Yesterday Carrie wrote a great post about missing the chaos of drinking. When I read it I realised that this was something that’d been niggling away at me. Like Carrie, I sometimes miss the recklessness and sheer abandonment of getting totally shit faced. Plus, drinking was my hobby. It filled my time as well as conveniently helping me experience and process a range of different emotions. It was there when I wanted to celebrate and it was there when I was sad, or stressed, or bored. Without alcohol life sometimes feels a bit empty. Even though all these great things have happened since I stopped, and I don’t have any real urge to drink, life feels a bit boring at times.
I’m sure I read somewhere that when you quit drinking the lows stop being so low and the highs are even higher. Well so far I haven’t really found that. I’m just going steady, somewhere in the middle. So yeah, the lows aren’t as low but where are the highs?
The other thing is that since I’ve stopped drinking I can’t really let myself just ‘be’. I’d quite like to spend a whole day in my pyjamas watching crap TV but because I used to do that whilst knocking back wine, I don’t want to tempt fate by doing it sober. I don’t want to risk getting bored because that seems a bit dangerous. So like some weirdo control freak I plan what I’m going to do on my days off. Even when I haven’t got much on I’ll work out exactly when I’m going to do things like go the gym and will mentally create a little schedule for the day.
I guess drinking just disguised a lot of the little holes in my life but now I can’t hide from anything. I have to actually experience every single emotion. And all this endless self-analysis is a bit of a bummer sometimes. Sometimes I’d just like to not think.
Tagged: 100 day challenge, Alcoholism, boredom, early sobriety, escapism, highs and lows
The Sober Journalist 
I don’t know if they are really holes or we are just not comfortable with just being us. We have been running away from ourselves for so long we don’t know a good thing when we see it! I know that I need to learn to just be. I too am afraid that if I stand still I will relapse. It’s a nightmare, can’t go out…might relapse, can’t stay in doing nothing…might relapse.
I agree we deserve a day off the self analysis already!!
Keep going xx
I totally agree with so much of this! “Sometimes I’d like to just stop thinking.” was the line I really relate to – when I was drinking, I’d say that 75 percent was to just ‘flip the switch off in my brain’ or a ‘forced shut down’ on the computer at night so I just couldn’t think! The other 25% was to feel heightened emotions, for sure…crying, laughing, missing someone, just feeling things MORE. But toward the end, the evening slowly getting stoned was my way to force my hectic brain to shut down. I remember, when I was young, my mother would describe the way my dad drank (he quit drinking when I was in 6th grade, which, ironically, so is my daughter…and now I’ve quit) she would describe him as ‘slowly getting stoned at night.’ (a total 50s way to say drunk) I never remember him getting drunk – in fact my image of getting drunk when I was younger was the partier; loud, obnoxious, wild, fun. Those four words NEVER described my dad. In fact, that description once came flashingin my brain when I was sitting on a couch, watching dumb tv, probably 50% paying attention to it, after three or four glasses of wine. I was slowly stoned. Stoned. What a horrible way to exist!! So yes…life now is more even. No highs, no lows, really…but a whole lot of regular clarity.
I was drinking to get stoned too. Booze didn’t exactly make me a party girl. I know I was moaning in my post about not having the highs, but since then I’ve been wondering whether just not having the lows is good enough? After all, booze made me very depressed the next day and the lows were very low. Not having to deal with all that is amazing. I agree with the ‘regular clarity’ you describe, that is also great!
SO true. The low lows were horrible. Especially when a headache or stomache ache were involved. Now the ‘lows’ seem softer – and just part of life, usually being tired, etc. Good sleep, good food, exercise and pride in work has been much more fun, for sure. Stoned zombie tv woman; notsomuch!