Planting the Seeds of Sobriety
Attempting to get sober was the scariest thing I could think about. Coming to understand that I needed to change my relationship with alcohol was a mental conversation I put off for far too long. I thought my life, as I knew it, would end- I would have to stop hanging out with friends, I would have to filter A.A. meetings into my already flooded schedule. I thought each day would be a miserable battle to the end. I was broken and felt ashamed to relinquish power.
I got sober for the first time, a month before my 22nd birthday. I wasn’t appreciative at the time, but I am lucky to have had someone in my life that taught me about and challenged me on my relationship with alcohol. On a chilly night in November, at my favorite neighborhood bar, I would debate my relationship with alcohol for the first time. Similar to the battle between your consciousness, good and bad, I had a live viewing of the two opposing sides. On one side of the table, my Maleficent, convincing me that this was normal, I have the ability to stop drinking if I want- I’m in control. My Support on the opposing end- the louder but lonelier voice- attempting to save me from myself. I cried as I finished my last drink; At 3 am, in a drunken haze, I called my parents to tell them I was going to admit myself into rehab. The only facility that I knew was Ridgeview Behavioral Health. (Spoiler alert: I did not end up going to Ridgeview, or any facility to get sober.) The evening rolled into the morning, we were driving home and picked up breakfast at a Chick-Fil-A drive-through, I declared I was going to stop drinking.
My conscious wakened, and I managed to stay sober for longer than a month. Thanksgiving, Christmas, my twenty-second birthday; sober. My fall came on New Year’s Eve, tempted with fancy cocktails and an invitation that I had never been offered- the opportunity to drink at work. The evening would unfold into a full-blown personal party (… bender). I was woken up the following morning by the disappointing tone of my Mom asking if I needed a ride to my car. The new year fell onto a new week, and I was starting a new job that day. I still remember the mental and physical suffering I felt that day. Coincidentally enough, showing up still-drunk from the night before was a painful foreshadowing of the inevitable- I would lose that job as a result of my drinking.
In the forty-five days that I was sober in 2017, I faced my problems head-on and looked forward to the future- for the first time in my life. I experienced blissful clarity and wanted more. It was a great end to an otherwise stressful year, and I was determined that the next year would be different. After my fall, I decided that I could still move forward. Under the guise of control, I convinced myself because I had the ability to stop drinking, I was safe to carry on, although carefully. Over the next two years, I became more conscious (aware) about my drinking. Not every time I drank, and sometimes I drank in spite of it; but over time, it became all I thought about. I had someone to call me on my shit, at my supposed prime, and it stuck with me. It bothered me. A pestering little thought, that grew every time I drank- much like the depression and self-loathing.
Shortly after I began drinking again, my problems resurfaced and multiplied. Unbeknownst to me, that short stint of sobriety showed me how euphoric life can be without alcohol. It wasn’t a bandaid to slap over my brokenness, it was the cure. After suffering grueling years of loss, depressive episodes, broken relationships, and a shattered form of my true self, I had finally realized- for myself- that my drinking was to blame. I have put an end to the unnecessary anxiety, stress, agony, and resentments that polluted my life- and the solution is sobriety.
May you find your peace as we roll into a new year. Happiness awaits you.
