At 3 years sober here's what I know for sure
I literally never imagined that I’d be writing a blog post about being sober for three years.
Three years is 156 weeks or 1095 days without a drop of alcohol, bar that one time I accidentally had a swig of shandy thinking it was alcohol-free beer, but I’ve let that one go.
It was December 7th 2019 that I decided to go on a detox, thinking that giving up alcohol for a few weeks wasn’t a bad idea.
It wasn’t the first time I’d given up alcohol. The year before I’d attempted to give up for 100 days straight which felt so extreme to me that I didn’t even make it to the end (and definitely cheated in the middle) before caving in.
The fact that I’ve made it to three years this time round is so surprising to me that I thought I’d celebrate the milestone by sharing a few things I’ve learnt along the way.
Having written about what I know at 250 days sober and 1 year sober, I wondered if I have anything else to add. What I realised is that time always adds perspective, and this is no exception.
Was I an alcoholic?
Let’s get one thing clear. I’m not an alcoholic. At least, not in the traditional sense of the term.
I didn’t have alcohol dependency. I didn’t need alcohol to function and I certainly didn’t need to drink alcohol every day, or even every week. By no definition did I have a problem with alcohol.
And yet.
In the years leading up to my final decision to cut alcohol out of my life for good, like a bad ex-boyfriend, I started to have a funny feeling around alcohol. Drinking was becoming slightly tainted. Like when you open some food and it’s gone off and curdled at the sides.
That’s what alcohol felt like. Something that was fast reaching its sell-by date.
However, I was still oblivious so I kept drinking, ignoring the funny feelings and slightly nauseous side-effects of which there were plenty.
What I will admit to was that I was a thirsty drinker.
I could, and still can, drink extremely fast. If I had a drink in my hand, it would be slurped down before the sides had been touched in the glasses around me. I wasn’t thirsty per se, it was like a thirst for what something in that glass could offer me that a non-alcoholic drink couldn’t.
My love affair with alcohol
Before the sell-by date with alcohol reached its expiry, I used to love that warm fuzzy feeling alcohol gave me that flushed down my body, soothing and softening as it went. I’m sure you know the one.
That was the feeling, that first buzz and zing, that signified the start of something new. Whether it was a night out, a night in, a date or a party, that feeling held the promise and allure of something for me that I couldn’t get enough of.
In part, this was due to the fact that alcohol was such a core part of my past; I had so many good memories.
Drinking with my friends at university was one of these joyous memories. We used to party in our corridors with giant bins filled with a concoction of alcohol and mixers. It was revolting and wonderfully potent.
Lacrosse socials with 2 for 1 long island iced teas are another fond memory. Beer pong at house parties. Swigging vodka as we walked to the club.
The bond between alcohol and me
These all created deeply-ingrained attachments for me between alcohol and joy. This is what I was chasing in my twenties. It wasn’t the alcohol; it was the joy.
Moving on to ski seasons and travelling. Ice-cold beer in Thailand in a backpacking hostel with new friends from foreign lands. Toffee vodka in shot glasses up a mountain in ski boots, dancing on the tables. Sharing a bottle of red wine with someone I fancied. Gin and tonics with friends before hitting the bars.
More memories and more attachments were made with alcohol that cemented our relationship even more deeply.
And then of course we have the casual and comforting drinking. The type of drinking that is respected, and even expected.
Cocktails sipped at waterfront bars in the Mediterranean on holiday. Cold, crisp glasses of champagne, one after the other, during wedding receptions and happy gatherings. Sherry and ginger wine drunk over Christmas with my family at home. Cider on a hot summer's day with the man I loved.
As you can see, alcohol and I made quite the bond. So, where did it all go wrong?
Starting to see the signs
Even in those early days I had some worrying experiences with alcohol.
We all take it too far sometimes, get over excited and have to leave the party early, but I took it too far lots of times. I know that if I’d carried on drinking those times would have become more and more frequent.
Giving up was the slightly belated thirtieth birthday gift I gave myself, and it’s one that keeps on giving.
Luckily, I realised, perhaps subconsciously, that my relationship with alcohol was turning sour in the middle of my twenties, meaning that I inadvertently began to slow my drinking down.
I was never a party girl but when the opportunity did arise to drink, I drank. Weddings were my kryptonite; all those endless glasses of bubbly champagne, love in the air and a dancefloor ripe with possibilities, was a heady mix that my sensitive soul just couldn’t handle.
The draw of drinking
Celebrations in general were always around the corner, whether it was a birthday, leaving drinks or weddings, so the opportunity to drink was never far from reach.
Though, like I mentioned before, I didn’t always want a drink, it was more of a compulsion, something that might lead me to a little more joy, a little excitement and a little more buzz.
As the events and parties slightly tapered out as I got older, I realised that drinking was also extremely easy and pleasant when it was done in the comfort of my own home.
Having a bottle of wine in the fridge made me feel like a grown-up and fixing a drink after work reminded me fondly of the traditions we have in my family of gin and tonics at the end of the day.
Again, I didn’t drink every day but I always had a choice to, and I loved having that choice.
I even used to anticipate a drink before drinking, imagining what I would have, hurrying to wherever it was I had to get to for the draw of that drink. Like the other signs, this was a bold one that helped me understand that there might be a little issue with alcohol that I had previously been ignoring.
