i gave up drinking and saved my life

here is what I know to be true

My first drop of alcohol was as a teenager and my last was as a 40-something adult.

In between that is a lot of grey area, a bit of nuance, memories that are truly lost forever.

I've written previously about my relationship with alcohol which I will be resharing below. The short version is that unresolved trauma from my childhood/teenage years decided to make an appearance very late into my adulthood and I tried to numb those feelings. I didn't numb all the time, but enough that it became a problem for me, and I knew that I needed to completely stop drinking and deal with my unresolved feelings.

Which is what I did.

I've been sober for 4 years. 48 months without alcohol. God got me through.

I quit drinking during the pandemic. I know there are many people who did the same, and it is a testament to us that during a particularly difficult time in our lives, we made this type of strong decision.

The post that I am sharing below is from two years ago when I first started The Lovely Road here on Substack and I know that many readers joined here well after that post was first published. It felt fitting to reshare here in this space and to reiterate my thankfulness for all of you readers here today, and also my thankfulness in getting to be here another day.

There is indeed beauty from ashes...

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when does change occur

when the status quo becomes unbearable.

I have mentioned previously that I love a good quote. I keep them in a notebook and refer to them often when I am in need of strong words, of guidance for my soul, tangible yet slight on my fingertips.

I also enjoy podcasts that make me think and speak to the parts of my mind that need a gear moved here and there. When something profound is said, I pause the speaker's voice and write down those words that moved me. One such podcast was that of The Minimalists and they said the following:

'Change occurs when the status quo becomes unbearable'.

While they were talking about something pertaining to decluttering and simplifying one's life, I saw the deeper meaning beneath the words. Well, specifically one word: unbearable.

How many times in my life have I felt that something was literally unbearable? That the situation was so painful that I could bear no more? When have I felt the metaphorical situation of feeling like my nerve endings were on fire and that I could no longer spend one more second feeling this way? Haven't there been instances in my life when the despair and the sadness felt so oppressive, that I felt the bearing of it could be sustained no more?

The answer sadly, is yes.

Many times in my life, I have been forced to make a change simply because the way I was doing things or handling situations was not working. Specifically, I think about the moment when I decided to stop drinking.

You see, I had started to use alcohol as a way to not deal with my feelings, to numb them and make them go away. A lifetime of putting your feelings into a Pandora's box, means that at some point, the box is going to burst forth and all the damnable hellfire that you put in there is coming for you. I continued to use alcohol to keep the lid on the box, hoping this will be the time that the box stayed shut. But that lid was malleable and kept loosening, so the cycle continued, and I fell down the rabbit hole.

"Your bottom is when you stop digging".

And then I hit my rock bottom, and it was awful, as awful as I can imagine feeling, and this cycle that I was caught up in, in that moment, it became unbearable. My status quo and how I was handling things had become unbearable and I needed to change.

And so I did, and it was easy, and it was hard. The easier part was actually giving up drinking. I thought that part would be difficult, but it wasn't. The hardest part my friends, the absolute worst, was actually feeling my feelings. Dear God, when the sadness came in waves and I couldn't numb it and couldn't run from it and I had to just sit there and let it wash over me and sob uncontrollably, I felt like I was dying. The pain from all this bottled-up emotion felt physical in its nature and I thought I would suffocate under its very duress. Those first few months of sitting in the pain, I thought that it was going to break me. I really did.

That part was hard, but I made it through, and I realized something that maybe other people knew, but I was never taught: secrets make you sick. You have to let it out. Bottling up everything inside you, although stoic, will not serve you in the end. I come from a long familial line of denial and avoidance. No talking about anything, no talking through anything. Just pretend it didn't happen and move on.

I tried to move on, tried to stuff everything in that box, but my body betrayed me and wouldn't let me: hence the drinking.

Change. Occurred. The status quo became unbearable and now I am sitting here in front of you proudly saying that I am two years sober. Two years! I am in such a better place than I was that last day I drank. I am a different person than that woman 24 months ago. I don't think about whether or not I will have a drink again at some point in my life. It doesn't even cross my mind truthfully. What I do think about, what I am proud of myself for even more, is leaning into the bad days. I don't run from them anymore. I welcome them like an old friend, who is stopping in for a chat and a cup of tea. They stay for a bit, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes the whole day into the night, but at some point, they leave, and I am left standing. I am okay.

I have learned to ride the wave, but I don't let the wave ride me.

And that, is the fundamental shift that has changed my life.