One Year Today!
One Year Today!
Today , I am one year sober.
I can’t believe I am writing that. It still seems a bit like a dream. 18 months ago , when I began my journey to try to quit drinking, I thought I was just trying to “stop” something that was pretty obviously now killing me. but it really has been so much more than that.
My many decades of drinking were rapidly catching up. Alcohol had once been my best friend , but now it was so clearly freight-training my life into chaos , despair and a looming brick wall and it was destroying all those unfortunate enough to be around me. I drank everyday for the last 12 or so years of my drinking. By the final few years I was barely leaving the house, and then barely getting out of bed - having alcohol constantly delivered to my house by almost 24 hour delivery services. I didn’t really eat , just drank. Every time I did get up , I noticed the heart palpitations, the swollen tingling feet, the constant pain in my kidneys and liver , the endless diahorrea, the blood-tinged vomit or urine.
When I started trying to quit, I didn’t even “do it for me”. I did it because in a rare surfacing moment of clarity , waking up amongst my own vast collection of empties that I had stopped even bothering to clean up, I thought that while I was dead inside already - and hence felt nothing about dying by alcohol, it was probably not really okay for my kids to have to watch me do that.
But I soon learned this was not enough, that I did have to matter, too. I learned how to reparent myself, to care for and nurture the broken parts, to reconnect with long lost feelings and that tiny weeny pilot light of hope. And now, today I can actually say that I do respect myself , I do love myself a little, probably for the first time in my nearly 50 years on this earth.
Was it all pink clouds and upward trajectories? Hell no! It was a year of almost imperceptible progress from my perspective, much of the time. It sometimes felt hopeless. It took me a long time to appreciate “progress not perfection”. Things actually got far worse a few months after I stopped putting alcohol in my body in many ways, my mental health plummeted, I nearly lost my job, I lost my driver’s license for four months , my financial situation was dire.
But there was extraordinary inner transformation going on quietly. And the journey also held mind blowing moments of joy and freedom. I have a life , now, that is soooo much more precious than the one I had previously been leading. I have reconnected with my kids and they are so happy and proud to be with me, I have stopped needing any mental health medication for the first time in 15+ years, my head is quiet, peaceful and the noise that I thought was “just me” has vanished. My obsession with alcohol was lifted . I sometimes realise I haven’t even thought about it - even fleetingly - for weeks .
So if you have just begun to walk this way, please know it will get better. It will get easier. Not always in the time you want it to, and need it to - but it will. Just so long as you do that one thing - and that one thing is not to take that first drink. Commit to your recovery program, get as much help as you can. Talk to other alcoholics . Go all in. You truly have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It is worth every moment of the struggle.
I can’t believe I am writing that. It still seems a bit like a dream. 18 months ago , when I began my journey to try to quit drinking, I thought I was just trying to “stop” something that was pretty obviously now killing me. but it really has been so much more than that.
My many decades of drinking were rapidly catching up. Alcohol had once been my best friend , but now it was so clearly freight-training my life into chaos , despair and a looming brick wall and it was destroying all those unfortunate enough to be around me. I drank everyday for the last 12 or so years of my drinking. By the final few years I was barely leaving the house, and then barely getting out of bed - having alcohol constantly delivered to my house by almost 24 hour delivery services. I didn’t really eat , just drank. Every time I did get up , I noticed the heart palpitations, the swollen tingling feet, the constant pain in my kidneys and liver , the endless diahorrea, the blood-tinged vomit or urine.
When I started trying to quit, I didn’t even “do it for me”. I did it because in a rare surfacing moment of clarity , waking up amongst my own vast collection of empties that I had stopped even bothering to clean up, I thought that while I was dead inside already - and hence felt nothing about dying by alcohol, it was probably not really okay for my kids to have to watch me do that.
But I soon learned this was not enough, that I did have to matter, too. I learned how to reparent myself, to care for and nurture the broken parts, to reconnect with long lost feelings and that tiny weeny pilot light of hope. And now, today I can actually say that I do respect myself , I do love myself a little, probably for the first time in my nearly 50 years on this earth.
Was it all pink clouds and upward trajectories? Hell no! It was a year of almost imperceptible progress from my perspective, much of the time. It sometimes felt hopeless. It took me a long time to appreciate “progress not perfection”. Things actually got far worse a few months after I stopped putting alcohol in my body in many ways, my mental health plummeted, I nearly lost my job, I lost my driver’s license for four months , my financial situation was dire.
But there was extraordinary inner transformation going on quietly. And the journey also held mind blowing moments of joy and freedom. I have a life , now, that is soooo much more precious than the one I had previously been leading. I have reconnected with my kids and they are so happy and proud to be with me, I have stopped needing any mental health medication for the first time in 15+ years, my head is quiet, peaceful and the noise that I thought was “just me” has vanished. My obsession with alcohol was lifted . I sometimes realise I haven’t even thought about it - even fleetingly - for weeks .
So if you have just begun to walk this way, please know it will get better. It will get easier. Not always in the time you want it to, and need it to - but it will. Just so long as you do that one thing - and that one thing is not to take that first drink. Commit to your recovery program, get as much help as you can. Talk to other alcoholics . Go all in. You truly have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It is worth every moment of the struggle.
Member
Join Date: May 2019
Location: UK
Posts: 3,920
I was smiling away reading that, tanky, and can imagine the huge efforts and willpower on your part to go from what you now see was a grim existence to the precious gift you have now. We’re similar ages. It’ll get even better. Good times ahead!
Congratulations my darling. I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so happy for you. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
....Seriously wonderful post. Thank you. ❤️
....Seriously wonderful post. Thank you. ❤️
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