The promises that alcohol couldn’t deliver
What I now realise is that alcohol promised me a good time and always failed to deliver.
It tempted and teased me with its vast array of choices and potential delights, yet always disappointed me. It was like a rainbow, leading me towards a fat pot of gold that vanished the closer I got.
I know now that my expectations of what alcohol could deliver, the fun and joy of my younger years, were set far too high.
The close bond alcohol and I had over those younger years of my life, once formed from the excitement and anticipation of a night out together, began to stale.
There’s no main reason why I decided to break up with alcohol for good. Rather, it was a combination of factors that all culminated at the same point on my timeline, crescendoing into that final, fateful day on December 7th 2019 when I packed my suitcase and said goodbye.
My career was moving into one where my wellbeing became my number one priority and drinking made me feel dirty. I wanted to scrub myself clean of all the bad memories and shame that I had accumulated over the past 15 years. It was time for it to go.
At the time, I was also tuning into a higher frequency, a result of all the new information I was learning and the huge changes that were about to happen in my life, that alcohol no longer resonated on.
I know now that alcohol operates on a different frequency to me and it’s just no longer a fit. I’m not better than alcohol, I just don’t match it any more.
Waking up to the side effects of drinking
More than anything, it just didn’t sit well in my body. And I don’t just mean this in a physical sense. Alcohol also deeply affected me emotionally and spiritually, which is not something that is often talked about.
Aside from the obvious fallouts that most people experience after drinking; feeling low, shameful, paranoid and anxious, I also began to sense, deep within my centre, that I was doing something a little dirty and wrong.
What I didn’t realise at the time, was that my soul was the one pushing these feelings up and into my centre, urging me to realise the harm alcohol was having on my psyche, both spiritually and emotionally.
Physically, my body also absolutely hated alcohol.
So much so that I was sick as often as possible just to get the damn stuff out of me. This was part of being a thirsty drinker. When you’re thirsty, you don’t know your limits. This meant that I often drank too much too quickly with all sorts of unforetold consequences.
I also looked physically terrible if I drank alcohol. My eyes would droop, I would become so bloated, my skin would look dry and don’t get me started on what I looked like on a hangover. Some people look cute, a little ruched up, maybe messy hair and a few little laughter lines.
Not me. I looked terrible on a hangover. In fact, the day after my last affair with alcohol, I took a picture to put on my sober app to remind me of who I no longer wanted to be.
I’ll tell you, that photo worked a treat and I still enjoy looking at it now and feeling how different I am to that girl 3 years ago.
Using alcohol to fill the hole in my self-esteem
If you’re a regular reader you’ll know by now that self-esteem is a core theme that threads through all of my posts.
I write from experience, which is all that I can write from, about recovering my sense of self from comparison, lack of confidence and fear, and saying goodbye to alcohol was probably the most pivotal and powerful decision I could have made at the time that I did.
I said adieu to alcohol right before 2020, that car crash of a year, and I’m so glad it happened that way. In my state of anger and fear over the madness in the world, alcohol and I could have easily fallen back into bed together.
Many of us use alcohol as a numbing agent to block uncomfortable feelings. Yet, unbeknown to us, alcohol merely delays the inevitable, and when those feelings are admitted entry, they’re much more feral.
If we drink to ease stress, we become more anxious as a result. If we drink to erase anger, we often turn violent. If we drink to lose grief, sadness follows us around for days.
And for me? I drank to fill a large hole in my self-esteem.
Drinking gave me confidence and courage at a time when I was a little more introverted than I realised. The more I drank to ease my insecurities about who I was and what I looked like, the more I realised that it only worked for a while and came with a nasty list of side-effects.
Yet, the more I drank to feel better about myself, the worse I would feel. I didn’t feel like the best version of myself drinking, I just think I did. I wasn’t a better dancer when I was drunk, I just thought I was. I wasn’t better company with a glass in my hand, I just presumed I was.
I didn’t even give myself a chance to shine without the fog of alcohol, I just assumed that it made me a more confident and courageous version of myself. What I now realise is nothing could be further from the truth.
Here’s what I know after 3 years sober
So, after 3 years sober, here’s what I know for sure.
I positively sparkle without a drink in my hand. I dance better than I’ve ever danced before, stone-cold sober. And, I now know that I am better company now than I ever was before. Now I listen, I can focus, I can remember, I can use all of my senses, both physical and intuitive, to bond with someone organically and naturally.
Yes, I’m still tempted by alcohol, especially the social element of it. It’s so easy to get along with someone in our culture over a shared love of wine. Drinking is everywhere you look and I sometimes feel I miss out on the fun with my glass of ginger beer.
I also miss the taste but luckily there’s so many great alternatives, I just need to get a little creative in my experiments and explore what else is out there. I hate the word ‘mocktail’ but they’re not half bad.
Something people ask me a lot is whether I feel any different from not drinking.
It’s not an easy question to answer but I’d say this: I feel good, not all of the time, but most of the time. I don’t miss hangovers, at all, and the idea of never losing a memory again, feeling shameful or anxious, or having to waste a day rotting in bed, is the joy alcohol once promised me that I’m now making for myself.
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