14: My Sober Journey: Why I Decided to Do 12 Months of Sobriety

Travel

Aug 9

Written By Amanda Durocher

This episode is in response to a TikTok Amanda created that went viral about what she’s learned during her first 6 months of being sober.

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE

LISTEN ON OTHER CHANNEL

In this episode, you will learn about:

Why I decided to go sober for 12 months
How often I was drinking before this decision
How to handle boredom from sobriety
The upsides and the downsides of sobriety
Advice for feeling your feelings

Episode References:

TikTok Referenced in this Episode

Free Resource Corner

Mocktail Recipes

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
3:10 Question 1
10:29 Question 2
17:47 Question 3
25:22 Question 4
30:22 Question 5

Have you followed and left a review for New View Advice?

Let me know what you think of the podcast! Podcast followers and ratings help bring new listeners to the show, as well as help me to continue creating content. So if you enjoyed the show, I’d love to ask you to follow and leave a rating on your podcasting platform by:

Head to New View Advice on Apple or Spotify
Click Follow on your podcasting platform
Scroll down (or when promoted) click the 5 star rating!

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher (Intro) 0:00
Welcome to new view advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Rocher. And I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started. Hi, beautiful. My name is Amanda and this is newbie advice. If you're new here, this is a podcast where I answer listener questions about life, relationship, healing, and so much more. Today, we are going to be talking about sobriety and what it means to go sober and a lot about my sober journey. So for those who don't know, I have chosen to go sober for 12 months, and see how my life was different from month one to month 12. I decided to do a 12 month period, because if I'm honest, it was too hard for me to think about giving up alcohol forever. I have used alcohol I've coped with alcohol, I have relied on alcohol, I have had a relationship with alcohol for over 15 years. So the idea of giving it up forever seemed impossible for me. But the idea of getting off for 12 months seemed doable. So this episode is inspired by a tick tock I uploaded this week, on August 1, it was my six month mark. So halfway through my 12 months, and I uploaded Tick Tock to honor that and to talk about three things I have learned. And this Tick Tock went viral, and it's received over 250,000 views and has 1000s of likes and over 800 comments. And I did not expect this because most of my tiktoks have 250 views. So 250,000 was a big surprise for me. And what I learned with this is that a lot of people have questions about sobriety, a lot of people are sober. A lot of people love sobriety, a lot of people also very much judge my sober journey. And I definitely had my first experience with the internet bullies. And that was a surprise for me. And honestly, I thought that I would enjoy this a bit more than I did. But I actually found this to be a really difficult experience because my relationship with alcohol is complicated. And I went from having a very private relationship with alcohol. And my sober journey has been pretty private. I don't talk about it with a lot of people to all of a sudden, feeling pretty judged by the internet and feeling like people were projecting their relationship with alcohol onto me and also asking me for guidance. And I had to just take a step back, I really had to think about my relationship with alcohol a bit more this week and to realize where I've come and how I feel about alcohol now compared to six months ago. So today's episode is going to be a little different than previous episodes. And we're going to be focusing on questions I received in the comment section of my tik tok. And a lot of them are about my own server journey. But I think there's questions behind the questions that we'll talk about as well. So that's just a quick intro, let's just jump on into some questions I received and talk about sobriety and what it's like for me to be sober for six months.
Amanda Durocher (Question 1) 3:10
So a question I received a lot was, Why did I choose to do this? Why did I choose to go sober for 12 months. So for me, I chose to do this because in January of 2021, my life was not where I wanted it to be. I remember on January 1, I had a bit of a mental breakdown. And I realized that just because 2020 was over didn't mean my life was any different. And this might sound obvious to most of you. But it was just one of those internal moments where I had put so much pressure on, it was okay to be where I was at in 2020. But 2021 had to be different. And so in January of 2021 of this year, I started to reflect on where I wanted to be, and what needed to change in my life. And one of these was my relationship with alcohol. So I have had a complicated relationship with alcohol for 15 years. I don't think alcohol is evil, I don't think it's the devil. I also don't think it's the best thing in the world. But I have used alcohol for 15 years to help me to cope with trauma I have been through to help me to numb from really difficult feelings that arise to help me to ease my social anxiety to help me to fit into social situations, to help me to