleading, “You need help!!! You can’t do this. You have been trying for years. You are getting worse. Make the misery stop! Make the call. Call the doctor. Reach out. Get out of your own head. Get help!!!”

    On Thursday, June 15, I made the scariest phone call of my life. I was sobbing when I said, “I need to make an appointment because I think I might have a drinking problem.”

    They asked me some questions, determined that I did not need to be admitted for detox, and made me an appointment in two weeks. Two weeks! How was I supposed to go that long without drinking?? I wasn’t sure I could, so I just stayed home, probably in bed, terrified about what the future held.

    Was this the right decision? Did I really need to get this extreme? Was this really necessary? How would I ever have fun and enjoy anything in life ever again without drinking? This was stupid! I was just going to cancel the appointment. I was not that bad! I didn’t think I wanted to stop. I didn’t think I’d ever be happy without drinking.

    But somehow, I made it to the appointment. I told the doctor what I was going through and that I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. I thought I had an alcohol use disorder.

    The doctor asked me, “Have you tried to stop and cut down? Have you been unable to?”

    My answer was yes.

    He said, “Call it what you want, but you are an alcoholic, and alcoholism is a progressive disease that will just get worse. You need professional help.”

    I sat there in shock, much like when my husband said that to me.

    I just said to him, “That wasn’t very nice,” and he said, “Sometimes the truth isn’t nice to hear.”

    That took me days to process. Could he have been right? Could I have been fooling myself? Could I have been in DENIAL??? What? Not me! Would I just get worse? Would I become like my father, who lost everything and eventually died from the disease? I was so confused.

    I finally came to the truth. I did have a problem. And I was physically addicted as well.

    I was a mess, and I had been for a long time. I was so dysfunctional in my relationships and with my behavior, and I was finally able to see that alcohol was killing my soul.

    All the embarrassing moments, the broken promises, and the time spent feeling horrible about myself were destroying me. I was living my own personal hell inside my brain, which I fiercely protected because I didn’t want anyone telling me I should stop drinking or judging me. I decided to take the next step.

    I signed up for outpatient therapy with group support meetings three times a week and individual therapy once a week. I like to think of this time period as when I walked out of the fog.

    All of these people, who were clearly worse than me (lol), with their DUIs, their court-ordered attendance, and their multiple relapses on heroin or opiates or alcohol, had the exact same thought processes as I had been dealing with for decades.

    I was overcome with wonder, awe, and curiosity that the addicted brain tells all of us the same lies no matter how “bad” we are, what our drug of choice is, or how bad things have gotten. We all had the same addicted voice torturing us, begging us with all types of rationalization to not stop feeding it.

    When they spoke, I felt like it was my own voice. How could this be?

    I couldn’t get enough of the metaphors (riding the craving waves or watching the clouds pass by) and the personal stories.

    I spent those six weeks completely immersed in my own recovery, much as I had spent the past ten years completely obsessed with controlling it and the previous two decades in love with drinking. Alcohol had been my lifelong obsession, bringing the best and worst of times.

    I was diagnosed with OCD and general anxiety disorder. Well, that was no surprise to me! I tried antidepressants, but they gave me brain zaps, which scared me, so I stopped. I often pondered the “chicken or the egg” question. Was I self-medicating, or did the alcohol cause these struggles? But again, the burning bridge…. What difference did it make?

    I am not overly religious and did not attend any AA meetings, but many of their sayings, which I used to think of as so cliche, really stuck with me. One is “one day at a time.”

    That became my mantra because thinking about how I was going to do holidays, weekends, parties, and vacations without drinking was impossible to even comprehend and had led me to many a relapse.

    Thinking about how much the future was going to suck without alcohol made me not give up alcohol for way too long. I just focused on one day at a time.

    Each of those sober days under my belt built up my toolbox and strength to get through another weekend, event, or vacation. I was strengthening my sober muscles every day that I didn’t drink.

    That first year was not easy. I cried, had debilitating anxiety attacks, isolated myself, and pretty much lost contact with all my friends. While I was so proud of myself and felt so much better, I was also pretty sad, lonely, and scared.

    The last five years have not been a walk in the park either. It isn’t all rainbows and unicorns now that I have stopped drinking.

    I still struggle a great deal with anxiety. I am struggling with a terrible case of an empty nest. I miss my kids so much! I miss them needing me.

    I miss the joy and anticipation I used to get from planning my next weekend, vacation, or drinking event. I have a hard time looking forward to things. I don’t have a lot of friends because I am scared everyone will just want to drink. I am not tempted to drink, just a little jealous of how much fun they are having, so I would just rather not attend.

    When I overcome the social anxiety that I medicated with alcohol and actually do attend a social event, I am glad I went, and I find it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. But, more often than not, I decline.

    I have learned that I am an extremely sensitive and insecure person. I can be overbearing and a bit controlling. I have built a life on what others think of me, putting up this facade that everything is perfect, trying to be the perfect version of myself, and hiding all of my insecurities and obsessions with external validation.

    I am not great right now and am going to go back to counseling to deal with some of these issues. At least I can see myself more clearly.

    But I do not for one single second regret quitting drinking! I learned that I miss the anticipation of drinking more than the drinking itself. I absolutely do not miss the hangovers and beating myself up about broken promises or drunken behavior.

    I, without a doubt, would have been worse today in my addiction than I was six years ago had I not stopped. I miss the high highs but do not miss the low lows. It just isn’t worth it. The pain of stopping was better than the pain of continuing.

    I am so much more present now. I can have conversations with other people and not have it always about me or when would be a good pause to refill my glass.

    I had become pretty self-absorbed, and, while I still struggle with that, it is so much better. I can be there for people when they need me. I don’t have to plan my whole life around when I am going to be able to drink. I have learned, shockingly, that many people don’t drink. I am still amazed at how many people in a restaurant aren’t drinking. I thought everyone drank!

    I am so much better at managing my emotions and trying to always be a better version of myself. My negative self-talk, while still there, is much better. I have also gotten so much better at understanding that everyone does not see the world the way I do, and it is not my job to convince them to see it my way, as if I am always right.

    I feel I am better at stepping back, being an observer, and not living in this constant state of trying to control everything.

    I am also recently realizing that I bring chaos into my life. I have remodeled a house, sold a house, cleaned out my mom’s house, built a house, moved across the county, bought a condo, and had four different teaching jobs in the past six years. Am I trying to replace the chaos of drinking with other chaos?

    I have a long way to go in terms of being mentally healthy, but at least I can see my shortcomings a little more clearly, a little more objectively, a little less emotionally charged, and a little more rationally so that I can work on them without self-medicating.

    Most of all, I am so stinking proud of myself! I did it! I didn’t think I would ever stop drinking!

    I still have drinking dreams, especially when stressed, but they remind me how far I have come, how much work I did, how proud I am of myself, and also that I will never be cured, and that’s okay.

    While not perfect, I am absolutely a better version of myself. I can rationally see my struggles without blaming them all on alcohol, and I can try to deal with them.

    I am so grateful that I did not lose my loving, supportive family, my career that I love, or my own life to this terrible, devastating disease called alcoholism that I do accept I have. I am so proud to say that I am a recovering alcoholic.

  • Why I Love My Sober Life: Everything I Gained When I Quit Drinking

    Why I Love My Sober Life: Everything I Gained When I Quit Drinking

    “Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself.” ~Rob Lowe

    I tried and failed to have a fabulous relationship with alcohol for many years.

    When my children were tiny, I drank far more than was good for me, thinking I was relaxing, unwinding, socializing, and having fun. I’d seen my life shrink down from a world with lots of freedom and vibrancy to a socially restricted void, and I wanted to feel normal. I wanted to join in with everyone else.

    All my birthday cards had bottles of gin or glasses of fizz on them, all the Friday afternoon memes on social media were about “wine o’clock,” and I wanted to be part of that world.

    The opening of a bottle in the evening had me thinking I was changing gear, moving from stressed to relaxed, and treating myself to some self-care. Nothing could have been further from the truth; the alcohol made me wake during the night and gave me low-level anxiety and an almost permanent brain fog.

    I’m not proud of the drinking I did when the kids were small. I now feel a deep sense of shame about that time. I’d created such a happy life for myself—lovely husband and kids, nice house in a great town, wonderful friends. What was I drinking to escape from?

    On the outside I looked like I had it all, but I didn’t—I had overwhelm.

    I was a wife and family member, a mum to two small children, an employee, and a freelancer… I had all the roles I’d longed for, and yet it was all too much.

    I didn’t know how to let go of some of my responsibilities, and I didn’t know how to cope with everything that was going on in my life. Alcohol felt like the treat I deserved. It took me a while to figure out that alcohol was the common theme in my rubbish decision-making, tiredness, and grumpiness.

    I’d spent a long time feeling trapped and stuck. I knew I wanted to stop drinking, but I was worried about what others would think of me, how I would feel at parties without a drink in my hand, and whether I’d be able to relax properly at the weekends.

    I kept going back and forth, deciding I’d stop, then changing my mind, thinking I wouldn’t or couldn’t. It was a hellish merry-go-round. When I was forty-one, I finally made the decision to quit alcohol for a year as a little life experiment. I wanted to see how I would feel without it for an extended period of time.

    I decided to take a bold action in autumn 2019. I told a group of online friends that I was not going to drink alcohol for the whole of 2020, and once I had said it out loud, I knew I would have to do it.

    This step toward accountability really helped me to move forward with my sober mission. I started to count down to 2020 (still binge drinking), wondering how this experiment was going to go!

    Toward the end of 2019, my mindset began to shift. Instead of dreading the start of 2020, I started to look forward to it. I made plans that I knew would lead to a successful sober year. I read books about quitting, listened to inspiring podcasts, and watched films or documentaries that didn’t show alcohol consumption in a glamorous light. I followed people who were a few steps ahead of me on their sober journey. I asked questions and I followed advice.

    I had my last drink on Dec 8th, 2019—nothing monumental, out with a few friends and no hangover the next day. It was a total non-event!

    I wanted to have a year without alcohol to know if life would be stressful, lonely, or boring like I’d led myself to believe, or if it was possible to relax, connect with others, and have fun without a drink. The hangovers and brain fog were getting worse. In my late thirties and early forties, I just couldn’t get away with it like I had in my twenties.

    I wanted to be a more patient parent—no more selfishly rushing the kids through bedtime because I wanted to get back downstairs to my drink.

    I wanted hangover-free weekends to enjoy my time away from work.

    I wanted to maximize my nutritional choices—no more rubbish food choices dictated by low-level hangovers, or high-level ones for that matter.

    I wanted to sleep deeply and wake up feeling rested and ready for the day ahead.

    I wanted to know I was giving myself the best chance at not getting high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, dementia, or a compromised immune system.

    I went through the whole of 2020 without a drink. There were some tough days to navigate, some challenging events to negotiate, and awkward conversations to have with friends, but I did it all, and I did it all sober.

    When 2021 rolled around, I knew I wasn’t going to go back to how I’d drunk before. I had changed my relationship with alcohol for the better. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually a different person, and I didn’t want to go back to numbing my feelings.

    It’s easy to name all the benefits to our bodies and minds when we cut alcohol out—deeper sleep, clearer skin, better mood, more energy, and less anxiety, to name a few—but for me, the real shift has come a couple of years down the line. I feel more spiritually open than I’ve ever felt before, and I cannot wait to see what unfolds next for all of those of us on this sober-curious journey.

  • 10 Reasons and Helpful Tips to Make It a Dry December

    10 Reasons and Helpful Tips to Make It a Dry December

    “The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.” ~Wallace Wattles

    In all my years of drinking, I never thought I’d hear myself suggesting a Dry December. Nor could I have predicted that the month I’d eventually decide to embrace my sober curiosity would be the holiday month.

    Before I decided to give an alcohol-free lifestyle a chance, I had completed many Dry Januarys, occasional Sober Octobers, and even one Dry July. (Dry July was the hardest for me because I really felt like I was alone in trying to embrace that one.) But now I see any month as a great choice to choose less alcohol and see the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits in all their glory.

    Here is what really helped me in my very first Dry December and some pieces of advice that might help you too.

    1. I recognized that within my social calendar at the time, December was the booziest month of the year, and I decided that if I could successfully complete December without a drink, then all other months of the year would be easy in comparison. The same could be true for you.

