Alcohol-Free Me

I never could have imagined a life, let alone MY life, without alcohol.

Now that I’m approaching a year of not consuming alcohol (holy shit!)  I figured, what better way to commemorate these past 347 days (as I write this) than to talk about the good, the bad, and all of the in between.

So, let’s start this off with why I decided to stop drinking.

Last August, I uprooted my life (for the second time) and moved to San Diego from Denver. Leading up to the move, I had some rough “life on life’s terms” shit that happened. My dog had passed away, I graduated from my master’s program, I already felt stagnant working as a therapist, and I wasn’t romantically involved with anyone, nor did I want to be. Anyway, fast forward to arriving in San Diego, and a whole new world opened. I was so excited to explore the dating scene, the night life, the new friends and community. I noticed a similar pattern start happening that happened when I first moved to Denver - I was partying a lot in a crowd of people, but feeling so alone.

I started to notice that my hangovers didn’t feel like they used to. They were no longer “get some greasy food in my stomach and go round 2.” I was feeling depressed.

Maybe it was a mixture of variables: I didn’t have a job yet, I didn’t have an established group of friends, I was casually dating, I was grieving my dog, I was grieving an old hurt from a past relationship.

I felt so empty, again.

Hangover quickly turned into Hang-xiety.

I would sit on my couch in self-loathing thoughts the day after going out drinking. I was being critical of my body, critical of how I presented myself to others the night before, critical of the decisions I was making, critical of the person I felt that I was slowly degrading back into. This felt like a part of an older version of me, a more broken one too. It was when I started having thoughts of “I just don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be here. I want this to end. I want to end.” that I finally acknowledged I need to do something different. If I was willing to drastically change my location, I needed to be willing to drastically change how I showed up for myself.

Anyway, to speed up this story – I decided to do 30 days without drinking and just see how I felt. I had done it once before, years ago, so I knew that I could do it. By the time I got to 30 days, I said, well, why not try 30 more and see if I can do it? I was thankful for the clarity in thinking and judgment as I entered a serious relationship that had a lot of mending and healing to do. That was/is probably one of my biggest continued motivators - to work on trusting myself throughout a relationship where I’m learning to heal where I used to hurt.

Another big motivator for me was that I was so excited to see how absolutely ripped I was going to get. Maybe that wasn’t the healthiest reasoning, and most likely was my old “frenemy” eating disorder thoughts, but it kept me going during the beginning stages. Even though I have worked in substance abuse for so many years, you’d think I would “know better.” Well, turns out when I don’t have alcohol as my vice, I go back to food. Fuck. And not just any food, I want SWEETS. See, I started being able to be kinder to myself, loving myself, and reminding myself that I don’t have to be so strict and structured. This is conflicting pros and cons of no longer drinking and being in recovery from an eating disorder. Craving sugar is natural, and as a woman who loved beer, it makes a lot of sense. There’s sugar in beer. So, no beer, leaves me with sugar.

With that being said, I will say that gaining some weight has probably been the hardest part for me. Mainly, because I’m also in recovery from bulimia, so I was thankful to process all of these feelings and triggers as they came up with my own therapist – this may be an entire blog entry for a later date.

To be quite honest, I do have FOMO. There are parts of me that wishes that I would go have a drink because I do feel like I’m missing out when I see others drinking. I do miss drinking a few beers at the end of the day. I do miss going out to bars on the weekends and getting rowdy like I used to. There’s an obvious fear of feeling disconnection to the people around me because they are quite literally on a different level than me, but when I do go to bars now, I see the fun part, and then I see when everyone starts getting too drunk – the sloppy, inebriated, slurring, sometimes aggressive, fear-inducing part. Quite frankly, sometimes I just want to say fuck being accountable, fuck being aware, and fuck being responsible for my own feelings. Unfortunately, I can’t undo awareness. So “being oblivious” would now be a choice. Damnit.

Okay, so what do I like about it? One of the most beautiful gains from no longer drinking is that I’m a hell of a lot nicer to myself. And when I’m not nice to myself, I’m a lot quicker at recognizing it and showing up different in my inner dialogue. I was such an asshole to myself for so long and, soberly, I could no longer ignore how abusive I spoke to myself.

I also started trusting myself again. I used to bend and break every one of my boundaries even when I knew that I was going to feel icky or ashamed later. Drunk me was not looking out for sober me. Drunk me reverted to the hurt, empty, broken younger Grace who would do anything for someone to show affection towards her, even if it was fake or a façade to get into bed. Shit, drunk Grace just didn’t want anyone else to feel uncomfortable even if that meant that she was squirming-in-her-skin uncomfortable. Sober Grace had to be honest with herself. Sober Grace had to choose to have the hard, uncomfortable conversations because she could no longer ignore how she felt. She had to honor herself – I get to honor myself.

Now, I don’t know where this road will lead. Maybe I will have a different relationship with alcohol later in life. I try to tell myself that I can choose to drink at any moment I want to. I don’t like telling myself I can’t have something anymore because the rebel in me says, “ok, bet.” Instead, I’ve made promise to myself that I can drink whenever I choose, but I have to be intentional about it. To me, this means that I must plan for it. Though, every time I try to plan, I think about my hang-xiety, the gross feelings, and suddenly I no longer want to RSVP to my own drinking date.

For me, alcohol has been something that has narrowed my vision, my thoughts, my feelings and overall restricted my life.

 Now, I feel it expanding again.

Whatever your relationship with alcohol, let it be intentional. See how your life changes when you change your relationships – even with a substance.

Until next time,

Grace