Quitting Alcohol Required Changing My Whole Life (for the better)
Jun 09, 2021
I’m in my 4th year of sobriety.
It was painful to get out from under the grip of alcohol dependence.
Time and space from alcohol has changed me, my values, and my priorities.
I am a different person today, than I was on my last Day 1.
I continue to choose to live alcohol free every day.
I have no desire to drink alcohol anymore.
I thought being sober was going to be sad and boring.
I thought I would always feel like I was missing out.
I expected to be jealous of friends that were still drinking.
I am happy to report, that is not at all how I feel.
I do not feel like I am missing out on anything.
Sobriety does not feel like deprivation to me, it feels like a gift.
Not only am I not drinking, I also do not want to drink.
Sobriety feels like the world’s best kept secret.
It feels like the ultimate super power.
I no longer seek outside myself for comfort.
I have everything I need within.
There is so much freedom that comes from no longer being consumed by alcohol.
Like many people, I went to alcohol as a solution to my pain.
I was grieving, lonely, bored, and anxious.
Alcohol took the edge off.
It didn’t always make me feel good, but sometimes it stopped me from feeling so bad.
Looking back, I never allowed myself to be me.
I was always trying to change the way I felt, the way I thought, and the way I behaved.
I thought I was supposed to be someone different, than who I actually am.
I no longer do that.
I now accept myself as I am.
I am able to be honest with myself, even when it’s not easy.
I no longer abandon myself, even when it’s hard.
I still get sad, bored, lonely, and anxious.
I have learned to take care of myself without alcohol.
This transition happened over time, and not all at once.
At first, I was really sad to give up alcohol.
The first few weeks were incredibly uncomfortable.
Without alcohol there was less noise in my head.
I could start to hear the whispers of my soul.
I was able to remove alcohol.
This stopped the constant and overwhelming shame from over drinking.
It was then that I had the confidence to create a life that I love.
I am not sad about ditching the drink anymore.
It has been the best gift in my life.
Not everyone is happy in their sober life.
Some people feel deprived, bored, and experience a fear of missing out.
I have successfully transitioned to a happy new identity as a sober person.
It isn’t without challenges but I have no regrets and I don’t look back.
I am thrilled that this is who I am now and this is how I get to live out the rest of my life.
What’s my secret?
I set up a life that I love.
I stopped hating myself and started loving myself.
I stopped resenting the whole world for not doing it for me.
I started doing it for myself.
I learned to listen to myself, and recognize my wants and needs.
I now take care of myself in every moment, as best I can.
I learned grit and I learned grace.
I learned how to stand up for myself.
I learned how to soothe myself.
I learned to stop putting other people’s opinions ahead of my own.
You can too.
I recognize that I have had opportunities, resources and privileges that not everyone has.
I have also had hardship, trauma, and struggle, like all of us have.
It took effort to create a life that I love.
I continue to nourish it everyday.
This sometimes means hard choices, tough decisions, and often disappointing others.
It is not something I apologize for anymore.
Setting up a life that you love means getting in tune with what lights you up, knowing what drags you down, and having the courage to fill your life with the things you love.
If you are drinking too much, you might be looking to escape feelings of boredom, loneliness, and unworthiness.
I was.
I didn’t know that I could actually set up a life that I love.
I thought envy, complaining, and stress were mandatory in adulting.
They are not.
These are choices and I choose a life of less stress now.
I thought it was spoiled to give myself everything I wanted.
I didn't realize it was best to put my physical and mental health first.
I didn’t want to face uncomfortable emotions.
I wanted to ignore them in hopes that they would go away.
Turns out this stuffing created the suffering.
The only way to deal with an emotion is to feel it.
If you want to feel differently, it's up to you to do the things that will bring you to the way you want to feel.
This amount of ownership, accountability, and responsibility isn’t always a breeze.
When I am stressed, I take a break.
When I am anxious, I listen to my body’s signals and remove myself from the situation.
I have a tool kit of options for self soothing.
I meditate, make a plan of action, or take a bath.
When I am sad, I find space, alone time and I cry.
When I am frustrated, I tell someone about it or I journal my feelings.
It sounds so simple, but tuning into my own needs wasn’t something I was an expert at before ditching the drink. It became a necessary tool in my recovery.
What if you could stop hating yourself and your life and start loving it?
What if you could give yourself everything you wanted?
What if you really could have the job, that vacation, that relationship, that you’ve been dreaming of?
What if you filled your time doing things you love?
What would that look like for you?
You can have it all.
I know you can because I do.
I don’t have anything special about me that you don’t have in you too.
Contact me for your complimentary call and stop going to alcohol for the escape hatch from a life you're avoiding and start creating one that requires no exit sign.
You can read about my full history with alcohol here: 30 Year Relationship with Alcohol - Slowly Drifting