    December meant several office parties, neighborhood drinks, dinner parties with friends, nights in bars and restaurants with other friends, and then the Christmas Eve, Day, and Boxing Day entertaining. There were a lot of places to be, a lot of socializing to do, and with that came an expectation (both external and internal) to drink.

    No wonder we are happy to talk about a Dry January—we’ve often had enough alcohol at that point! Aim to feel good about this holiday period without alcohol. You are not depriving yourself; you are doing yourself a huge favor.

    2. December could really work for you from a goal/intention setting point of view. Why not rethink New Year resolutions and have year-end resolutions? 

    What if we started the upcoming year clearheaded, more emotionally stable, physically feeling better, and with more cash in our pockets? That would be an amazing start. If we’ve already tucked a sober month under our belts by the time Dry January comes around, we are going to be feeling like we’re one step ahead already.

    3. You could use December to prepare yourself for the gentle wintering you might need.

    Imagine enjoying the holiday break feeling relaxed and restored. I know it sounds strange, but it is possible, I promise. Some of my most relaxing Christmases have happened since being sober.

    4. A Dry December could help you make the most of the season.

    In the northern hemisphere, winter is for hunkering down. It’s about cozy fires and warm blankets. It’s also the time for bracing walks in the fresh air. It’s a delight in color and texture. A break from drinking means no hangovers, which means you’re better able to enjoy the season.

    5. You can treat yourself with the money saved from not drinking.

    Get into a new habit of spending your alcohol money on what you might want or really need. Is it a monthly massage? Is it some delicious alcohol-free drinks? How about a personal trainer? What about a new book? Or a sober coach for support? You are worth every single penny. Spend it wisely.

    6. Discover alternative drinks to your usual holiday favorites.

    There is an array of wonderful non-alcoholic options available. Whether it’s experimenting with mocktails, alcohol-free beers or gins, infused waters, herbal teas, or flavorful juices, you’ll find alternatives that will still allow you to enjoy a long cold drink without the added toxins.

    Use your fancy glass, get the ice, and clink your glasses. The atmosphere, the people, and the conversation matter so much more than what is in your glass.

    7. Create new traditions and rituals.

    Replace your drinking Christmas traditions with new ones. Traditions come and go, they change at various points in our lives, and that’s a lovely thing to embrace.

    8. If you are finding December to be emotionally charged, seek out previously tested ways to soothe yourself and/or experiment with some new ways.

    Perhaps you could explore some new and different communities for support. This really helped me during my first Dry December.

    9. Use Dry December as an excuse, if you need one, for friends and family.

    Say you’re joining a revolution and reclaiming December as a month without excess alcohol as a fierce act of rebellion! You can say I’m taking a break because NOW is as good a time as any. Then gently roll into Dry January feeling altogether calmer, more peaceful, and empowered.

    10. Find and take note of all the positive glimmers as you go through the month.

    Use a journal or an app on your phone to keep a record. Does your brain fog lift a bit? Are you sleeping more deeply? Do you notice you have a few extra hours in your week? Do your eyes look a bit brighter? Where can you see the benefits? Use those pieces of great news to propel you further through the month.

    When Dry January rolls around you’ll feel like an expert, and your friends and family may even ask you for advice and tips. Enjoy the ripple effect!

  • 181 Days Teetotal (And Counting): All I’ve Gained Since I Stopped Drinking

    181 Days Teetotal (And Counting): All I’ve Gained Since I Stopped Drinking

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post references an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some. 

    “When you quit drinking you stop waiting.” ~Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story

    I’m now at 181 days teetotal. I prefer teetotal to sober. I say sober sometimes, but teetotal feels lighter, airier, and I feel lighter and airier these days.

    For the life of me, I can’t remember when I took my first sip of alcohol. It probably came from a grownup’s glass.

    What I can remember is being sixteen or so, half waking up from a blackout with a friend’s hand down my pants.

    Or being eighteen, head in a toilet, while a guy I didn’t know followed me into the bathroom to “help me hold my hair back”—and instead helped himself to my body as I cried for help from a girlfriend who eventually came to my rescue, kitchen knife in hand, and forced him to leave.

    Or many a morning waking up with a blinding headache, ashamed of what I might have said, done, or was afraid I let happen the night before.

    I can remember that exposed, unsafe feeling, and thinking to myself, “Never again.”

    I can also remember (and well) the little voice that come late afternoon would say, “A drink will make this better.”

    And it did. And then (surprise!) it didn’t.

    Although this article isn’t about sexual assault, I want to mention that this has happened to me sober as well, and to acknowledge that a person letting their guard down doesn’t amount to an opportunity given. Seizing vulnerability and framing it as invitation is predatory, period.

    With that said, my adventures in drinking after I turned twenty-five tended to be less extreme. I became more careful about where I drank and who I drank with. Par for the course were physical and emotional hangovers, and those I learned to deal with. The tradeoff was worth it to me. Everyone drinks. It’s what we do when we get together! It’s fun and it’s fine, and you can always apologize the day after if things get out of hand, and maybe no one will remember anyways.

    And if you drink alone… well, that’s okay too! No need to apologize for anything.

    But something happened around three or four years ago. Friends I’d enthusiastically drank with, or who I knew cracked a bottle open to unwind at the end of the day, decided to go dry. Hand on my heart, I was happy for them, but hand on my heart… not for me.

    Booze, namely a glass (and then another, and then another) of very cold rose on a warm evening outside, or if I was feeling creative, was at the pinnacle of my pleasure pyramid. I loved chatting and drinking, playing music and drinking, writing and drinking, dancing and drinking, anything good and drinking, really.

    Give that up? I don’t think so.

    Last summer, I packed up my life of twenty years living in Brooklyn and moved, alone, to a hill near Florence, Italy. Don’t be fooled by the cliche of a thirty-something straight, white woman moving to Tuscany, though. It’s been a heavy and wild couple of years, and life on this cypress-peppered hilltop’s often been more Werner Herzog than Nancy Meyers.

    This chapter of my life, hugely marked by the choice to estrange from my mother and navigate the grief that’s come with that—not to mention in isolation, in what used to be a convent in the backwoods of a country I know no one in—has been, in one word, rough.

    They make wine here; did you know that?

    Really good wine. Really good, cheap wine too. The weather and setting are also great, so that pleasure pyramid pinnacle I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it beckons all the time, and being that I’m alone a lot and still know very few people, reaching for a bottle’s been a no-brainer and… a surefire ticket to the emotional rollercoaster from hell.

    On that morning 181 days ago, I woke up hungover with a body like a bucket filled to the brim with sadness, anxiety, fear, and nausea. Slosh, slosh, slosh. Nothing new.

    A few weeks earlier, one of my sober friends had come to see me, and what struck me most about her manner was that, far from being overwhelmed with emotion (which, as I understood, was one of the “costs” of sobriety: FEELING A LOT), she seemed so even kilter. So damn okay.

    It looked incredible.

    Around that time, it occurred to me the reason I’d made all these changes (the move, the estrangement, other things too) was to enter a new phase in my life. One that was more even kilter, more okay. I’d made all these moves, really hard ones, but I was still resorting to the coping mechanism I’d employed to tide me over in my previous life: Drinking. What throughout my twenties and into my thirties had been coupled with pleasure, relief and connection was actually keeping me stuck, sad and isolated.

    So there I was, in my front yard, actually weeping as the world spun, waiting for my dog to pee, when something welled up from inside me and said (and meant), “No more.”

    No more?

    No more, Melanie.

    And so it was, and here’s the most surprising but not surprising thing I’ve learned since.

    Empty calories, empty emotions.

    The hangovers and subsequent emotional manholes I’d have to crawl out of virtually weekly left me under the illusion of processing what felt like a bottomless well of despair. I was doing the work, right? That’s what it’s all about, feeling the discomfort. Feeling the trauma. Being in the hole. Grieving. Aching. Sticking with it. Right?

    Well…

    I’ve read that drinking doesn’t necessarily make you pack on weight, but your body burns the calories from alcohol first. So rather than using what you eat for fuel, when you give your body booze, it’s the booze it runs on and the real nourishment that gets stored.

    For me, it wasn’t just that way with the calories, but with the feelings too. Even a little alcohol (and it was rarely a little alcohol) created a synthetic emotional experience I had to overcome that took precedence over my very real emotional surplus and felt like labor. Like doing the work.

    But that wasn’t my real labor, my real pain, my real trauma, my real unmetabolized feelings. Turns out my real ones are of a completely different quality. Even when they’re hard, there’s an ease to them, a naturalness to them. Even when they’re heavy, they’re lighter. There’s a purity to them, a pulling up rather than down. An unburdening that registers fully, a clearing like the sky after a downpour. The relief of a healthy morning poo rather than being covered in shit.

    The work of healing has not only been a constant in my life; I made it my job. Oh, the humbling irony in realizing a good 70% of the emotional hellscape I was trying to overcome, not to mention my lack of clarity, energy, and zeal, was pure ethanol.

    Alas, all the positive feelings I’d tried to get through every avenue other than choosing water over wine have cropped up and grown robust in 181 days (that feel like 181 years considering how full they’ve been). Feelings like inner peace, inner safety, well-being, courage, honesty, efficiency, self-trust, joy, and resilience are finally setting in.

    Now we’re cooking with gas.

    In many ways, drinking became a way I kept myself from healing in the way I allegedly wanted to. A way to postpone the well-being I didn’t feel entitled to. A way to remain tethered to the drama I’d become so used to trying to overcome. A manifestation of my skepticism that what I was looking for might actually exist—in me, no less!

    I’m lucky. Every morning upon waking fresh as a button, especially on weekends or Mondays, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude at this inner leveling. Almost every day, I reach out or hear from my two teetotal close friends, and 99.9% of the time we don’t discuss how hard or boring life without alcohol is, but how much better, easier, brighter, richer, and solid we feel. How happy we are to have gotten out of that cul-de-sac.

    There’s a lot of shame and shaming stitched into the drinking dilemma, and I find it such a hindrance. For me, this hasn’t been a journey from shame to pride, and I’m completely convinced that had it been, it wouldn’t have stuck for more than a couple of weeks.

    Pride can be so brittle, so about the shame in the end, like the ‘after’ looking at the ‘before’ with a smug superiority. That doesn’t sit right with me.

    This has turned out to be tender, a pleasure, a streamlining of emotion, abundance, self-giving, taking, daring to receive, and giving from a full well. I sleep like a baby, say what I mean, mean what I say, know what I want, and know I have the energy to execute it. And as it happens, I have a personality that’s not bottle-of-wine adjacent, and I love her. 

    This isn’t a badge; how dead, how bland. This is a delight, alive and fluid and not for tomorrow—not to deserve something better now that I’ve quit that I didn’t deserve before, or to be better than people who haven’t quit. Hell no. This is my experiment, a treat from me to me.

    Have there been added bonuses? You bet. I’ve processed more trauma, melted more limiting beliefs, felt my nervous system unwind more, and even had bigger breakthroughs in my work in these past few virgin months than I did in decades before, and with far more ease.

    What changed for me that February morning wasn’t so much that I was done feeling those super low lows, but that for the first time in my adult life, I felt worthy of feeling myself. Just myself. And wow. Pretty cool.

    I won’t lie to you, sometimes around sunset, when the breeze is blowing and the crickets are singing and the company’s good or a favorite song comes on, I do think, “Dang, a cold glass of vino would make this even better.” But so far, the fresh mornings after, the healing that’s unfolded in this untampered space, and how much more present I feel for the sunset and the breeze and the crickets and the company and the song, has been kicking that thought’s ass.

    I’ve committed to a year of not touching the stuff, and I’m taking it a day at a time, but I don’t know, this is really good. It’s hard to imagine giving it up. Hah! Who’d have thought?

    Thank you for reading. Whatever relationship you have with alcohol, wherever you are with anything you’re struggling with, no judgment. Really, truly, no judgment. And to any person who’s experienced sexual assault, drunk or sober, you were never at fault.

  • How I Embraced Alcohol-Free Living: 4 Things That Made It Easier

    How I Embraced Alcohol-Free Living: 4 Things That Made It Easier

    “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ~Abraham Maslow

    A few years ago I decided to take a break from alcohol, and I also decided I would probably be lonely, miserable, and boring for the duration of my break.