feel accepted to help me to cope. I mean, that's really what I think it is. So I believe we use substances and these things that we've can become addicted to to cope with difficult feelings we have that we don't want to deal with. So my relationship with alcohol as I mentioned, complicated for a long time I drank to cope with the difficult feelings that arose. But by the end of last year, I was really drinking out of boredom. But what I found was when I'd wake up from drinking, I had so much self hatred, and I had more anxiety and more depression. So I had learned how to love myself. But I was still holding on to this coping strategy that caused me to not love myself. So I knew I had to give it up. But I chose to do 12 months of sobriety and not forever, because I'm gonna be honest, it seems impossible to give it up forever. I've had a lot of people ask me in the comment section Do you plan on drinking after? And to me? I'm like, this is a really personal question, because I don't know the answer yet. I can say that I've thought about it. And when I first started, I thought I would 100% drink again. Now, I don't know I don't plan on ever getting drunk again. The question will become, can I have a drink and not get drunk? And am I even tempted to have that drink? I have six more months, I don't think I have to have an answer for you if I don't have one for myself. So the honest truth is I don't know yet. But I do see how much pain alcohol has caused me. For me, I started drinking when I was a teenager. And it was my coping strategy was the thing I turned to what I had a rough day, it was the thing I turned to when I felt anxious. It was as sad as this sounds. On some days, alcohol was like my best friend, it was that reliable thing that I could always turn to, to in some way, make me feel better, or so I thought. And I have been grieving that relationship. And I've also been seeing that alcohol was not my best friend. Alcohol was more like an abusive ex, who, with lumion, over and over again, with the promises of a good time with the promises of less anxiety, with the promises of relaxation. And it would often leave me the next day in bed hating myself, or anxious than when I picked up a drink and more depressed. And I wasn't able to fully look at my relationship with alcohol until I gave it up because for a long time I needed it. And does this mean I was addicted in a way? Yes. But I was. When people talk about addiction. It's like I wasn't addicted to just alcohol, I was addicted to what feelings. Alcohol would elicit. I was addicted to numbing the pain, suppressing the memories, and not sitting with myself in the present moment, I was addicted to escaping the present moment. And it wasn't until I went sober that I was fully able to look at my relationship with alcohol, and how much pain it's caused me. For a long time, as I was healing from rape, I would talk about with my therapist my relationship with alcohol and we would talk about how it was going to need to change at some point. But maybe as I was healing, it was okay to pick up a drink every now and then. Because I was healing from immense panic, fear, terror, grief, devastation, that maybe it was okay to pick up a drink every now and then. Because I was healing from so much pain. And I'm thankful for alcohol for that I'm thankful that it helps me to get where I'm at. Again, my relationship with alcohol is not your relationship with alcohol. So if you don't feel this way about alcohol, that's fine. But for me, alcohol helps me to get where I am. But as I mentioned, alcohol was also an abusive acts and the relationship was not perfect. And I also realized that when I was raped in my teens alcohol was involved with so the mess I got into the pain and devastation in my life was also partially caused by alcohol. But I wasn't fully able to look at that until I gave it up. And I spent it it's complicated. I would say things I didn't mean when I was drunk, I turned into a different version of myself who I don't really like anymore. For a long time, that version of myself drunk Amanda was there to protect not drunk Amanda. She was there to protect me from the world. But I am now stronger. I am now more resilient and I am now more loving of myself. And I don't need drink Amanda to protect me from the world. I actually think I'm pretty fucking fantastic. But it took me a really long time to get here and I'm not everybody's cup of tea. I can tell you that. I learned that on the internet this week with a lot of hateful mean comments. But that's okay. All that matters is how I feel about me. So when people ask me, if I'm going to drink again, I don't know the answer. And I think that's okay. I gave myself a year. I got six more months. I'm halfway through. I don't have to have an answer yet. But I will say that I will never go back to being my old self. So that's a little about why I decided to do 12 months of sobriety. So that's the long version, the short version is that my life needed to change. And I knew alcohol was one of the things, causing me pain and anxiety. So I decided to give it up to see how my life would be different in 12 months.
Amanda Durocher (Question 2) 10:29
