I will preface this with this is part of my journey into sobriety and picking up the pieces that I left lying around. This is me trying to understand the feeling and the roller coaster of healing. I’ve felt better every day and can see a significant improvement in focus, cognitive sharpness, and patience. This is my thoughts, in a very raw form, and I’m not going to apologize if this is offensive.
Getting sober was one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself. It’s also some of the hardest work I’ve had to put in. It wasn’t fighting the urges that brought me to my knees, nor was it trying to rediscover what to do with all the time I was no longer spending drinking, thinking about drinking, or going to the store to get a drink. The hardest part was learning to feel again, and it fucking sucked. I had heard it in countless interviews, I’ve heard it from buddies who have gone through with it, but I had up until my point 30 days in, not fully felt what that meant.
The best way I can describe it is to take two representations of your self. One who never drinks and the other who goes down the road of alcohol. In the beginning you really can’t tell the two apart aside from one having a Saturday hangover and maybe smelling of stale booze on some nights. But something more subtle is happening underneath the skin.
Alcohol provides one hell of a dopamine hit. It’s fast, it’s hard, and it’s guaranteed. Success and sex have the nearest comparable level of dopamine, but neither are guaranteed, nor are they going to happen quickly. The brain isn’t stupid, and it takes notes rather quickly. Man, those stress hormones are building up; you need some dopamine to feel better. Shit, a six-pack can cut those hormones down really quickly. And so the habit started for me.
Getting back to the two versions, we see them put through a stressful situation. One tries his best to navigate, probably messes up, but eventually works his way through it. A page in his book of wisdom is written. That page will probably get edited, revised, and then considered solid advice one day. As the sober version goes through life, this book has more pages added. “Telling your wife that she’s wrong and she should open her eyes” file that under don’t do it again….like ever ever.
Now lets take the other version, the drinker. To be transparent, he isn’t a made-up character; he is me. Through and through, no identity changed to protect me, no story changed to make me look better. It’s me in my ass-hole form. My brain said “hey, I know how to make you feel better” and then I’d drink myself into stupid. I’d forget what was bothering me and then proclaim myself “cured”. Problem was, the issue was still festering in the background, and the next day I was only half cognitively capable, and fully exposed to what I was running away from. So I’d either ignore it, or maybe just get a little afternoon drink to take the edge off.
So while sober me learned to not go in head strong proclaiming my righteousness, the other version would have a few drinks and make the same damn mistake again. His book of wisdom was also building but it was just a list of drinks to have when experiencing certain emotions. I want to relax and melt away a bit on the couch, subsection wine. I want to just hang with the guys and bullshit, subsection beer. Today was fucked up and I’d rather forget it ever happened, subsection whiskey. I wasn’t learning how to deal with life, I was learning how to run away from it. My book of wisdom stopped at one page.
One version is slowly building their book and the other has stopped after a few pages. For a guy like me who drank for 23 years, this produced a significant shortfall. The funny thing about life is even though you drink yourself out of reality, life keeps going. While I can’t say I stopped gaining wisdom, I can say that I severely retarded my growth. I was entering my 40s, with life experiences that come with being 40, with the emotional maturity of a 20-year-old at best. I hadn’t felt in years. Worse case scenario, I just dealt with a pesky feeling until I could get to the liquor store. Essentially, I just held my breath until I could numb myself again.
As any alcoholic can tell you, enough one day is barely enough to feel it the next day. You need more and more to get the same effect. And you’ll chase that feeling when it first hits you. Better get that second or third beer before the first wears off. You want to know what’s fucked up; it is physiologically impossible to feel that first unwind once it happens. After that, your body just fills up with more and more poison as you induce more and more of the drug. You get drunker and drunker, just chasing something now out of your reach. The brain doesn’t take note, because that part of the brain is now shut down and won’t kick in until it all wears off.
Meanwhile, family members die, friends go through crises, your kiddos grow up, and life just passes you buy. It doesn’t stop just because you decided to check out of reality.
Now, back to the version that has been building the book. They’ve been actually dealing with some pretty stiff emotions. It hasn’t been easy, and they’ve messed up more than a few times. But they’ve learned from these mistakes, they’ve learned about keeping calm, and most importantly, they’ve learned how to deal with life and what to do if they feel like they can’t.
When I sobered up, and after the rush of the first 30 days was over, I was sitting there now fully aware of life. This wasn’t a pretty picture. I was an absent father and husband. I’d ditch both to find a drink. My youngest daughter was now in her 20’s going through her own mental health issues. My son, who was born after I joined was not 16 and exhibiting signs of mental distress. COVID had claimed 2 family members, I had removed myself from my extended family, and much more. I had regret; I had shame, sadness, hopelessness, self-hate, and anger. I had all 23 years of these feelings in front of me now. And I had no clue how to deal with them because I’ve never really dealt with them. I had no idea how to feel.
I’ve been sober for over 500 days now, and in that span I’ve had to try to make up for 23 years of not learning. It’s been rough, and I’ve spent more than a few times crying in whatever quiet corner I could find. It’s since turned for the better. I find myself smiling, laughing, and having gratitude way more than the opposite. I’m actually feeling content and happiness. Was it hard, damn straight. The feelings never waited for a convent time to appear. At the post office, watching a father have loving patience with his mentally handicapped child. Boom, man I fucked up with my son. I was such an ass to him at that age. How the fuck could I do that, I swore I’d never do it. The list could go on.
But because of my work in reflecting with my journal writing, because of the time I sit in meditation, because of the time I spent talking with those whom I wronged, my mindfulness builds more every day. I’m still human, I don’t get it right every time, I’m just not getting it wrong as much. With that comes glimpses of internal stillness. Rays of hopes. I’m more in touch with my spiritual side, and starting to understand what higher power means to me. I’ve discovered buddhism and it’s brought me even closer to feeling peace.
The irony is that when I was in my twenties when I felt my first real pull towards Buddhism, the one thing that turned me off was not drinking. I found it restricting. Man, I just laugh at that today.