    I’d allowed a lot of social conditioning to affect me, and I was sure people who didn’t drink either had no friends, had hit a drastic rock bottom, or had no fun. I didn’t know if I was going to find happiness or even contentment on the other side of my drinking career, and this worried me.

    I began to examine those thoughts and feelings around my drinking and brought my behaviors into a sharper focus. It led me to…

    Awareness (of my drinking habits)

    I look back and can now clearly see that I was, for a very long time, a gray area drinker.

    A gray area drinker is someone who falls into the bracket between never drinking and physical alcohol dependency.

    Society tends to view problematic drinking in black and white terms. “You’re an alcoholic and you need to be fixed, or you’re not an alcoholic and are therefore okay.” Well, I think it’s more nuanced than that. There’s a spectrum between the extremes of rock bottom and every now and again drinking, and it’s a long spectrum.

    A gray area drinker could be consuming a couple of glasses of wine each evening or could be someone who binge drinks on the weekend or someone who can abstain for a month at a time to prove they haven’t got a problem.

    I was capable of any of those behaviors, and, looking back, I fit the description of a gray area drinker very neatly. I wasn’t physically dependent on alcohol, but I might have been emotionally dependent. I used it to help me alter my state of mind into relaxation/fun on a regular basis.

    This can be a confusing place to be when you first start to see alcohol for what it is. I’d say, “But I’m not doing anyone any harm. I’m sinking a couple of glasses of wine on the sofa, and then I’m going to bed—what’s the problem with that?”

    In the past I moved along the gray scale; different ages, different friendship groups, different jobs, different circumstances, different seasons, and different living arrangements all led to different drinking patterns. Apart from the periods in my life where I was pregnant or breastfeeding, I didn’t ever choose to have a really extended time (more than thirty days) away from alcohol.

    Acceptance (that I wanted something different)

    I came to realize that the more I moved along the grayscale, the more or less colorful other areas of my life became. If my joy was a rainbow, the vibrancy of that rainbow either faded or shone brightly depending on how much I was drinking.

    I stopped myself from making a change around my drinking for a long time because I didn’t want anyone to define me as “having a problem.”

    The movies would have you believe that the end of your drinking career needs to be very dramatic, with a family intervention and a massive rock bottom, but this doesn’t need to be the case.

    What if you chose for your drinking days to end with a quiet fizzle out instead of a big firework or massive drama? That’s how it was for me.

    My gray area drinking changed shades of gray over a couple of years, and by the time I was ready to try my alcohol-free life experiment, I was moderating my drinking and never drinking more than two drinks at one time. However, the shades of gray no longer felt good, and I wanted a full-on technicolor rainbow, and I knew that to get one I had to do away with the other—so I did.

    Those gray clouds parted, and one by one all the other areas in my life that had, up until then, been a bit less than joyful started to shine a bit brighter.

    Action (taking steps toward what was next)

    Once I had made the decision to have a break from alcohol for one year, I took action steps to make it more likely to happen.

    I set myself up for success by choosing a time frame I wanted to work toward, educating myself on the harm alcohol does, downloading an app to help me to stay focused, looking for other inspiring people who were already doing what I wanted, and asking for support where I needed it.

    I had assumed that once I made the decision to have a break from drinking, it would be easy to execute, but I was surprised to find it wasn’t. I realize now that this is one of the reasons there are so many amazing sober communities out there—we need each other, and we want to look out for those who we can serve.

    I used to joke that the early days of sobriety constituted a full-time job because I got very focused on a morning routine that supported my needs, I read more than I ever have, I listened to podcasts, and I used distraction techniques in the early days. But actually it wasn’t a full-time job; it was simply learning a new way of being.

    Alignment (and a feeling of contentment or peace)

    Now that I don’t drink, I’ve had to face some truths. Some of them have been uncomfortable. Some have become less uncomfortable over time, and some, well, they are still uncomfortable.

    Deciding to have an alcohol-free year threw me into a bit of an identity crisis. I was mostly okay about changing my home drinking identity but really struggled with my social identity. Shared boozy experiences were a big part of my life and of who I was, or who I thought I was.

    I’ve ended up piecing together a bit of a new identity over time. I’ve reflected not only on who I had been but also on who I wanted to be in the future. I took time to explore what I enjoyed and also consciously began to move away from activities I had stopped enjoying.

    I also looked more closely at my relationships. Who did I want to see more of, and who did I need to move away from a bit? Some of the most surprising support came from the least expected places.

    I discovered that chaos had been a default position for so long that calmness was too unfamiliar. To start with, I had to move slowly toward the identity that I wanted. I’ve accepted that some friendships have changed and some have stayed the same. I’ve also made new friends since becoming sober and a business owner.

    Who am I sober? I’m just someone who chooses not to drink alcohol. I want that to be the least interesting thing about me.

    Who am I sober? I am an improved version of myself, more relaxed, more peaceful, more patient, kinder, and more content. These were not words I would have used to describe myself when I was drinking. Internal chaos reigned.

    Who am I sober? Well, probably the most surprising thing for me is to find myself working as a coach. I spent twelve years as a youth worker, and a large portion of my time was spent talking to young people about their substance use without ever considering my own. When I had gotten sober and completed my coach trainings and certifications, I couldn’t believe what I had achieved. None of this seemed possible a short time ago.

    I recognize now that a large part of the “woohoo, let me lead the charge to the pub/bar/dance floor” part of my personality looked like an extrovert but was indeed an introvert using alcohol as a coping mechanism in situations where I didn’t feel comfortable.

    I’m really happy to lay claim to my more introvert nature now—let me have all the fun, but please can it be in pairs or small groups, please can it be in the morning or afternoon, and please can I go home and have a lie-down afterward? Thank you!

    If you’re struggling to visualize/think about who the sober version of you might be, then follow good role models to get ideas—read books, listen to podcasts, and take action. If you’re thinking of taking someone’s advice, consider if they are currently where you might like to be. Have they been in a similar place to you now, and have you seen them act with care and kindness toward others they are helping?

    Sobriety hasn’t been a ‘one and done’ experience for me; it’s been a process over the last few years, and I’m so grateful to acknowledge that I’m still a work in progress, as I believe we all are.

    Bring awareness, acceptance, action, and alignment into focus as you go, and it might just make things a little bit easier for you.

  • How Getting Sober Healed My Dating Life (When I Thought It Would Ruin It)

    How Getting Sober Healed My Dating Life (When I Thought It Would Ruin It)

    “Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking of what we want to become. Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking about who we don’t ever want to be again.” ~Shane Niemeyer

    When I faced the prospect of no longer drinking anymore (at age twenty-one!), after eight years of heavy boozing, I had so many questions about my dating life.

    Will I be fun anymore? Will I have FOMO? How will I cope with stress? What will I drink on dates? Will anyone want to be with me? What will sober sex be like? Omg!

    These questions paralyzed me, as I couldn’t imagine my life without alcohol, yet I couldn’t imagine my life with it either. I put down the drink and with it, I thought I surrendered my desirability and compatibility as a potential partner.

    That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

    Over time, I’ve realized plenty of people don’t mind that I’m sober; some even like it or are sober too. Ultimately, I found I didn’t really care what others thought because I was okay with myself.

    The reality was, slowly but surely, getting sober healed my dating, sex, and love life for good. Here’s how.

    Feeling My Feelings

    Gosh, alcohol seemed to solve everything. Stressed? Drink. Excited? Drink. Sad? Drink.

    I’m face-to-face with reality without picking up the bottle every time I have a feeling. I don’t get to check out. It’s a good thing, honestly. It means I feel the spectrum of feelings and am present with them, which helps me work through those feelings in a healthy way.

    I recently went through a breakup, and it destroyed me emotionally. Even though I was the initiator, I felt so many feelings.

    I spent the first few weeks running from my feelings by trying to meet people on dating apps (what a joke that was at such a raw point!), but I quickly realized this wouldn’t serve me. I had to face my feelings head-on.

    Now, it’s been almost two months, and I’m still sad, but I’m feeling the sadness. I’m leaning in to let the sadness visit, then leaning out when I’ve let it visit for long enough. I know now that the best way to move through sadness is to let it unfold within me, not fight it.

    Owning and Releasing My Stuff

    Alcoholism stunted my growth as a human. I think when I got sober, mentally, I was like sixteen instead of twenty-one. What sobriety has given me is a chance to catch up with that emotional maturity.

    I can take responsibility for my actions, knowing when something is my fault and when I owe someone an apology. For example, if I raised my voice at my ex-partner, I owed him amends or an “I’m sorry,” and I apologized promptly.

    I can also own when I don’t have a part in things and, instead, have to figure out what isn’t mine to carry. For example, I felt some guilt and shame about the traumatic aspects of my childhood, but this is not my stuff. I’ve learned that I need to let that go.

    Emotional maturity teaches me to make sense of what to own and what to reject as not mine.

    Becoming Okay with Being Alone

    When I was drinking, I was terrified of being alone. I was cheating on my partner because I couldn’t be with him but couldn’t be without him either.

    Once I got sober, I spent many years practicing being by myself. I took myself on dates to beaches and bookstores, learned proper self-care through relaxation and gentle but necessary productivity like doing my laundry, and learned that I’d be okay no matter what happened.

    I realized I was a lovable human being and that I could love myself.

    I’m alone again a few years later, and although I don’t love it, I’m thriving in solitude. I’m rediscovering my passions, such as yoga, writing, and spending time with loved ones. I’m embracing myself because I’m realizing I’m worth it.

    I can’t be with another person until I’m whole again, and I’m just not there yet. Today, I try not to use other people to escape my feelings through rebounding. So alone time it is.

    Engaging in More Communicative Sex

    When drinking excessively, it can be challenging to have consistent consent. I was assaulted several times during my drinking days, and although I never deserved that, I put myself at risk by blacking out and drinking to excess.

    Now, I have incredibly communicative sex. I don’t settle for anything less than enthusiastic consent.

    When I sleep with someone, we talk about it before it happens and make sure we know each other’s boundaries and needs. We communicate clearly during and even after. It’s magical! Sure, you don’t need sobriety for this, but with my drinking habits, I did.

    Getting Additional Support

    Getting sober in an alcohol twelve-step program made me realize I needed another twelve-step program for sex and love. I came to find out that, although getting sober did a lot for my sex and love life, more healing was necessary to level up. So I joined Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous, where they taught me self-love and how to date in a healthy way.

    They taught me how to avoid behaviors that harmed me, like having sex with randos and chasing unavailable people. In the evolved part of my life with my ex-partner, they taught me how to set boundaries and accept love. Now that I’m alone, I’m learning again how to face it.

    Final Thoughts for Others

    I have nothing against alcohol; it just didn’t work for me anymore. I was binge drinking, blacking out, cheating when I got too drunk, waking up in strange places, and just generally making an ass of myself. I was most definitely ruining my relationships!

    If you think you have a problem with alcohol, there are many resources for the non-drinker. I personally found Alcoholics Anonymous to be the most helpful, but whatever works for you is what you should do. It might just heal you and your relationships.

  • One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    “The Phoenix must burn to emerge.” ~Janet Fitch

    Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments.

    After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober. I had no desire to drink or do drugs—well, at least for a long while.

    When I went to treatment, I was an emotional wreck. I would have done anything to get rid of the pain. But substances only intensified the pain and prevented healing.

    The worse I felt, the more I needed to medicate those emotions, but it was only causing the ache in my heart to be prolonged, driving me to suicidal thoughts. The moment I stopped using substances, the pain immediately subsided. I’d gone from struggling to get out of bed to engaging in my life fully.

    But going to treatment was only the tip of the iceberg. There was something much deeper underneath my addiction that I wrongly thought a relationship could fix. There was an underlying malaise and sense of shame I couldn’t identify. I knew something was wrong, so I kept searching for answers but couldn’t find the magic formula.

    Without the solution, relapse was inevitable.

    Most recovery programs address a single addiction, but I had many. After two years of sobriety, I stopped smoking but then started compulsive exercising. I didn’t eat right, spent too much, was codependent with needy people, and went from one addictive relationship to the next, never healthy enough to attract someone who could problem solve with me.

    I didn’t realize I was still substituting addictions for love.