How often were you drinking? This is probably the most common question I received in the past week. And I was doing about four to five times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. For me, it wasn't consistent. for like months, I was drinking every day or four to five times a week, it was more that I saw that my drinking increased. And this is one of those questions that to me, there's a question behind the question. So I think I received this question so many times, because there are so many people out there, wondering if they drink too much. You might be one of those people who wonder if you drink too much. So you want to compare how much you drink, how much I drink. And you're thinking, if you drink less than me that you're good. And if you drink more than me, you might be thinking, Oh, I don't know, I'm just going to stop you there and say that you don't have to compare your drinking to my drinking. You don't really care how much I was drinking, you're wondering if you have a drinking problem. Or you're wondering if I have a drinking problem. And you're just nosy. And to me a drinking problem is if drinking causes you problems. So what does that mean? For me the problems that was causing me were one to be hung over on a regular basis consistently. And what were these hangovers doing, they were causing me to not be as creative as a writer. And now a podcaster, which this podcast came out of my sobriety. So we'll go into that with boredom. But I wouldn't have created this podcast, I would have never had the time for it. If I was still drinking, drinking took up a lot of my time. Because also when I would pick up a drink, I would check out for the rest of night. So I used to pick up a drink at 8pm and throw out quarantine I started picking up a drink at 5pm. And on Sundays, I would go to brunch and drink all day. And I never did work if I started drinking. So alcohol didn't get in the way of my external world really, I technically could still write I never lost a job based on drinking or I never didn't show up to work because I was drunk. I was someone in college who always with the class hung over or not. It never really interfered with my external world that other people could see. But it was devastating my internal world. So those were the problems where alcohol was causing me. I didn't feel good in my body. And I hated myself.
Anytime I drink, I just hated myself. Every time I drank, I would wake up with thoughts like, oh, what did I say? What did I do? Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Oh, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. Oh my God, why did I do that? Why did I have that extra glass of wine. It was like, all these thoughts that were pestering me would arise when I drink. And I had gotten to a point as I mentioned that I've been healing for years, that alcohol was one of the last things that caused me to really hate myself. So that was a problem. It also created more anxiety. So I would drink to help an ease my anxiety in the moment. But the next day, I would just be more anxious, I would always have butterflies in my stomach. It also caused me to be depressed because I would hate myself so much for drinking, or for things I said or things I did or for not remembering. For me, I blacked out quite a bit as a drinker I had memory loss was very common for me when I drank, it wasn't always. But if I went out with friends, it wasn't uncommon. It's not that it never happened. I also if I had a certain amount of drinks would have trouble stopping. And I know that's common for people. And that might not be common for you. And you might be thinking, Okay, great that I'm fine. And you can think that or I really challenge anybody listening to this episode to just start thinking about your own relationship with alcohol. I think that's what my posts triggered in people. It triggered them thinking about their own relationship with alcohol. And some people wanted to think about it. And some people didn't want to think about it. And that pissed people off and they took that out on me and that's fine. I really learned this week that it is our choice to take on the beliefs of others. It's our choice to take on the projections of others. And it's our choice to be bullied. I did not feel that way at the beginning of the week. I feel that way. Now. That's definitely a lesson I learned this week that it's my choice to believe the things people say about me on the internet. I know my truth. You know, a lot of people were like, you can't struggle with alcohol. If you decided to only give up for 12 months. It's like, No, no, I definitely struggled with it. But I couldn't imagine giving it up forever. And so we're all different. This episodes really just about me. Hopefully sharing with you my journey can maybe get you to start thinking about your own journey with alcohol. This isn't a podcast where I'm going to tell you to give it up That's not my choice to make is your choice to make it is your choice to decide if you're ready to show up more in the present moment, because that's what going sober really did for me is that I have been forced to deal with all my difficult feelings that arise. There was one moment that I was the most tempted to drink was back in March, one of the people who raped me when I was a teenager, it was his birthday or something, and it popped up on my social media, you can block all these people. But it doesn't mean that I'm not friends with other people who are still friends with him or whatever. It was his