Blue

The Perks of being sober:

And the ever present feelings of “why am I doing this?”, By Aja Blue

  Today I am 8 months sober. Yes, it’s true. I’ve somehow made it to this point. No alcohol or anything to alter my mind has been put in this body for 245 days and counting. I’m not bragging. Trust me. I’d love to engage in a little cocktail drinking every now and then like a normal person, but I can’t. And honestly,  that fucking sucks. Instead, I count every day as a blessing that I’ve made it through without a drink. Don’t let me paint the wrong picture though. I was not a Drunk by any means. You don’t have to be a drunk to be an alcoholic. In all truths, I was an alcoholic before I even took my first drink. I have that mind. The one that wants to numb away the problems, obsess about things I have no power over.. there’s a long list of things. I just enjoyed drinking every day, for more reasons than to get a buzz. And there came a point where I needed to wake up and start dealing with things instead of numbing myself and blaming others for my problems etc etc.. I also met someone around that time who made me feel like I wanted to be a better person, and I didn’t want my drinking to affect our relationship potential. I suddenly saw many many many reasons to attempt to get sober.  However, I didn’t know how hard it would be, or the overwhelming amount of pain it would be to see life, love, myself completely raw and without anything there to make it sparkle. OR that you can take away the drink and still be a dry drunk. You have to do the fucking work. I’m blogging about it in a very open and honest way because this past month has been rough in terms of staying on the straight and narrow. And I feel that if I write about it and say it out loud where others can read it, maybe i’ll kick it into high gear again and see the point of remaining sober. I need to remember that feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness in order to see that I have come a long way.  

   I had my first sober holiday over Thanksgiving and it was incredibly rough for me. I flew home to Illinois to visit family and it was a mixture of beautiful highs and lows. I let my mind get the best of me one evening, and awoke at 3am contemplating going into the kitchen and opening a bottle of wine and then lying to myself about it. Yep. That’s part of the alcoholic brain…Lying. I was trying to remember in my mind what it would taste like. And I had this whole fantasy in my head about sitting in front of a fire and just enjoying every last drop of that bottle.(I’m really good at making things seem like they are going to be so AMAZING when in reality one sip of that wine would have made me cry and probably drunk text and be a total and utter emotional basket case. Not to mention I probably would have had one hell of a hangover) BUT, I didn’t. And I didn’t lie to myself about how stupid that would have been.  I called myself out on it and reached out to others and did my own praying (This new thing in my life) and all this helped keep me sober. Then on my flight home I had been down in the fucking dumps that day, and smelled a glass of wine that someone had ordered(I’m like a bloodhound now and can smell booze from miles away), and thought about ordering myself one and then just forgetting about it. I was having lots of “I am going to drink and lie about it” moments. And I had to call myself out on each and every one and realize that I need to acknowledge it and just dive deeper into my program.

  Anyways, I’m blogging about this because this shit is fucking hard. I don’t wake up every morning with birds singing, a pep in my step and have the best most spiritually blessed day ever. Some days I do, But lots of days I’m struggling and I’m digging in my new bag of tools to help get me through. I have spent 8 months picking apart my character and seeing myself without beer goggles on. That shit alone will make a person want to drink.  BUT, I’ve made it 8 months and I’m not only proud of that but humbled. I’ve learned a lot about myself and this disease. And maybe this blog is TMI, but maybe it could help someone too. I don’t know. I’m just having a rough month/day in terms of remaining sober and I have to remind myself that It’s working and I am changing. Even if it feels S L O W… …..

  1. ajablue posted this