    I wanted to make up for my troubled childhood, and I thought getting married and having kids would fix the problem, but after several attempts, it only made me feel more inadequate. Worse, I was a therapist and felt like a hypocrite. It wasn’t like I didn’t work at getting better; self-help was like a part-time job

    I spent decades in different kinds of therapy, not only as a patient but expanding my education in other modalities. I attended dozens of workshops and seminars doing inner-child work. I fully immersed myself in over twenty years of therapy, including psychoanalysis. My toolbox was overflowing, but I still felt disconnected for some reason.

    I didn’t realize those tools weren’t teaching me how to love myself.

    My journey took me on a lifelong spiritual quest. I found a higher power in recovery. I attended various churches and did some mission work in Haiti. I went to Brazil to be healed by John of God (later convicted of multiple cases of sexual abuse), on to a spiritual quest in Peru, on a visit to the Holy Land in Israel, and to Fiji to find my destiny but still felt something was missing.

    I read every spirituality book I could get my hands on and studied A Course in Miracles, but I was still disconnected from myself and others.

    Discouraged, I began to drift further away from all sources of help. I resigned myself to being an unhealed healer.

    I didn’t realize that all the therapy and spirituality were simply another form of addiction for me.

    Relapse began when I got breast cancer and was prescribed opiates after surgery. I got a taste of that forgotten high and made sure I took all the pills, whether I needed them or not. I also forgot how mood-altering substances affected my judgment.

    Instead of facing my fears about being ill and moving forward with my life, I reconciled with my ex-husband. I had little to no regard for how this affected my children. Like a piece of dust suctioned into a vacuum, despite feeling uncomfortable, I allowed my thoughts to suck me back into unhealthy choices—all the while in therapy.

    The next seven years were dark. Another divorce was followed by my former husband’s death, though I was grateful to bring him to our home and care for him until he passed. Then, a fire turned our newly renovated home into a mass of black and burnt-out walls, forcing another relocation for myself and youngest. Soon after, one of my businesses suffered severe damage from another fire resulting in six months of work and restoration.

    Three devastating hurricanes over two years damaged our home and business. One caused the foyer ceiling to cave in, another landed a large tree on our roof, and the third made our yard look like it had been run through a giant blender. One of my businesses was twice flooded and everything had to be thrown away.

    Soon after, our home was ransacked and burglarized. The stress of managing repairs, insurance claims, child-rearing, and working full-time felt like I was repeatedly set on fire and drowned.

    I kept trying to get better but felt emotionally shredded from the struggle. Desperate for support, poor decisions kept me in a whirlwind of insanity—more bad relationships. I was tired of trying, sick of hurting, and anger brewed within me.

    I stopped therapy, recovery meetings, and my spiritual quest, and decided to throw it all away. I went on a rebellious rampage. I’d been married at age sixteen and had a child, and now I was entirely alone. I decided to return to my pre-recovery lifestyle and live it up.

    Looking back, I lived a dual life of selfishness and a thirty-year career of helping others. I was self-will run riot but couldn’t see myself. I’d lived a life of making things happen and simultaneously wondered why my higher power didn’t deliver everything I wanted.

    Spirituality is a tricky thing. It’s so easy to think that God or some higher power is in control, but I believe, with free will, it’s a collaborative effort. Do the footwork and wait… if only I’d waited; impatience was my Achilles heel.

    My party life added a new heap of problems: disappointed children, bad judgment, and wrecked relationships. It didn’t take long to wind up in the same place that took me to treatment twenty-three years earlier, an emotional bottom. But this time, I was ready for the miracle of change.

    I finally found the missing ingredient to a happy life.

    The night was pitch black as I drove around emotionally deranged from grief and substances. After a near accident, I pulled into a parking lot and sobbed uncontrollably. I railed, “Whatever you are out there, why did you abandon me? Why haven’t you helped me? Why don’t you love me?”

    Immediately, a thought shot through my brain like an arrow through a cloud. “It’s not me that doesn’t love you. You don’t love yourself.” And for the first time in my life, I realized two things: I didn’t love myself and didn’t know what loving myself even meant.

    How would I learn to love myself? It never occurred to me that I didn’t. But now, I was armed with the missing ingredient to my happiness, and I intended to figure it out.

    Psychoanalysts are taught the importance of an infant’s basic needs for nurturing and bonding, but I’d never applied any of those concepts to myself. There were some missing parts in my childhood, so I had to learn how to provide for my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs,  as well as get proper nutrition, rest, and activity, in addition to responsibilities, play time, creative and quiet time, gratitude and appreciation, and loss of tolerance for unkind behavior (to and from others), all of which places I started the journey to self-love.

    I let go of what I wanted and focused on doing the next right thing for myself and others. The results were miraculous; peace engulfed me for the first time. By being the love I’d always wanted, I felt loved.

    I was always a doer and thought that spirituality was like getting a degree. Follow the steps, and everything will be okay. Whether or not that’s true, there’s a lot more to staying sober than following a set of directions. It’s important to find a higher power, clean up our act, apologize to those we’ve hurt, and stop using, but that won’t keep us sober if we don’t know how to love ourselves. My higher power became love.

    Correct behavior and self-love are not the same. Loving oneself starts with giving thanks to the sunrise and the sunset, cuddling with your pillow and those you love, acknowledging a universal intelligence and trusting guidance from your conscience, discovering and loving your mission, and nourishing your body, mind, and soul.

    Feed your body with nontoxic food; feed your mind with positive, stimulating information; and feed your soul with nature, good friends, healthy partners, and a higher power (of your own understanding) that inspires and uplifts you.

    If you’ve struggled with staying sober, you probably haven’t learned to love yourself. It’s never too late to start. When I started loving myself like a small child, I lost all substitutes for that godly love, and I finally began to blossom and grow.

    It took decades of failure to discover the missing ingredient to staying sober. I had to learn that love isn’t something I get. Love is an action I give to myself and others.

    Through being the love that I want, I then receive love. There’s a difference between staying sober and recovering. For all like me, who failed to stay sober, learn how to love yourself and then you will recover from the lack of self-love at the root of this tragic disease.

    It’s not enough to just stay sober, and life without happiness makes no sense. You were meant to have a life of love and joy. If you’ve tried everything and something’s still missing, try learning how to love.

  • Beyond Dry January: 5 Benefits of Extending Your Break from Alcohol

    Beyond Dry January: 5 Benefits of Extending Your Break from Alcohol

    “Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” ~Anne Sweeney

    So many people make the positive choice to have a sober start to the year in January, whether it’s a New Year’s resolution, a detox, another wellness goal, or part of a fresh start program, but perhaps it’s worth considering prolonging the benefits further into the year ahead.

    A break from alcohol is always a good thing, whether it’s a few days, a week, a month, or longer, and the bigger the break, the more you get a chance to reconsider whether alcohol is helping you to achieve your plans, intentions, or goals in life.

    There are many benefits of extending your sober break beyond thirty days.

    You’ll get more (and better quality) sleep, which will lead to you having more energy, both emotionally and physically.

    As you get into better sleep habits and patterns, with extended periods of REM sleep, you will likely find your mood improving, and you may also find that you have more time for hobbies or projects that you want to focus on. I used to enjoy reading but could never find the time to do it; now I have time in the evenings to read, and time in the early mornings before the rest of my household wakes.

    You’ll find it easier to stay focused on your other health and wellness goals.

    You will find it easier to get hydrated and eat in line with your nutrition plans when you’re not side-lined by a morning carb fest or caffeine overload. I no longer need to drink sugar-laden drinks to give me energy, and I find that I’m much more mindful about what my body needs during an average day to fuel it efficiently, while enjoying what I eat and drink.

    You might have more diverse, fun experiences with friends.

    You can plan and enjoy lots of alcohol-free activities together throughout the spring. I’ve found that some of my newer friendships are not based upon drinking activities at all. We walk, we go for brunches, coffees, movies, and day trips to new places. All social activities I wouldn’t have thought about instigating when I was still drinking.

    You’ll see progress across all areas of your life by spring or early summer.

    The habits that you formed through the first quarter of the year will really start to pay off by the time the days are longer. You will have found new and different ways to relax, to have fun, and to process your emotions, which can positively impact your work and relationships, and you will be so glad that you did.

    You may be inspired to develop a list of things you want to enjoy through the year now that you have the time, energy, and money.

    There may be simple pleasures such as watching the sunrise, hiking, baking, or creating, or more ambitious plans to execute. Perhaps you’ll discover a new hobby or direction that fills you with pride and purpose.

    Alcohol feeds your short-term rewards system (it gives you a dopamine hit) but ultimately acts as a depressant. Your brain wants immediate gratification for the least amount of effort, and alcohol can provide this, but I urge you to find some balance or a more sustainable way of living.

    I spent a considerable amount of time drinking very little alcohol before I decided to have an alcohol-free year as a little life experiment to see how I got on, and cutting down my alcohol consumption was a brilliant introduction to a sober lifestyle. I found new ways to spend my time that I never would have considered before and rekindled old hobbies.

    I now get an amazing sense of satisfaction from achieving my medium and long-term goals—these are the rewards I work toward.

    Achieving my intentions helps me develop and maintain the habits I want to keep. I work toward the long-term goals by ticking off the short term ones, which gives me immediate gratification while helping me develop my purpose on this planet. Alcohol made me act on impulse; now I act on carefully made plans, good intentions, and bold dreams.

    A sober month is a good thing at any time of the year, not just January, but please remember, we don’t have to stick to neat months or rules. We can choose whatever chunk of sober time we like to enhance our lives and find joy in the alcohol-free corners of our worlds whenever we want to.

    This year I’m choosing another year of sober living, and I cannot wait to see what I get to achieve by the end of it.

    How about you? If you started the year with a break from alcohol, can you consider extending your  intention into the spring or even into the year ahead?

  • How I Got Sober and What I Now Know About the Impacts of Alcohol

    How I Got Sober and What I Now Know About the Impacts of Alcohol

    “Sometimes deciding who you are is deciding who you’ll never be again.” ~Anonymous

    May 13th, 2011. I finally surrendered to the fact that I had a drinking problem and desperately needed help. The comments from acquaintances, the concern from friends, the complaints from my flatmates, the intensity of my depression, the conversations with my therapist—they all culminated in the decision that I had to break the chains from my liquid abuser.

    It was one of the hardest decisions of my life, one that entailed waving goodbye to the life that I had led before and diving into a new one where I didn’t have any points of reference and safety handles to grasp.

    At that time, the only option I thought was available to me was AA, so I emailed their helpline on that Friday at 2:43 p.m. Only an hour later I received a response from someone who seemed to care and understood my turmoil and despair, who took the time to share some of her own story, which I could relate to.

    I began going to meetings right away, and my friend Federica held my hand for the first two. I felt blessed to have her calming and loving presence next to me while I was full of fear and confusion. I will forever be grateful to her.

    Stopping

    I stopped drinking as soon as I joined AA. I started going to three meetings a week. I was aware that my levels of drinking were quite below the average threshold of most of the fellowship members, but I was advised to look at the similarities, not the differences, so I did.

    My quiver was now equipped with shimmering new arrows: I had the strength of my resolution, my meetings to go to, the opportunity to mix and match them when I wanted to, a whole community of people I could connect with, and, very quickly, a steady group of friends to go out with after our regular meetings and on weekends.

    I had found almost everything I was lacking and more in the space of a few weeks. I know that finding those people was what made it so easy for me to stay sober, because we enjoyed each other’s company and everything we did was not alcohol-related; also, I was never physically dependent. I was an “emotionally dependent” drinker.

    What I didn’t know then was that this bubble I had created was a very fragile one because it lacked my personal foundations of sobriety.

    Nine months after I quit drinking, on a dating website, I met the man that would become my beloved life companion and husband. I made space for him in my bubble, and he opened up to me the portal to his life.

    I became part of an outside world that I had not interacted with and had unintentionally kept at distance since I had quit drinking. I started to feel like the odd one out, and I began to resent everyone else who “could” drink.

    I could recognize other people who were problem drinkers but had not made the same decision as me, and I felt it was unfair that they got away with it, that they were the ones considered normal, and that I was the one with the problem.

    I was a ball of anger that was seeping out toward everyone, but I didn’t know how to process it. I had also started a job that was very demanding, and most of the time I was out of my depth.