birthday. And he's engaged. And he looks so happy. And I was just going through Instagram stories, and then there's his face. And there's people celebrating him celebrating his engagement celebrating his birthday. And I lost it. You know, I felt like, how come this guy gets to be happy while I'm fucking devastated over here, where I fucking have a drinking problem. And I had to give up drinking because of this guy. And of course, it's not that simple. But in that moment, it was like, I had so many feelings, there was so much sadness, so much devastation, so much anger. And I used to drink a drink. When I'd get angry. It was a way used to numb my anger was like, Oh, it's just like, calm down with a drink. That was not a healthy way to deal with my anger, because I'd usually end up yelling at somebody anyway. But this moment, it devastated me to my core. And I had never not had an A drink to pick up in a moment like that. And that was the most challenging moment on my sober journey. And I got through it. Was it pretty? No, I wouldn't smash plates in my basement. I definitely screamed at my partner. He didn't deserve it. I didn't handle it gracefully. But I've made it through it without a drink. And after that, I realized if I can get through that moment, without a drink, I can get through most moments without a drink. So I share that story because I also with the question, how often Were you drinking? I always drank when I was triggered. So to me, that's a better question. Do you drink when you're triggered? Why did you drink then? How often Were you drinking because I drink out of boredom during quarantine. But before it quarantine, I didn't drink as much out of boredom, I drink more out of triggers. So social situations triggered me I had a lot of social anxiety, because I wasn't comfortable with myself. And I also drank when I was upset, or at night, I would drink because I was afraid of having nightmares. So I would numb myself before bed. So I'd be able to fall asleep. So I drink a lot because of the trauma I experienced as a coping strategy.
Amanda Durocher (Question 3) 17:47
So another set of questions I received are, what are the upsides of sobriety? And what are the downsides of sobriety? So the upsides of sobriety to me are, one, I am more creative than I've ever been. So I created this podcast I wrote more in the past six months than I wrote in all of 2020, I am more creative, I allow myself to get into that creative flow easier. That's been life changing for me, because my creativity has helped me to heal and it's helped. It's what I lean into. For me, I'm not as tempted to pick up a drink as maybe someone else because of that creativity factor. So for me, if I ever feel tempted to pick up a drink, I just decided to create instead. And being able to create and feeling so aligned with myself has been the biggest gift I could ever give myself, which is why I don't think I would ever want to get drunk again is because it takes away it in that moment. And then it takes it away from me the next day, because hangovers were really bad for me at the end. So my creativity and my productivity have increased. I also am less anxious, less depressed, and I do not hate myself anymore. I really, really love myself so much more sober. And as I mentioned, I was healing my relationship with alcohol for a long time and looking at it for a long time that when I gave up alcohol, I really loved myself when I wasn't drinking, and I hated myself when I did. But before I really loved myself at the beginning of my self help journey when I, my friend died, or when my memories came back of being raped. I hated myself all the time, that it didn't matter if I hated myself when I drank because I hated myself when I wasn't drunk. So for me, I really had to become sober at some point because I couldn't hate myself anymore. And this is I'll probably never pick up a drink again, but I I'm not at a place where I can, like I said, answer that question with 100% certainty. I'm on a grieving process with alcohol. I'm grieving. This substance that I've depended on for 15 years. I decided to do a year because I would be put into almost every situation I'll ever be put into I have a drink. So my birthday holidays, social situations, triggers, everything's bound to arise within a year wedding season. That one was difficult. And I decided to do a year so that I had to face all those situations and then see how I felt at the end of it. So I haven't hit the holidays or anything yet. So those are some of the upsides of going sober. Other upsides are my digestive health. I always had troubles with it, and it completely improved. My skin is clear. I've always struggled with acne and rashes, those I've cleared up since going sober. My energy levels have increased. Without hangovers, my headaches have gone away. And my body's better, I'm able to work out more I've lost weight. A lot of people also like to remind me that I've saved a lot of money, which Yes, this is true, when you don't drink out, eating out is a lot cheaper. So those are some of the benefits, some of the downsides. So I don't think there's any downsides. But I think there's some hard truths. So the hardest thing I think you'll find is that you will be forced to face all these hard feelings you've been avoiding. So people pick up alcohol to numb and to cope and to avoid the