I quit drinking eight months and two days ago. Since then my whole life has changed in more ways than you can imagine.
I went back and re-read some of the milestone posts along the way and thought I'd compile some highlights of the journey.
Here you go (if you click on any of the headings, you'll get the full post):
100 days sober
What could I have told myself 100 days ago? I could have given her a list something like this:
1. You will sleep more, and better, than you've done in years, but will be more tired than you can imagine.
2. You will discover that hot chocolate has magical healing powers, and that there really is a point to alcohol free beer.
3. You will feel ten years older and wiser, but look five years younger.
4. You will have to start to hate yourself before you can learn to love yourself again.
5. You will discover a passion for cleaning, tidying, weeding, sorting and clearing out - both literally and metaphorically.
6. You will obsessively read everything you can find about alcohol, alcoholism, and anything else beginning with 'alc'.
7. You will find that some of the really big hurdles (like parties) can be easy, but some of the small things (everyday stresses and upsets) can be terribly hard.
8. You'll find that that knot of anxiety you lived with for years was caused by the drink, not solved by it. Your best friend was actually your worst enemy.
9. You will become an obsessive navel gazer (not to be confused with a naval gazer - someone who stares at seamen). You'll constantly wrestle with questions like 'Who am I? Who was I? How did I get here? Where am I going?'
10. You will meet some incredible fellow travellers along the way. People who will make you laugh, cry and think. Hugely strong, brave and inspirational people sharing your journey.
Four months sober
The first few weeks did make an immediate difference. I was less puffy, I had clearer skin, shiny hair. I was sleeping brilliantly. I was less toxic.
But the changes kept coming. Now my whole being feels different.
It's like everything is starting to work together better. My body tells me when it's tired, or hungry. I get cravings for food that I later discover contain nutrients I need (see my post on PAWS and vitamin B).
If I drink a bottle of cold water on a hot day I can feel my cells re-hydrate. And, most intense of all, I feel all my emotions (anxiety, anger, elation, boredom etc) and am learning how to deal with them.
Perhaps most people are this in tune with their bodies and minds all the time. Perhaps they take it for granted. Maybe it's only because I lost the ability for so long that I see it as so miraculous.
Six months sober
Now I realise that you use 'one day at a time' until you no longer need it. It's there to stop you worrying about forever (which, in the words of Prince is a very long time) until you can cope with it.
And now, my friends, I can.
Now, after six months, I can truly see myself never drinking again. It doesn't scare me. At all. It's liberating. Exciting. Miraculous.
I'm not, I hope, being smug, or over confident. I'm totally aware how easy it is to fall off the wagon and end up back at Day One. I read stories about people like me doing just that all the time.
I also know about the ups and downs. This time next week I could easily be a shivering wreck again.
But, the point is, right now I am no longer scared. Or miserable. Or feeling denied.
So, if you're at the beginning of this journey, then listen to the King from Alice in Wonderland:
"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Seven months sober
If we can't see the joy in the ordinary, then how on earth can we teach our children to find it?
Being sober is more 'ordinary', but that is its joy. I've had it with the artificial ups and downs of drunk.
And, you know what? The extraordinary really does take care of itself.
Just you wait and see....
And here I am at eight months sober, older, wiser and more battle scarred. And I feel like I've discovered the biggest lesson of all about being sober:
You have to learn to cope with regular life without alcohol, because only then can you stay afloat when life decides to throw you lemons.
More on that one tomorrow.
Love SM x
Showing posts with label four months sober. Show all posts
Showing posts with label four months sober. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Thursday, 2 July 2015
4 MONTHS SOBER!
4 months! That's one third of a year!
By way of a celebration I am going to stop counting days. From now on I'm counting in months.
I re-read my post from exactly a month ago (imaginatively entitled 3 MONTHS SOBER!), and it struck me that things are still changing.
I'd imagined that when you give up drinking you'd go through a brief period of turmoil while you physically 'detoxed' (a few days? Maybe 3 weeks?), and then you'd be done. All you'd have to do then is to get used to the new you.
Not the case, as I'm sure most of you have discovered.
In fact, you go on changing in a myriad of small ways (that all add up to something monumental) over a period of....well at least four months. Who knows how much longer?
My current favourite analogy is that of a car engine (bear with me! I know nothing about mechanics so this is not going to get technical).
For twenty five years I have been filling my engine not with lovely, clear, clean engine oil, but with dark, sticky, toxic stuff.
If I'd only made this mistake once in a while my engine would have coped - it would have been able to clear the gunk in a day or two and got back to working order. But no. I poured the toxic oil in every single day.
Not only could my engine not run efficiently on this oil, but gradually the oil started to gunk up the whole system, making it run slower and slower, spluttering and backfiring, chugging painfully up the hills.
Because this happened relatively slowly, I hardly noticed it at first. And when I did see other cars charging past me as I hogged the slow lane, I assumed that it was just age. Poor old engine, not what it used to be....
Then, overnight, I stopped pouring the toxic oil in. I switched to the lovely, clear, clean engine oil (which had been available at the pump all along!).
It only took a few days for the new oil to flush the toxic stuff out of the system but the engine didn't immediately spring back into action.
Although the engine was clean, the individual parts were so used to being gunked up that they didn't initially know how to function. And even when the separate bits started working again, it took them a while to start working well together.