    Gradually, I convinced myself that I could revisit that decision I made on that day in May and that I was ready to welcome alcohol back into my life, but in smaller and more reasonable doses.

    The day I decided to drink again was so uneventful that I don’t even remember it. I know it was almost two years after I had quit and that I had a small glass of wine. I didn’t even enjoy the feeling of being tipsy, and I took that as an assurance that alcohol would have never turned into my nemesis, but a presence that I could keep at bay and out of my life when I wanted to. I was proved wrong. Again.

    Breaking

    After approximately six months, those synaptic pathways had been retriggered. I was self-medicating my stress and depression caused by a job that I could not stomach, and the familiar shortcut was in a liquor store.

    What I later learned is that I didn’t start drinking again because I had a disease. I started for the same reason that I was able to ride a bike years after I last rode one.

    On one hand, I had learned through repetition that the quickest way to find relief from my problems was to drink alcohol, and that the pleasure I gained from it activated the reward circuit in my brain; this motivated me to repeat that behavior over and over again by reactivating the neuropathways that had already been established many years before.

    On the other hand, I had not built new, healthier ways to address those problems, I had not created new habits, and that’s why I was back standing in the alcohol aisle.

    I don’t know how I managed to drink heavily, still holding down that job successfully and completing a one-year life coaching training program. But I did both, and when I moved from London to a smaller town on the coast, I solemnly promised myself and my husband that my drinking would change.

    I had left the job I hated so much, and I was studying, searching for employment, and living in a town that I loved. I had no more excuses this time. But, instead of decreasing, my drinking increased because I didn’t have the constraints and responsibility of a job, and that freed up more time.

    My Way Out

    This time around, though, I knew I didn’t want to resort to AA because I felt that it wasn’t the right solution for me. I saw AA as a Band-Aid to stem the bleeding of my alcohol use, and if it were torn off, the wound would start bleeding again.

    AA also did not delve into the reasons I was making these poor decisions, nor did it prepare the future me for an alcohol-free life. I also was not comfortable with the idea of being in recovery and going to meetings forever; I wanted to be free.

    I didn’t know what my solution was going to look like, but I was open to trying other ways. I made a decision to stop and contacted a local organization. I got myself an appointment, had a brief assessment, and was invited to attend groups and activities there.

    I attended a women’s group a handful of times, but I felt in my bones that it wasn’t an environment where my sobriety would have thrived. But by contacting them, I had made the official step to accept and see my problem in full scale before my eyes, and, in my mind, I could not backtrack after that.

    The second step was to educate myself on what alcohol really was, and I dove into anything I could find—books, podcasts, courses, videos, and online communities—like a fish to water.

    I learned the impact alcohol has on our physical and mental health; the extent to which it interferes with the neurotransmitters in our brain and affects our central nervous system; how, as a consequence, it causes anxiety and depression; how it kills our confidence bit by bit under the mask of giving us “courage.”

    I understood that it’s a solution to a problem, and that the problem can be different for any one of us. And that some people decide to suppress their problem with alcohol, others with food, shopping, or other substances.

    I learned that alcohol is a toxin, a carcinogenic psychoactive drug, and a highly addictive substance, and that the reason we get emotionally addicted to it is because it taps on the reward system in the brain.

    I came to understand that the effect it had on me was the result of a chemical reaction, not a disease, and it is explained by science, and that it developed into a problem because it was the easiest shortcut I had to solve my issue.

    The third step was attending to my emotional recovery and looking at the problems that alcohol had solved for me. This, for me, was the key where freedom from alcohol truly lay.

    Setting my sobriety against something that was outside of me and being dependent on a structure to maintain it was one of the things that pushed me away from AA. So, for me, there was only one thing to do. Go back to the source, me, and understand where the pull of alcohol came from.

    A few months before I stopped drinking, as part of my endeavor to find a career that had purpose and meaning for me, I had completed the EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) certification. As part of my training, I had to carry out practice sessions with other certified colleagues.

    I met a lady who introduced me to the concept of being a “highly sensitive person” and realized that I was one too. I finally found the validation of my being “too emotional,” “too intense,” and “too sensitive,” epithets that had been used to describe me and that made me feel wrong.

    In my sessions with her, she helped me to uncover layer after layer of emotions, thoughts, and memories that were connected to my drinking and to the pain that I was trying to erase with it.

    We started with the most superficial ones, then reached the deeper and most ancient, which is the safest and recommended protocol to use EFT.

    The work I did by myself, with her, and with other colleagues along the way helped me to relieve my cravings when I had them and release the triggers that used to make me run to the liquor store like a brainless bullet. It also helped me recognize when I’d started to believe that alcohol turned me into the confident and self-assured person I struggled and strived to be.

    I experienced numerous shifts along the way. One of them is that I no longer resent people who drink. I can still recognize when someone has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but instead of feeling like they got away with it, my perception has changed. I feel like I am the lucky one who got away because alcohol has no place in my life, and there is not one tiny cell of me that would ever want to drink again.

    I know that there is nothing positive that alcohol can add to my life and that all I need is within me.

    I would like to show this to people who struggle with alcohol and tell them how wonderful, rich, rewarding, fun, and relaxing life is without it. And that their body has the capability to do all of the above without it, and that the fun, the excitement, or the relaxation they find in it is short-lived, but the consequences are not.

    But I know that we all have our own journeys, and it’s not my place to interfere with theirs.

    I already told the most important person I needed to tell, and that is my younger self.

    When I went to find her in my memories, I told her that she didn’t need alcohol to be the amazing and lovely girl that she was. I told her that I loved her with all my heart, and that she had all the resources she needed within her to find her way back to herself.

    She cried, then she smiled and thanked me for reminding her and for believing in her.

  • Addiction Is Messy, But These Things Help Me Stay Clean

    Addiction Is Messy, But These Things Help Me Stay Clean

    “Staying sober really was the most important thing in my life now and had given me direction when I thought I had none.” ~Bradley Cooper

    I remember that exact feeling of shame that washed over me when I was filling Yeti water bottles with 100 proof vodka instead of water. Then I chugged it, all while knowing it was the worst idea. Yet, I couldn’t stop.

    Addiction is messy.

    My social outings were with the wealthiest in the town, always with plenty of other alcoholics in my midst. I surrounded myself with people who drank like me because why on earth would I want to associate with someone who doesn’t drink? It looked like I was living the life when, in reality, I was dead inside.

    The truth is, sometimes your soul has to die before you decide to actually be alive. My soul died, but my body continued living, and I wore a shield, defending myself from people. I wanted them to see the person I was projecting; the person I wanted to be.  

    I wanted to be all of the things that I was showing them, but I was truly depressed, anxious, troubled, and lost.

    My addiction started with a boy. I was addicted to him, to love, to the idea of love, and eventually, to his drugs. He became my dealer, my controller, my manipulator, and my life.

    He introduced me to hard drugs, and I immediately latched on. He completely stripped me of any sort of normal life.

    But I would do anything for him. The occasional use turned into daily use.

    At the time, I was in college, and I was still managing to do well. However, he got a job offer in another city thousands of miles away. He said if I didn’t come with him, we were done.

    I went into a depression I had never known before. I remember sleeping for days in my parents’ basement. The thought of being apart from this boy completely broke me.

    So I moved with him. My messy addiction was getting worse.

    It wasn’t long before he found someone in our new city who knew a dealer. I got excited knowing there was something else to try, so I dove right in. These drugs led to complete destruction. 

    I was now failing school. Me, a straight-A honor student. My mom came out to visit for my twenty-first birthday. She could tell something was off, but I had been lying for so long.

    I wasn’t ready to tell anyone.

    I knew I was only in the relationship because he got me drugs. I was scared to leave because he was my first love, and I didn’t know anything else. My life was a mess.

    I dropped out of college, claiming an “emotional breakdown.” I didn’t have a job. I had no idea what I was doing with myself.

    I was completely lost.

    A few months after my birthday, I called my mom and told her I needed to come home. Of course, the next morning I regretted it, but it was too late. My parents were on their way to get me.

    My soul finally completely died because of the mess I was in.

    I broke up with the boy.

    I quit drugs cold turkey. Looking back, I have no idea how I did this; I don’t remember withdrawals or cravings. I was determined to start cleaning up my life, but addiction is messy, cunning, baffling, and powerful. So I replaced drugs with alcohol.

    I always drank to get drunk. I felt that I had missed out on college life, and I needed to make up for it. I had been controlled for too long; I was finally free.

    I did what I thought was normal for someone in her early twenties. I drank every day, starting at 5 p.m. That’s what adults do, right?

    I didn’t think I had a problem until I realized how much more alcohol I needed compared to my friends. Every time we went out, they were completely hammered, and I barely had a buzz. I started bringing my own shooters in my purse so that I could have extra on hand.

    I would pour vodka into mini shampoo bottles so that it wasn’t evident that it was alcohol. I’d buy 100 proof to get the job done quicker.

    I thought it was fun. It was my secret, and I liked hiding it. It was like a game.

    When people saw me drink three glasses of wine, they had no idea about the water bottles filled with vodka that I had chugged earlier. I’d gauge how much I was drinking by counting the number of gulps I took or by seeing how many shampoo bottles were empty.

    I hid how much I was drinking very well. I was a functioning alcoholic. I had a great husband, amazing friends, and a stable job. 

    In my mind, there was no way I was an alcoholic because I had all of these things.

    There were several incidents that should have been the end, but I was never ready. It took years of looking at myself in the mirror, thinking, Ellen, this has to stop. You can’t continue drinking like this. So, I would try drinking a different way.

    Only wine during the week.  Vodka on weekends. Svedka instead of 100 proof Smirnoff.

    Anything.

    The only thing that stayed consistent was that I never allowed anyone to see how much I was truly drinking. I knew it deep down in my dead soul that I would either die drinking or that I would have to admit out loud that I had a problem.

    The day finally came, the day I had been putting off for years because I was so scared. My last drink.

    I learned later that my last day drinking was one of my “yets.” The things that make you convince yourself that you are not an alcoholic. “I haven’t gotten a DUI… yet.” Or “I haven’t lost my job… yet.” Mine was “I’ve never brought alcohol into work… yet.”

    My last drink was really a continuation of several days of drinking. I had finished everything that was hidden in the closet by 6 a.m. before heading to work.

    I took my lunch break early (like 9:15 early) and drove to the first liquor store. It didn’t open until 10:00. I thought to myself “only an alcoholic would be caught waiting for a liquor store to open; I can’t do that.”

    So I went to another one nearby. Yes! It was open!

    I went in and got my usual. The cashier rang me up and said, “Why are you here so early today?” I was so embarrassed.

    Little did he know I needed this to calm my shakes, feel better, and make it through the morning.

    I had basically woken up still drunk and was just continuing the drunk in order to feel okay. I was completely wasted by lunch.

    I knew I would be fired if anyone noticed. I had to get out of the building.

    I called my husband. I knew he’d be upset, but I have the most supportive and compassionate husband. He picked me up from work.

    He was scared, confused, and completely sad. Why was I wasted at work on a Thursday by noon? On the drive home before passing out, I finally knew that something needed to change.

    I knew that I was the only person who could make that change. I didn’t want to live this way anymore.

    For me. The only way getting sober works is when you realize you have to do it for yourself.  No one else can do it for you.

    And that was it. I started my journey in recovery that day.

    My sober life is amazing. Yes, I still have regular life problems, but everything is so much more manageable without the haze. I can do things now that I never did before, and everything makes a little more sense.

    I’m back to being Ellen.

    I have amazing things in my life that keep me clean and sober. Addiction is messy, but we do recover. First and foremost, I have a strong program of recovery.

    It wasn’t until I went to a rehab center that I learned that people in this world could teach me how to live a sober life and develop healthy coping mechanisms. I know how to soothe myself without substances and how to navigate this world without numbing myself.

    I work a recovery program that includes meetings, steps, and constant interaction with like-minded people. I have mostly sober friends and have cultivated lifelong relationships that matter.

    Secondly, I was able to get pregnant and start a family once sober; I have twins! I believe that the Universe had all of this lined up for me. I could never have done any of these things in any different order.

    Finally, I have good relationships with loved ones and peers. I am not lying to them every day, hurting them, and treating them terribly. I know I am loved, and I am not alone.