present moment to avoid their feelings. without alcohol, you're forced to finally feel your feelings, which I think is a beautiful gift, which I think is very important to learn to do. But it doesn't make it any less difficult. As I mentioned, with the story about being triggered by seeing one of my rapists on Instagram, that was really hard, it was really hard to feel it. But I will say that I moved through it quicker. That didn't get stuck in my body, that doesn't still bother me. Because I allowed myself to feel my large spectrum of feelings, I had to just feel them all I had to let them move through me and my teen self deserve to let all those feelings move through me and she deserved for me to stop avoiding the fact that I was really fucking angry about it. That I still had a lot of anger about what happened to me. I still have a lot of anger that about what happened to me. It's okay to be angry, we just have to find healthy ways to deal with our anger, which I've talked about on previous episodes. So that's one to another hard truth is that not everybody's going to be happy for you. So this one was difficult for me. So I didn't tell anybody I went sober right away, I actually avoided it and just often said, Oh, I'm not drinking tonight, when I went out in social situations, it took me a while to admit to people that I was doing 12 months of sobriety, because I didn't really want to deal with other people's reactions. Because even when I said I wasn't drinking that night, like people would buy me drinks, people would get upset and then when I started telling people I was sober. Not everybody was happy for me. Some people were some people weren't. Some people avoided me, some people stopped calling me It's all a reality of it. Not everybody's gonna be happy for you. And this comes from a lot of people do struggle with their relationship with alcohol. And as I mentioned, that's okay, I've been there, I have more empathy than I can even express for people struggling with alcohol. And people don't like to see people change. People like to drunk me they don't like self loving me. Not everybody likes healed me because it makes them have to look at their the unhealed parts of them, it triggers people. That's okay. You know, when I used to drink, I used to be self help self loving during the day. And then I would go out at night and I drop the bar, you know, my self love bar would drop and by keeping the bar raised, where it's like, I'm gonna love myself wherever I'm at that definitely has triggered people. You do trigger a lot of people by not drinking. And I've got I had a lot of people make comments at the weddings I was at I went to three weddings this summer. And not drinking. A lot of people like to ask me if I was pregnant. Okay, that's a inappropriate question for anybody out there. If somebody's not drinking, please don't ask them if they're pregnant. Just don't just say okay, just like move on. My not drinking, I don't judge you for drinking. I don't care if you drink. I don't care if anybody drinks. I care enough about you to ask you to reflect on your relationship with alcohol to ask you to ask yourself when you pick up a drink, but I'm not here to judge you. I'm not here to tell you what's best for you. Because I know there was a time in my life where I needed to pick up a drink or I probably would have killed myself. And that's just a fact. I experienced too much trauma, too much pain to sit with it all at once. Unfortunately for me, my memories came flooding in and if I didn't numb it, I would have overtaken me the pain was too much when my memories came back. I'm thankful for alcohol. I'm thankful that it was there to help me Did it also cause me a lot of problems? Yes. But I'm at a point where I'm thankful for it. And I'm also forgiving it and healing it and letting it go because it no longer serves me. But for a little bit of time, it did serve me. And that's okay.
Amanda Durocher (Question 3) 25:22
Another question I received so many times was how do you handle the boredom? What do you do when you're bored? I don't think I could give it up because I can get so bored. So I can relate to this. I drank a lot during quarantine because I was bored. And what I now realize is that that boredom was masking the fact that I wanted to create. So my creativity flourished, when I started to lean into the boredom and stopped numbing the boredom. So by numbing the boredom, you stay in that bored state, and you might feel less bored, then but then you can feel bored tomorrow. What I learned is that when I gave up the thing that numb the boredom, I was forced to deal with the boredom and how did I deal with the boredom I started creating. So I decided to create this podcast, I write more, I do puzzles, I color, I still watch a lot of movies, I watched TV. But I started to create from the boredom, what I realized Now, what I truly believe, is that my connection to something greater than myself, want it to flow through me. It wanted to create through me, and that boredom was a sign that I needed to change something in my life, that it was time for me to change. But I would often just numb the boredom, rather than starting to check in and see what wanted to flow through me. And I believe that we're all here to create, we're all here to birth new things into form, right. So I don't know what that is for