Stop Giving Yourself A Hard Time In Sobriety – My Story

August 4, 2009

I realized today that instead of celebrating my successful one year of sobriety I have been giving myself a really hard time.

Instead of thinking about the enormous positive changes I have created in my life, I have spent most of my time lately feeling like I am somewhat lacking.

My negative thoughts have peaked.

Here are some of the negative thoughts that have been occupying my mind frequently:

I am boring
I don’t enjoy other peoples company
I don’t have much to say
I am not funny
I miss the side of me that came out when I drank alcohol
I don’t enjoy social situations very much
I don’t have many friends

Now I am not writing these to depress you, I just have to write them because actually in the grand scheme of things, these thoughts are really not quite as bad as I have been thinking they are. Just writing them out helps me to realize that I have been forgetting a few things.

I have just come through my first year of absolute abstinence from alcohol in 17 years of course I am going to have some self esteem issues and lack of confidence in certain areas.

I have lived the past 17 years living a life fuelled by alcohol, everything I did and everywhere I went involved using alcohol.

All of my friends were a part of the lifestyle I used to live, many of whom are drinkers. That is what we did together..drink.

I have had to learn how to do absolutely everything again sober. Not an easy task by far.

It has been so easy to forget where I have come from and how far I have travelled in this first year of sobriety. Every experience I have had has been a first sober experience. I have had to learn how to live again. It has quite literally been like learning to walk all over again. Putting one foot in front of the other again and again without falling, and I have not fallen. To fall would have been to have had a drink when the going got tough, which it has, many many times. I have not ran away or tried to numb everything that I have felt over the past year, there have been plenty of times that I did feel like it but I never did.

Really and truly, it has been an amazing year and I see all kinds of possibilities in the future. I like who I am and who I am becoming. The problem is that it is easy to get frustrated with your progress in sobriety, I always feel like I am never quite enough, or I should be this or I should feel like that. When I stop and take a breather like I did today and I think about what has really taken place, I realize that in terms of my life, this first year is just the very small beginning of the rest of my life. I can not unlearn what I have lived over the past 17 years in just one year. I can not expect to feel completely content with who I am right now because I am still finding my way.

Most people ( the lucky ones) go through adolescence and overcome most of the awkwardness, shyness and anxiety and then become their own person. I didn’t do that. I drank my way through my teens, never really overcame shyness, added hugely to my anxiety levels through use of alcohol and I never gave myself the opportunity to become my own person because alcohol masked so much of what I felt and also gave me an alter ego which differed greatly from my true self.

In the past year I have had to let go of a huge part of me, the same part of me that my friends knew and expected me to be and I have had to learn how to place all of my friends in my new life. It is natural that I would worry about how they see me now and what our relationships will be like in the future. It also makes sense that life at times seems a little boring in some ways and also that spending time with people is not as easy as it was before, drinking alcohol does cause huge problems but it does help with social situations, it is bad to say it but true, you can endure practically any kind of person if you have a large enough glass of wine, I certainly could. Also, all of the self consciousness is absent once a few alcoholic drinks have been downed. Social situations seem more fun and easy to be a part of. I have only been sober for one year so of course I am not going to feel totally at ease and flowing with natural ease in social situations, especially because by nature I am more introvert than extravert.

As I write this I can hear myself saying ” Well of course, it all makes sense now, no wonder you haven’t been feeling on top of the world” this is a huge, major life change. I think that getting sober should definitely be in the top 5 most stressful life situations, it truly is and is not for the faint hearted.

Also, I have done this sobriety thing without any group support like A.A. I haven’t been totally alone though, I have enlisted a therapist to help sort through the multitude of emotions and feelings and I do have the best husband a woman can ask for as well as an extremely supportive family.

It is definitely time to give myself a break because to expect so much of yourself in such early sobriety is just too demanding. It is scary to think that this journey is going to be a long one… the rest of my life… or at the very least the next 17 years! When I get to 17 years then I will have equal time of sobriety and alcoholism, surely then I will be able to finally say I know who I am, I am comfortable with who I am and I have become who I want to be.

What about you? Do you give yourself a hard time during sobriety? How far have you come in your sobriety journey? Isn’t it time to give yourself the credit you derserve? Go on, celebrate that you are sober!

Tags: Advantages Of Being Sober, Alcohol Abuse Recovery, Alcoholism, Being Sober, How To Quit Drinking, Quit drinking, Sobriety, Staying Sober, Stop Drinking Alcohol

One Response to Stop Giving Yourself A Hard Time In Sobriety – My Story

Brett on August 5, 2009 at 10:15 pm

Madison. How did you get those thoughts out of my head. LOL

My God. That is scary. I have had every single one of the thoughts that you have listed. Why are we so hard on ourselves? We are both good people.

You, like me sound quite impatient. We expect all the emotions that alcohol has suppressed for all those years to just disappear the moment we quit. Unfortunately it just doesn’t happen that way. We have to relearn hope to cope. How to deal with those raw real emotions.

Despite how difficult it now seems, I’m sure we will come out the other side better people.

You really are an inspiration.

Brett.

Stop Drinking Alcohol by Recovery Princess

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