    Everything is perfectly in place the way it is supposed to be according to my journey. And now I can actually see that clearly.

    Addiction is messy, but it made me who I am today. Without this mess, I would not have this life. Now that I am clean, my soul has been brought back to life.

  • 10 Easy Responses to Use When People Ask Why You Aren’t Drinking

    10 Easy Responses to Use When People Ask Why You Aren’t Drinking

    Embracing the holiday season can sometimes mean embracing alcohol with gusto… or not. Fortunately for those who choose the former, “Dry January” has caught on over the years and it’s a fantastic concept. Going through a refresh is a perfect way to rid the toxins and melt the bloat away.

    I’d like to throw out a radical idea, or should I say a radical self-care opportunity!

    How would your holidays feel without alcohol?

    You might gasp looking for a chair to sit down as you frantically wonder how on earth you would get through the parties, relatives, house guests, and cooking without the comfort of your old friend Chardonnay or Mr. P (Pinot Noir!)

    Before you race to the fridge confirming you have enough Prosecco from the stress of the idea I just offered up, please stay with me! I’d like you to try an exercise my community members often call their favorite strategy in tweaking their relationship with alcohol.

    Imagine it’s Christmas Eve. What if you decided not to drink?

    How would you feel going to bed knowing you wouldn’t be waking up at 2am for water and aspirin?

    Would it feel inspiring to know the next morning would be one where perhaps you might see the sunrise or get up before everyone else to read or bake cinnamon rolls as a surprise?

    How marvelous would it be not to feel hung over, exhausted, and impatient with your loved ones? What would it mean for them to experience you as truly calm and present in conversations?

    I often say four hours of no-alcohol-infused sleep is far better than ten hours of drunk sleep. Yes, you may be tired in the morning even if you don’t drink, but oh my goodness, how good it feels not to layer on the fogginess and headache!

    Now, let’s flash forward to New Year’s Eve. Envision that instead of popping open another bottle of champagne at midnight, you created a sacred ritual for yourself and loved ones. A beautiful and energetically calm meditation space with candles, wishes written out for the new year, tea, treats, and cozy blankets.

    As the clock strikes midnight your wishes for the 2022 are released to everyone and everything in the universe as you breathe with eyes closed and smiles wide.

    You might be sighing with a sense of pleasure looking at this vision.

    The voices in your head, however, may be slowly speaking up the concern of “But what will everyone think if I’m not drinking? Will they put me on the spot in front of others, and what will I say? Will the events be boring or worse yet, will I be boring? How will I handle the overwhelm and/or social anxiety without my ever-faithful wingman called alcohol?”

    When someone in my community complains about certain friends or family being nosey about why they aren’t drinking, I smile and say, “it’s not about you… it’s about them.” It’s been my experience when people make the fact that you aren’t drinking “a thing,” it’s simply because something within them, consciously or subconsciously, is calling them to examine their own relationship with alcohol.

    I should know. Back when my drinking habit was a few glasses of wine every night in addition to a martini or two on the weekends, I was hyper aware of who was drinking, what they were drinking, and how many drinks they had had. It gave me anxiety when someone was still on their first glass of chardonnay while I had already gulped down a Manhattan and on to my second.

    When I decided to go on an extended break from alcohol during quarantine, it was easy peasy to sail through the weekends and happy hours pleasantly content in my nightgown with Netflix. It was not as simple, however, when the small outdoor picnic dinners with friends started that summer.

    I was thrown back into the “real world” for little bursts of time, and it was humbling. I experienced anxiety around the thought of people judging me, talking about me, wondering if I “had a problem,” and so on. I was worried life would be boring, or more importantly, that I would be boring.

    Little did I know the exact opposite would come to fruition. Life, and I, became more colorful, brighter, happier, calmer, and more present. Still, however, it helped to have a few scripts in my back pocket for when I was caught off guard with the out-of-the-blue question around my beverage of choice.

    Recently, I posted a list of responses for that awkward moment at a dinner party or event when someone says (oftentimes in front of others) “Why aren’t you drinking?” I thought my “Live More Drink Less” members would find them helpful for future use. Instead, I was happily surprised when the comments started rolling in about the responses they already use, which I must say are far better than the ones I created!

    The reality is, just because someone asks you a question does not mean you owe them a response. You do not need to explain anything you are doing for the well-being of your mind, body, and soul.

    However, if you are more into mocktails than mojitos and seriously dread the curious comments, here are some great comebacks that will end the discussion around your drinking, some that may bring a giggle to you and others in earshot.

    1. It makes me drowsy, and I don’t want to fall asleep in your arms right now.

    2. I’m driving.

    3. Alcohol is just not something I am attracted to at the moment because it wakes me up at 2am with a dry mouth and headache.

    4. I’m doing a self-care program and it includes the release of alcohol, and I don’t want a hangover stealing my joy tomorrow.

    5. It fuels my anxiety and steals my peace.

    6. I like to get up early to see the sunrise.

    7. It’s more fun for me to create alcohol-free memories.

    8. “Wine Face” is not my friend. (Otherwise known as dark circles under eyes, puffy face, bloodshot eyes, etc.)

    9. I make decisions for my Saturday nights based upon how I want to feel Sunday morning.

    10. Because… I… Am… Not… but thanks for asking, Nosey Posey 🙂

    If, at this moment, you are feeling inspired to do a hangover-free holiday, that’s your soul speaking to you. Are you ready to listen?

    Taking a break is not about taking anything away but instead putting so much more into your life. Even just a short break from alcohol can create a ripple effect of joy, success, and well-being throughout the year.

  • The Profound Joy That’s Possible on the Other Side of Addiction

    The Profound Joy That’s Possible on the Other Side of Addiction

    “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~Rumi

    As I stood on the doorstep of that rehab facility, I felt completely empty except for the overwhelming weight of anxiety and shame. In that moment, I wondered what all the normal people were doing today. How did they cope? And how was it that I couldn’t hack life and that things had spiraled so far down?

    It’s hard to admit you have a problem. To be honest with yourself when you’ve numbed everything out for so long seems ridiculous. To finally share it with the people around you is also daunting for so many reasons, not the least of which is actually having to give up your most trusted coping mechanism.

    At that doorstep, I felt at some strange in-between place. On one hand, I knew I had to leave the past behind me, and yet my future was something I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I had no wish for the future. No agenda. I was just desperate.

    What had led me here was a brutal struggle with alcohol that had consumed my entire life. I had spent years trying to meet everyone else’s expectations and maintain the illusion of perfection in order to feel loved and accepted. I had never learned to feel my feelings or cope with tough situations in healthy ways, so when faced with uncomfortable emotions and circumstances, I numbed myself out. But this came at a huge price.

    My job hung in the balance as did my closest relationships. And I couldn’t remember what it felt like to experience joy because you can’t selectively numb emotions. When you numb any, you numb all.

    The other thing that had led me to this threshold was a very small and almost inaudible voice. I had this message that I needed to “come home” and that “I needed to do this by myself, for myself.” While I didn’t understand this message at the time, there was an odd comfort and something that got enough of my attention to get me here.

    What struck me most as I found my sea legs there was that in this setting, I could finally be honest. I could say out loud that I had a real problem with alcohol, that my life was in shambles, that I was scared and that I felt hopeless. To be seen and understood is quite possibly the greatest gift that any person can receive.

    That facility was filled with a cast of characters, but I was in no position to judge. I just saw the raw, authentic beauty of people owning up to their life thus far and genuinely trying to create some meaningful change. This was humanity laid bare. It was full of trauma and distress, and also humor, knowing, and compassion.

    We were on a tight schedule with regular urine tests, limited exposure to the outside world, and no access to sharp objects. While I physically felt incredibly confined, my heart and my mind were gaining a freedom they hadn’t had in a long time. It’s funny how that happens.

    I was beginning to feel things. I felt a lot of anger, shame, resentment, and fear. I learned that I was angry about a lot of things, including all the times I’d compromised myself to please other people. I was deeply ashamed, embarrassed, and sad that my life had spiraled so far out of control. I was also full of fear because my future was not something I could begin to imagine.

    But I also started to feel freedom and hope, and we had some seriously good laughs. (Addicts do really ridiculous things!) I began to understand that feelings are big, and I’d only ever managed them by drowning them out.

    I began to learn that when I feel these big uncomfortable feelings, I can let them move through me.  And, when I make room to feel the crap, I also make room for joy, bliss, and a lot of gratitude.

    I never thought I’d say it, but my recovery has, hands down, been my greatest teacher. When I removed alcohol, I was able to come home to a deep place within myself. I was able to make peace with her and even start to love her.

    Self-love came slowly. It felt foreign to me. But, the prospect of it had a gentle quality to it. It felt inviting and hopeful. I could look at myself in the mirror and see past the puffiness and sadness into a part of me I knew more deeply. I felt like it was possible to reclaim the parts of me that made me feel alive. I started to ask myself questions like: What do I like about myself? What activities and people would bring me joy? How do I want to show up in my life?

    I began to see that I’d put so much energy into avoiding my life, numbing out, and trying desperately to hide my addiction. I wondered what I might be able to do if I used that energy to create a life that I actually enjoyed. I also decided that if I was going to go to all of this trouble to turn my life around, I wanted to be deeply happy and create a life that brought me a deep amount of joy.

    I began to make the tiniest daily choices to be on my own side. I started to take care of myself. That body that I had ravaged, I started to treat with compassion by nourishing it, hydrating it, moving it, and letting it rest. I came to understand that it was actually wise, and not only should I listen to it, I could trust it.

    I sought out the help of doctors, therapists, energy healers, spiritual leaders, and anyone who could help me excavate everything I wanted to numb out—feelings of inadequacy, unhappy relationships, anxiety, and a deep sense of disconnection from myself—and release me to a future full of possibility. I just decided to be on my own side, love myself a little harder, and show up as my messy authentic self. That felt good, freeing and often, amusing.

    Going to rehab was one of the best/worst things I’ve ever had to do. It was the worst because it felt like a last stop. It was the best because it absolutely saved me and was a gateway to a future I never could have remotely imagined. Recovering from addiction has been an incredible gift.

    If you think going to rehab sucks, entering the real world sober isn’t a whole lot better. There are many times I remember why I wanted to numb this place out. We live an intense world that thrives on numbing out. Choosing to be mindful, conscious, and authentically happy is not for the faint of heart.

    The difference now is that I am in charge of my choices. The voice in my head is a lot more like that whisper—gentle, encouraging, and compassionate. I reminds me that I am in the driver’s seat and that the simple, mindful choices I make in every moment have a profound and transformative impact over time. How I take care of myself, how I show up in the world, and all of my intentional actions can make a very big difference.

    I realized that when I was saying “no” to alcohol, I was saying “yes” to me. I was saying “yes” to my health and vitality. I was saying “yes” to my mental health, my joy, and my peace of mind. I was also saying “yes” to the people that I loved and the kind of life I wanted to create. I was now living from a place of reverence for this human experience. Now, I wanted to celebrate it, savor it, and enjoy it.

    We all have raw material in our lives, and it’s what we choose to do with it that matters. We can let the past torment us or we can meet it, acknowledge it, and choose to create a different future. We can breathe life into this new way of being.

    Today, I make my well-being my top priority. I try to infuse my moments with joy. For me, this means simple things like listening to music I enjoy, getting outside, wearing my favourite color. It also means doing things that bring my mind, body and spirit joy—these things include yoga, meditation, journaling, getting a good night’s sleep, and drinking lots of water. I’m also sure to surround myself with good people. I believe that joy is a choice, and we need to open our hearts and our minds to let it in.

    Recovery is possible, and so is joy.

  • How to Get Through Your Darkest Days: Lessons from Addiction and Loss

    How to Get Through Your Darkest Days: Lessons from Addiction and Loss

    “You are never stronger…than when you land on the other side of despair.” ~Zadie Smith

    In the last years of my twenties, my life completely fell apart.

    I’d moved to Hollywood to become an actor, but after a few years in Tinsel Town things weren’t panning out the way I hoped. My crippling anxiety kept me from going on auditions, extreme insecurity led to binge eating nearly every night, and an inability to truly be myself translated to a flock of fair-weather friends.