you. That could be a desk for your house, that could be a script, that could be a book, that could be an acting opportunity that could be creating a new business, I don't know what it is for you. But what I found was that I was that what the boredom was masking was actually a deep fear I had of creating a deep fear of stepping into my next potential, a deep fear of being seen in a new way. Because when we create, we're often creating from nothing. And so we're birthing something into form for the first time. So if this is a book, it doesn't mean there's not 1000s of books, but your book has never existed. So people are going to see an intimate part of you. But if you're numbing the boredom, and you never get yourself to write that book, that you never really have to step into that next step of your life. And some of you might say, wow, I never thought of it that way. Or some of you might be like, No, I just get bored. So my advice to the boredom is that one, are you avoiding something? ask yourself questions about the boredom? What are you avoiding? What do you want to be doing? Is there anything you wish you were creating? too? If you took away the booze? Is there something else you could do? Could you still watch movies? Could you still hang out with friends? Could you start a puzzle? Could you find other things to do? because let me tell you, there are still 1000s of things to do. People are always like, what do you do if you don't drink? What do you do with people, I still go to dinner with people I just don't drink while I do it. I still go to bars. I know that's not good. For everybody who gives up alcohol. I personally am at a point where it doesn't bother me to be in a bar. I do often have a non alcoholic beer in hand, because I don't want to talk about being sober because I find that people who do drink or are drinking while you don't drink, always want to talk about drinking. And I don't want to talk about your drinking, I don't want to talk about my drinking. If I'm at a bar, I just want to like talk to my friends. So I'll have a non alcoholic beer or I'll have a seltzer cranberry or just a seltzer and I'll ask for it in a glass that they put like a vodka soda and, or sometimes I'm more getting more comfortable with it. We're all drink whatever I want. But I often will have a non alcoholic beer just so I don't have to talk about it. And that's okay. It's okay to not want to talk about being sober all the time. It's okay to not want to explain yourself. And it's okay to set boundaries. So if somebody wants to talk about why you're sober, and you're not comfortable talking about it yet, especially if they're drinking, it's okay to say, I'd love to have this conversation with you later. But Now's not the time, it's fine to set boundaries. I've had to learn that myself, because I used to feel like I always had to explain myself. And what I've realized is I don't have to explain myself, I don't always have to talk about being sober. I'm allowed to remove myself and that's fine. So for the boredom, I really ask you to ask yourself if there's something you could be creating, if there's something you're avoiding doing starting that business, writing that book, writing that screenplay, dating, whatever it could be, is there something you're avoiding and by masking the boredom that you're not creating? I also asked you to ask yourself what Do you do when you drink because if it's hanging out with people, you can still do that sober. So I just asked you to start asking yourself questions about what that boredom is really telling you what that boredom is masking, and that you could bring into fruition to focus some of that energy on that might arise if you choose to try sobriety.
Amanda Durocher (Question 4) 30:22
Another question I received is, do you have any advice on how to help someone who just went sober? I thought this was an interesting question. And I would say that to support somebody who just went sober, I would ask them how they're doing. But don't necessarily ask them to talk about being sober. Just ask them how they're doing and let them guide the conversation if they want to talk about it. One of the people in the comments said that somebody is really angry and irritated and they don't know how to help them. I think that part of going sober for me for the first 30 days, I didn't see anybody, I isolated and I readjusted to life with myself. Because when you first go sober, you have to deal with yourself. The you you have been avoiding is there. And I found it easier to sit with that version of myself and to grieve my relationship with alcohol in private, before I talked about it. So then the second month, I started seeing people in small groups at houses. And I still didn't really talk about being sober. I often put a seltzer and a glass and people thought I was drinking. And I wasn't. The third month I started seeing people and going out to dinner with people and going to bars. I sometimes talked about being sober, I sometimes got a non alcoholic beer. The fourth month, I was forced to go to weddings. So that was eye opening. And I realized that by going to dinner with people, and by going to bars already that the wedding was a little easier. For me, it wasn't my first social event. being sober. I found that a lot of people drink out wedding. So a lot of people are triggered by you not