There were rocky moments where one part would spark into action, causing other bits to go into shock and seize up for a while. And, initially, when the car first started going really fast it was a bit of a shock. I'd grip the steering wheel with white knuckles, yelling "Slow the f**k down!"
But, four months down the line, the old engine is all shiny and clean and firing on all cylinders! And I'm getting used to driving the new super charged version. Still not entirely safe, but getting there.
That is what happened to me.
The first few weeks did make an immediate difference. I was less puffy, I had clearer skin, shiny hair. I was sleeping brilliantly. I was less toxic.
But the changes kept coming. Now my whole being feels different.
It's like everything is starting to work together better. My body tells me when it's tired, or hungry. I get cravings for food that I later discover contain nutrients I need (see my post on PAWS and vitamin B).
If I drink a bottle of cold water on a hot day I can feel my cells re-hydrate. And, most intense of all, I feel all my emotions (anxiety, anger, elation, boredom etc) and am learning how to deal with them.
Perhaps most people are this in tune with their bodies and minds all the time. Perhaps they take it for granted. Maybe it's only because I lost the ability for so long that I see it as so miraculous.
It struck me that the only other time in the last twenty years that I've felt like this was when I was pregnant with #1, #2 and #3. Back then I assumed that it was the miracle of pregnancy hormones.
Wow - I thought - thanks to all that oestrogen I have glowing skin, bouncy hair, I sleep like a log. Plus my body talks to me! I know what to eat and when to eat to keep my baby healthy. The downside was that my emotions - at least initially - were all over the place.
Now I wonder: how much was pregnancy, and how much was sobriety? Because the last few months have felt remarkably similar - just without the swollen ankles, heartburn, stretch marks and massively expanding belly.
I'm aware that if I warbled on like this to anyone who's never had an unhealthy relationship with the vino they'd think I had a screw loose, so I can only hope that you lot know what I mean....
Keep on motoring!
Love SM x
By way of a celebration I am going to stop counting days. From now on I'm counting in months.
I re-read my post from exactly a month ago (imaginatively entitled 3 MONTHS SOBER!), and it struck me that things are still changing.
I'd imagined that when you give up drinking you'd go through a brief period of turmoil while you physically 'detoxed' (a few days? Maybe 3 weeks?), and then you'd be done. All you'd have to do then is to get used to the new you.
Not the case, as I'm sure most of you have discovered.
In fact, you go on changing in a myriad of small ways (that all add up to something monumental) over a period of....well at least four months. Who knows how much longer?
My current favourite analogy is that of a car engine (bear with me! I know nothing about mechanics so this is not going to get technical).
For twenty five years I have been filling my engine not with lovely, clear, clean engine oil, but with dark, sticky, toxic stuff.
If I'd only made this mistake once in a while my engine would have coped - it would have been able to clear the gunk in a day or two and got back to working order. But no. I poured the toxic oil in every single day.
Not only could my engine not run efficiently on this oil, but gradually the oil started to gunk up the whole system, making it run slower and slower, spluttering and backfiring, chugging painfully up the hills.
Because this happened relatively slowly, I hardly noticed it at first. And when I did see other cars charging past me as I hogged the slow lane, I assumed that it was just age. Poor old engine, not what it used to be....
Then, overnight, I stopped pouring the toxic oil in. I switched to the lovely, clear, clean engine oil (which had been available at the pump all along!).
It only took a few days for the new oil to flush the toxic stuff out of the system but the engine didn't immediately spring back into action.
Although the engine was clean, the individual parts were so used to being gunked up that they didn't initially know how to function. And even when the separate bits started working again, it took them a while to start working well together.
There were rocky moments where one part would spark into action, causing other bits to go into shock and seize up for a while. And, initially, when the car first started going really fast it was a bit of a shock. I'd grip the steering wheel with white knuckles, yelling "Slow the f**k down!"
But, four months down the line, the old engine is all shiny and clean and firing on all cylinders! And I'm getting used to driving the new super charged version. Still not entirely safe, but getting there.
That is what happened to me.
The first few weeks did make an immediate difference. I was less puffy, I had clearer skin, shiny hair. I was sleeping brilliantly. I was less toxic.
But the changes kept coming. Now my whole being feels different.
It's like everything is starting to work together better. My body tells me when it's tired, or hungry. I get cravings for food that I later discover contain nutrients I need (see my post on PAWS and vitamin B).
If I drink a bottle of cold water on a hot day I can feel my cells re-hydrate. And, most intense of all, I feel all my emotions (anxiety, anger, elation, boredom etc) and am learning how to deal with them.
Perhaps most people are this in tune with their bodies and minds all the time. Perhaps they take it for granted. Maybe it's only because I lost the ability for so long that I see it as so miraculous.
It struck me that the only other time in the last twenty years that I've felt like this was when I was pregnant with #1, #2 and #3. Back then I assumed that it was the miracle of pregnancy hormones.
Wow - I thought - thanks to all that oestrogen I have glowing skin, bouncy hair, I sleep like a log. Plus my body talks to me! I know what to eat and when to eat to keep my baby healthy. The downside was that my emotions - at least initially - were all over the place.
Now I wonder: how much was pregnancy, and how much was sobriety? Because the last few months have felt remarkably similar - just without the swollen ankles, heartburn, stretch marks and massively expanding belly.
I'm aware that if I warbled on like this to anyone who's never had an unhealthy relationship with the vino they'd think I had a screw loose, so I can only hope that you lot know what I mean....
Keep on motoring!
Love SM x
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