    As the decade wound to a close, I stumbled upon the final deadly ingredient in my toxic lifestyle: opiates. A few small pills prescribed for pain unlocked a part of my brain I didn’t know existed: a calm, confident, and numb version of myself that seemed way more manageable than the over-thinking mind-chatter I was used to.

    At first the pills were like a casual indulgence—I’d pop a few before a nerve-wracking audition or first date, the same way other people might have a few drinks before going out on the town. But my casual relationship to opiates was short-lived: soon the pills were no longer reserved for awkward dates or nerve-wracking auditions, and instead necessary for any type of outing or interaction.

    I knew I’d crossed an invisible line when I began to feel sick without a “dose” of medication. The physical pain they’d been prescribed for had long subsided, but they’d created a need that only grew with more use. Soon I became sick if I didn’t take any pills, which is when I began going to any lengths to get more.

    I wanted so much to stop but felt trapped on a terrible ride: I’d wake hating myself for what I’d done the day before, and with deep shame I’d vow earnestly to quit—then afternoon would come and with it, withdrawal symptoms. As my stomach would turn and my head would spin, I’d lose the resolve to stop and begin searching for my next fix. With that fix would come a few hours of relief, followed by another cycle of self-loathing, a vow to quit, and more failure.

    It was a spin cycle that likely would have killed me had life not intervened in ways that at the time felt devastating; in a span of two weeks my “normal” façade collapsed and, with it, most pillars in my life. Like a house of cards toppling, I lost my job, car, relationship, and was evicted from my home.

    It felt like a cliché country song where the singer loses everything, except in those songs that person is usually likeable and innocent—but in my story, I felt like the villain.

    As I watched my entire life crumble around me, I felt no choice other than to return home and seek the shelter of the only person who had always been there for me—my mom.

    The mom who had raised me with morals like honesty, accountability, and kindness, although I hadn’t been living them for a while. The mom who had struggled raising two kids alone, gotten us off food stamps by going to nursing school, and who watched helplessly as I descended into the same cycle of addiction that had taken the life of my father.

    She told me I could stay if I was sober; I vowed to try, though I’d stopped believing my own promises long before.

    In the recovery program I found soon after, there was an oft repeated saying on every wall: “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” If taken literally, it makes you think about how dark the night sky is before dawn breaks… how heavy, looming, and consuming. Before the light returns, it can feel like the darkness will never end.

    That was how my early days sober felt.

    But as I cobbled together a few weeks and then a few months, I began to feel the faintest bit of trust in myself. Through abstinence and therapy, mindfulness and a sober community, the hopelessness that had seemed so all-consuming began to crack open and let in some light.

    I moved out into my own apartment, returned to school to complete a long-sought college degree, and had a waitressing job that I loved. Then, just after I achieved one year sober, I got a phone call from my brother that would change everything.

    “Melissa, you need to come home,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “It’s mom.”

    My stomach dropped as I gripped the phone, suddenly feeling about five years old. I’d find out later it was a heart attack.

    I felt the darkness descend again.

    —

    In the days that followed her death I felt like a dependent child that was unable to care for myself. I dragged myself through brushing my teeth, dressing, and arranging her funeral; it felt like my heart had stopped along with hers.

    The same thought kept circling the drain of my head—how can I live the rest of my life without my mother?

    I couldn’t imagine not having her at my graduation, wedding, or when I became a parent. Her disappearance from my future brought up a dread much worse than that of the previous year— but as I began to settle into my grief, I realized I had a path through this moment, if I were willing to take it.

    The tools I’d forged in sobriety would prove to be useful in the dark days that followed. I share them below as an offering for anyone who travels through a dark night of the soul: simple steps to keep in mind when you can’t see a path forward.

    Take things one day at a time.

    In sobriety, you learn that imagining your whole life without another drink or drug can be so daunting that you just give up and get loaded. So instead of borrowing future worry, you learn to stay in the week, the day, and the moment.

    I didn’t have to know what having a wedding without my mother would be like—I just needed to eat breakfast. I didn’t need to imagine my graduation—I just needed to get myself through one more class. As I pieced my future together one moment at a time, I found that I could handle the emptiness in bite size pieces. I didn’t have to figure it all out—I just had to keep going.

    Allow feelings to come and trust that they will go.

    Much of what I’d been running from as an addict was the discomfort of my feelings. I didn’t want to feel rejection, so I contorted myself to be liked; I didn’t want to feel sadness, so I busied myself with the next activity. In recovery I learned that we can run from feelings all we want, but eventually they catch up to us in some form. Instead of running I’d learned to allow; instead of busying myself I’d been taught to turn toward pain and trust that it wouldn’t last forever.

    Though this was easier said than done, some part of me knew that running from the grief of my mom’s death would only snowball into a freight train later. I’d scream in my car as I seethed with the unfairness of it all; I’d rock with sobs on my couch when the sadness became too much. It wasn’t pretty and it felt terrible, but when I let the grief shake through me. I found that there would always be an end… that at the bottom of my spiral a thread of mercy would appear, and I would be able to go on.

    Tell the truth.

    From a young age, I felt much more comfortable in a mask of smiles and jokes than sharing how I was actually doing at any given moment. Though getting sober had helped me shed layers of the mask, I still found myself trying to likeable, approved-of, and “good.” But as grief zapped my energy and ability to make myself palatable, when people asked how I was doing I started to be honest.

    Sharing the pain I felt after my mom’s death was like standing naked in the middle of the street—I wasn’t used to crying in front of people and didn’t think they’d like me when they found out I wasn’t always “fun and easy going.” But it was exactly this type of vulnerability that allowed true friends to materialize, old connections to deepen, and the support I longed for to appear.

    Allow yourself to be forever changed.

    In recovery from addiction, I began to think of my sobriety date as a second birthday—the start of an actual new life. Though the way my former life had burned to the ground was painful, I welcomed the chance for a new start.

    But when my mom died, I didn’t realize that losing her would again scatter me into a thousand unrecognizable pieces—pieces I kept trying to fit back together but weren’t ever going to be the same, because I wasn’t.

    Once I allowed my life, relationships, and priorities to be changed by my grief, I found a self that was stronger, more resilient, and somehow more tender. I never would have chosen the form of this lesson, but I came through these experiences a more authentic version of myself… an overarching goal of my life.

    *

    It’s now been seven years since my mom’s death, and I’ve been sober for eight. As my journey continues to unfold, I never lose sight of how broken I once was and how dark things seemed. I also know that the struggles of life aren’t over; they’re part of being human and living a full life.

    But something I now keep in mind is that it’s always darkest before the dawn—I know I don’t have to always see the light…

    I just have to keep going.

  • What Happened When I Stopped Drinking Alcohol Every Night

    What Happened When I Stopped Drinking Alcohol Every Night

    “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

    I love Sophia Loren. There’s a picture of her in my home looking eternally youthful and refreshed. From what I’ve been told, it’s due to her nine to ten hours of sleep each night.

    When I look at this picture, I see someone who revels in the delights of life. Food, laughter, sex, work, motherhood, and self-care. Not long ago I stared at that picture thinking, “How could I admire someone so much and live my life in such a different way from hers?”

    Have you heard of the halo effect? It’s when you do the things you know are right for your body, mind, and spirit, and in doing so you begin to exude this powerfully beautiful and enticing energy others can’t get enough of. I now realize my relationship with the daily habit of alcohol was actually diminishing the glow of my halo. It was essentially stealing my joy, time, money, looks, well-being, and especially my slumber.

    Who knew that for so long my beauty sleep was being hijacked by alcohol!

    Puffy face, dark circles, dry mouth, red eyes, weight gain, and not to mention the headache, elevated heartbeat, anxiety… these are just a few of the lovely side effects I experienced with overindulging in the bottle.

    In trying to reduce overwhelm, I inadvertently was fueling it through interrupted sleep and the fuzzy feeling the following day. 

    Do I think alcohol is bad or that drinking is off-limits? No.

    I do know for myself that the daily two, sometimes three, glasses of wine took a toll. It stole any type of focus and motivation the next day to follow through on all the things I said I would accomplish the night before, basking in the embrace of my main squeeze, Mr. P (Pinot Noir, that is.)

    My relationship with alcohol was stealing my ability to step into the life I claimed to desire.

    I wanted to release weight.

    I wanted to make more money.

    I wanted to write my book.

    Until I released the hold Mr. P had on me, I knew deep down I would never come close to achieving any of those dreams.

    Every morning I wake up and ask myself three things:

    1. How do I want to feel today?
    2. What is one thing I can do to love myself today?
    3. What can I give to others today?

    My answer to #2 was often…

    “Drink more water.”

    “Start weight training.”

    “Let go of gluten.”

    The truth was the one true voice within was quietly and patiently saying day after day, “Take a break from alcohol.”

    I just wasn’t ready to listen.

    A phone call eventually prompted an experiment in courage.

    For ninety days I promised a friend I would join her on an alcohol reset. After I hung up that fateful Sunday, I went to the calendar to mark the ninetieth day. Immediately fear crept in with thoughts like “You’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work” and “You won’t even make it through tonight.”

    Fortunately, in that moment, something other than myself took over. It was as if I was whisked into something beyond my own comprehension, because the next 120 days flew by. In fact, after day twenty-one I stopped counting. I no longer was ticking off the calendar to when I could finally have a drink. Why? Probably because I knew in my heart the steady drip of wine each night was simply not serving me, my purpose, my body, or my pocketbook.

    Why was this time different? Because I looked at it as something I “got” to do rather than “had” to do. I viewed it as a gift rather than a cleanse.

    What is on the other side of a toxic relationship with alcohol? More than I could imagine. Every morning I wake up and think, “I am so lucky.” It’s as though I’ve captured more time in my day, and each moment holds a sense of sacredness.

    I’ve seen sunrises by candlelight, baked banana bread before bed, and gotten more done by 8am than I ever did after 5pm.

    I’ve finished a Netflix show without falling asleep… and actually remembered what I watched.

    I’ve released twenty pounds.

    I wake up hydrated.

    My skin seems to have reversed in time a la Benjamin Button.

    The list goes on and on.

    The other day my mother gave me a compliment that made me cry… in a good way.

    She said, “You know, it’s like your skin, your hair… you look like you used to look when you were younger.”

    For so long I was using wine to push down the unwanted feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. While I thought I was “taking the edge off,” I was actually making myself edgy!

    These days, I plan my fun based on how I want to feel the next morning. What I’ve discovered is that taking a break from happy hour can literally transform not only the other twenty-four hours of your day but your life as well.

    When you have enough energy and vitality to embrace the day, you start to find little miracles everywhere in the form of simple pleasures, a pleasant conversation with a friend, or a moment that might have sent you into a tailspin… but now you breathe through it with patience and grace.

    People often ask me, “Do you ever have a glass of wine… ever?”

    Probably every two weeks or so if I am being social (and socially distancing) with family or friends. Do I enjoy it? Yes and no. In fact, the few times I have had a glass or two, it no longer held any energy for me. It’s now a “take it or leave it” kind of thing.

    In fact, it’s as if moderation moves you toward abstinence.

    Why? Because I am no longer willing to sacrifice how good I feel the next morning for alcohol.

    I also revel in the reduction of anxiety! Why would I want to go back to something that was creating the exact experience that was causing me to emotionally suffer?

    Yes, there are people who can drink daily and function fine, and there are those who can’t drink at all. And then there are people like me who know alcohol isn’t the kind of friend they want to hang out with every day but perhaps in very small doses every so often.

    Drinking is marketed as sexy, elegant, and unifying.

    Is slurring your words sexy? Is stumbling out of a restaurant elegant? Is not remembering the conversation you had with a friend unifying?

    The reality for me was alcohol made me feel drained, grumpy, and even a wee bit nauseous. How you feel is creating your day and, in essence, your life. So, if you feel cluttered and haphazard waking up, you are creating a cluttered and haphazard day. 

    I used to wake up and run to the kitchen. Waiting for me was the one thing that would decide if I needed to beat myself up or pat myself on the back. Like the scale, the opened bottle of wine oftentimes determined if I was “good” or “bad” the previous day.

    Only one-fourth of the bottle left? Bad girl!

    Three-quarters left? Good girl!

    So much time, energy, and thinking put into the act of drinking!

    In the end, bedtime is the best of all.

    Four hours of alcohol-free sleep is WAY more rejuvenating than nine hours of alcohol-infused sleep. Waking up feeling your body buzzing (in a good way!) is the best high of all.

    If your inner voice is asking for a break, maybe it’s time to listen.

    Sweet dreams.

  • Emotional Pain Doesn’t Go Away When You Numb It (with Alcohol or Anything Else)

    Emotional Pain Doesn’t Go Away When You Numb It (with Alcohol or Anything Else)

    “Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what’s even scarier? Regret.” ~Zig Ziglar

    It had been a long day at work. I’d had to work with new people, which always got my anxiety going, and had to put out a few fires. By the end of the day, I climbed into my car shaking on the outside and screaming on the inside. Sounds, light, and smells were like battering rams to my senses and my internal pressure was reaching explosive levels.

    I had a prearranged dinner with my mom and sister at a local restaurant, and I hardly remembered driving there. It may have been wiser to cancel, but they wouldn’t take it well and I didn’t want to be alone with my pain.

    I needed relief from the mental agony, to get some of the stress out, but my boyfriend was working and unavailable to talk and my family didn’t handle my “moods” very well. I was the first to arrive and ordered a glass of wine while I waited. It disappeared quickly.

    I got another glass and went a little more slowly, finally relaxing enough to fake a smile for my mother and sister when they joined me.

    Dinner was a blur as I tried to be enthusiastic and say and do all the right things, but when they left I felt all the pressure from earlier come back ten-fold. I made my way to the bar to numb the pain. Some time and several drinks later I blacked out. 

    I dealt with abuse and neglect growing up and was diagnosed with two mental health disorders as a young adult.

    I tried many medications but when they didn’t help, I sought relief from the only thing that seemed to numb my mental agony—alcohol. It never lasted long, so I needed more and more until I was out of my head or passed out.

    When I let myself, I can see a stream of images like a movie flash through my mind—so many nights spent getting wasted and countless mornings waking up unsure how I got home or where I had been.

    The emotional aftermath was its own hell—full of fear, vulnerability, and regret. Anything could have happened to me while I was out of it.

    I would have bruises from unknown sources and would be left wondering for days what had happened to me. Then would come the extra heartache and drama of finding out I had lost the tight reign on my emotions and trauma while drunk, spewed out all of my pain and anger, and hurt the people I love most.

    I was truly on the verge of jail or death when it finally clicked in my brain that it had to stop. I was out of control, and rather than healing from my trauma and problems I was creating more. I was building a new mountain of regret and hurtful memories, not freeing myself from the ones I already had.

    I was drinking to numb the pain, but after a few drinks my emotional pain would explode into more anger and despair. Worse, I could end up hurt, dead, or killing someone while I was out of it. Drinking was a quick fix with a long and heavy price.

    This clear memory came to my mind of a man in his fifties that I had seen at court with a long-standing list of alcohol-related problems, and I realized that could be me. I wanted to be happy, and some day soon, I wanted to have a family. But my drinking was destroying my relationships, my health, and my dreams.

    I decided it was enough and went to an online forum to declare my sobriety and get support and accountability. I also went to AA meetings. While there was a lot of shame and grief about what I’d been through and the things I had done, it was a relief to actually talk to others with similar experiences and not feel so isolated in my problems.

    They were real people who knew and understood my struggles and offered genuine compassion, encouragement, and advice. I made friends that I could contact when I was down and wanted to drink and they would help me through my pain.

    Once I had a good support system, I went to work on myself. I actively sought to be healthier and to learn how to cope with and manage my problems. So much of my experience as a child was out of my control, my issues and life were out of control, and I was sick of feeling powerless.

    I picked up books and online courses about my issues and personal healing. I started learning about mindfulness, the art of being present and understanding your thoughts and feelings. I made healthier choices in diet, exercise, and sleep. I found Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and other holistic therapies, which taught me survival skills like what to do in an emotional crisis.

    When I wanted to drink it was because of intense emotional pain, so I learned to ground myself. I would play that movie in my mind, see the aftermath of my drinking, and I would turn to one of the many coping mechanisms I learned like journaling, EFT, taking a walk, art, and using positive self talk and affirmations.

    I was so reluctant to give up alcohol. My mind made up a zillion reasons why I wasn’t an alcoholic and why I needed to numb my pain. But the truth was I was afraid to change and face the unknown, and I was afraid I would fail. I was ashamed of what my life had become and I didn’t want to be embarrassed and vulnerable by making it known.

    I think that is the heart of problem for all of us who struggle with addiction, numbing, and similar problems—fear, shame, vulnerability.

    We’re running from our problems, trying to escape the pain, and we’re afraid there’s no end, no help, and that we aren’t strong enough. Often, we’re lost in the depths with no clue which way is up. We don’t know where to turn or what to do until something wakes us up.

    I didn’t make the leap to change until I hit rock bottom and had no other choice. Until I accepted that my drinking was like putting a flame to a gas tank, and I didn’t want a life of pain and destruction.

    When I was finally honest with myself and accepted that I had to stop running from my pain and problems, I was able to let go of my drinking, start changing, and get the help I really needed. I went from a downward spiral of escapism to living with intention and thriving. I was able to start healing and making the life I wanted.

    I finally got in touch with my mind and body and was able to hear and understand what it was telling me, what I really needed. I learned to trust myself and be confident. I found the serenity and clarity I had been so desperately seeking. It took time and tears. There was embarrassment and shame. But there was also hope, happiness, and true change.

    If you are struggling with emotional pain, mental health, addictions, or other heavy burdens, there is hope and there is change.

    You can overcome your addictions, your destructive patterns, and your crutches. You don’t have to keep suffering. It can get better if you are brave and vulnerable and willing to start the process of healing.

    Don’t suffer in silence. Try to step outside of yourself and your pain to find support.

    I went online and to AA meetings to find others who would understand. I didn’t see them as different from me and isolate myself. I opened up, and those places became a safe space for me to really talk and get encouragement and help. I found a place I could talk about it where I would be seen with empathy not judgment. I was able to release my emotional pain without consuming me.

    Next, try to understand where your pain is coming from—what causes you to seek relief in your destructive behaviors.

    You can seek counseling, do personal research, and try alternative therapies. Journaling your thoughts and feelings can help you step back from your pain and find the source. There is no one way to do this; I tried all of these and found different elements in each that helped me to understand my pain.

    As you work to understand yourself and cope with your pain, you must replace your hurtful behaviors with healthy ones. Just quitting them leaves a hole that you will scramble to fill the next time you are in distress, and you will likely relapse or choose some other bad thing.

    I found coping mechanisms like art, walking, EFT, and others to help me express myself when I was hurting and wanted a drink. Now, I carry tools with me so I always have something healthy on hand to do when my pain strikes. I always remind myself that though it feels like it will last forever it always passes.

    As you work through your problems, you’ll find greater relief and freedom. You’ll be able to see and think more clearly, plan ahead, and react the right way when things go wrong. This is how you can build resilience and mindfulness. You can be aware of yourself and your needs and care for yourself in a healthy way.

    —

    Sobriety was the best gift I could give myself to restore my emotional balance. It’s been over a year since I became sober, and I can see a real future for myself. I no longer live each day heavy with regret. I’ve come to accept and learn from my experiences, and I use them to make wiser choices and help others.

    Now when I go out, I know how my night will end—with a clear head and good memories. I don’t have to fake anything or run away anymore. I truly feel and live in each moment.

  • Don’t Let Anyone or Anything Dim Your Inner Light

    Don’t Let Anyone or Anything Dim Your Inner Light

    Find Your Inner Light

    “The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.” ~Shakti Gawain

    I was born with it. I know I was. There was a light within me that showed in my smile, my dancing around the house, my love for life, for friends, for family, and my bright future.

    I don’t remember the exact day it happened, I don’t remember the last event that did it, but my inner light went out. I was no longer the happy-go-lucky girl I once was; I became lost in an abyss of darkness and sadness. Happiness and joy were thing of the past.

    Was it heartbreak over the guy I was supposed to marry who broke my heart? Was it the fact that my parents got divorced and I was suddenly in the middle of it? Was it because I never stuck up for myself or spoke my truth? Did I do anything so horrible that my “karma” was kicking in?

    I couldn’t figure it out. I was suddenly paralyzed in fear and my world became a place where I no longer wanted to be; I wanted out.

    I was diagnosed with stage three melanoma at the age of twenty-one. The doctor who performed the biopsy called the house to let me know the results and left a message. I deleted the message.

    About an hour later my parents asked me if the doctor had called. I told them yes and that I had deleted the message. They immediately called the doctor’s office in the other room.

    A few minutes later they came into my room crying and told me I had stage three melanoma and needed to have it removed immediately. I wasn’t scared. In fact, I was relieved in a sense that there may be something that removed me from this world of pain I now lived in. I was numb.

    I no longer had the ability to form friendships; I lost that knack which used to come so easily to me. I didn’t allow anyone to get close to me. My walls came up so high and I swore no one would ever get in.

    The shame, the guilt, the embarrassment of the girl I had become began to eat me up alive. Why was I even here anymore? What was the point?

    From the tender age of eighteen I suffered daily with pain and fear, and constantly had to tell myself out loud, “I can do this, I can do this,” whether it was showing up for work or any other area in my life.

    In order to deal with all this emptiness and fear, I felt the only way out was to drink, do drugs, and self-destruct in any way I could.

    I drank to the point where I would black out because that is where I found peace, a total escape from my reality. It didn’t matter to me if I was putting myself in harm’s way or ruining the relationships with those close to me, I had to do it. I didn’t care anymore.

    The last straw was on New Year’s Eve 2001 when I went out and went into my usual blacked out state. I ended up telling my friend I wanted to kill myself. The next morning, my mom, who I had a strained relationship with because of her inability to watch me self-destruct, called me and was in tears.

    She told me my friend called her and told her I said I wanted to take my life. My mom pleaded with me to get help as soon as possible.

    I thought about it for a minute and pondered what she said. Live this miserable life of self-hatred and addiction, or get help. The decision I made was to get help because I had reached my bottom emotionally, physically, and spiritually and had a tiny grain of hope that I had a chance.

    Attending my first rehab at the age of twenty-seven was the beginning of my road to recovery and freedom. I wish I could say I got it my first time around, but that’s not my story. Two rehabs, countless relapses and lost relationships, and continuous fear and anxiety consumed me until the age of thirty-eight, when I finally surrendered and saw that I could not do this life thing on my own.

    Fear ruled my life. It was the gripping anxiety I felt on a daily basis in my stomach and in my heart. I have heard the acronym for fear, which is “Future Events Already Ruined.” I expected the worst to happen in any situation of my life.

    It wasn’t until I realized I wasn’t in charge and my self-will had taken me to these dark places that I felt a load off of my jaded soul.

    I began to see spirituality as a solace to my pain. I had hope (“hang on, pain ends”) that there was a light beyond my darkness.

    I heard you gain strength through trials and emotional bottoms. The fact that I saw others who had suffered and found a way out made me feel like I could do it too. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to cope with life.

    I started to see meditation as a way to find the answers to life’s challenges and struggles. This came as such a relief, because I used to think I had to come up with the answers in my head, which was a dangerous place to be since it had led me to this place where I no longer wanted to live.

    I began attending twelve-step meetings specific to my struggles, which helped me learn skills on how to live my life in a healthy way. I related to people and their pain, and was able to share mine.

    Finally my pain was paying off. It allowed me to help others so that maybe they would not have to suffer as long as I did. I was no longer a victim of my life. I had appreciation and gratitude for my dark past.

    I began to pray to a higher power. I learned for the first time in my life to let go. Let go of the outcomes, the fear, reactions or actions of other people, my career, my job, and my relationships—all of it.

    Am I practicing letting go on a daily basis? No, but the key thing is that I have a willingness to try. Just knowing I have the option to try to let go gives me a peace of mind that I have not had for a very long time.

    I had allowed people and situations that hurt me to burn out my inner light. No one turned off my light; I did. Knowing this gave me the freedom to find it again.

    Everyone is born with an inner light. Some of us can hold on to it and others lose it and have to work extremely hard to get it back. My road back to my light has been painful, scary, exciting, and fulfilling. I would not change any of it. I am a stronger woman because of it and for that I am eternally grateful.

    Photo by Stacy Kathryn Holst