drinking at weddings. So that can be a little difficult. month five, I was probably the most comfortable like month four and five is when I started to talk about no I don't drink, I'm not drinking for 12 months, I really started to own that sobriety that came from honestly I was out at a bar and a girl bought me a shot. And I was so awkward about it. Because I had it told people I wasn't drinking that I realized I was the problem in that situation that I put myself in a situation where somebody bought me a shot. And I just needed to start owning the fact that I was sober, or I shouldn't be at a bar. So I started talking about it, I started telling people I was sober. And a lot of those friends were really supportive. And nobody pressured me to drink. And a lot of people made comments like, oh, you're still a lot of fun, even though you don't drink. So I know people think you aren't fun anymore. If you don't drink, but I promise you, you can still be fun, you can still go to bars. And if you can't go to bars, if you're not comfortable with it, that's fine, too. It's because that can be a really triggering environment. Like I said, for me, I had learned how to one cope with my feelings before I went sober. So I did a lot of work before I went sober. So people will tell me that I make sobriety look easy. But there's two things you need to remember about that. One, I didn't give it up for a very long time. So I've been drinking for 15 years, I probably should have given it up 10 years ago. And I didn't. Instead, I did a lot of work around it. And it was the one thing I avoided giving up, too. As I mentioned, my creativity is my anchor, when it comes to sobriety. So anytime I feel like picking up a drink, I remember how creative I am. I remember how good I feel when I'm creating when I'm bringing things into being when I'm aligned with my purpose. And that keeps me sober. So if you're struggling with sobriety, I invite you to find an anchor, this could be a new relationship with your body, this could be getting stronger. This could be creativity, this could be a book you want to write this could be whatever it is, but for me having that anchor that thing that it's like, well, if I started drinking, I couldn't do my podcast, it just like wouldn't work out. It's like why would I pick up a drink? I love my podcast that's made it easier for me. Again, I know people are gonna be like, I don't have that I don't have that. Again, this is my sober journey. I'm sharing with you what's worked for me. I've done this on my own. I also think that even though I don't go to a I think the group aspect of AI is amazing. I think that finding a support group is great. When I was healing from rape, I had a support group. And that was really life changing for me. So finding a group of people to support you throughout this is really helpful. I also do have supportive friends and family. They all still drink but they're very supportive of me. So that's helpful as well. Again, this is my journey with sobriety. I know this isn't the same for everyone. I know that people are going to try and compare my journey to theirs. This is my experience. I'm sharing it in case it's helpful for anybody because I got a lot of questions about it. So I'm just sharing it with you. Because this is my process and this is what I've learned So, back to the question that was a bit of a tangent back to the question of how you can support somebody when they go sober is still invite them to things, you know, don't make the assumption for them that they're not going to want to go because they're not drinking, they can make that choice for themselves. Ask them how they're doing, I would suggest inviting them to do things that alcohol is not involved in. So going to lunch, going to brunch, going to dinner, and maybe you don't have to get a drink, I would just still invite them out to do things, maybe go to a park, maybe get out in nature. But I will say that this is their journey. So I would just ask them, how you can support them through it, but where you're coming across with if the people you know, are sober, and they're angry and irritated that they're being forced to feel their feelings for the first time, they're being forced to look at some of their feelings they've been avoiding for a very long time. And that is really hard. So if you could be patient with them, that could be really helpful to is to understand that, they will learn how to cope with their feelings. They're just not quite there yet. So that's why as I mentioned, I did a isolation period, because I knew I was gonna have some tough feelings arise. And it was going to be hard for me at the beginning to do things like for example, the first time I went to dinner after going sober, I went to a Mexican restaurant, and I looked around the Mexican restaurant, and every single person had a margarita, I was the only one in the restaurant who didn't have an alcoholic drink. And I laughed and I cried, and I didn't cry, because I couldn't have a drink, I cried, because I was never going to be that girl again, who was out with her girlfriends drinking margaritas, I was grieving a part of myself that's gone for good. She's gone, I'm never going to be her again. And if you're supporting somebody through sobriety, they're grieving a part of themselves. That's not coming back. A lot of us have learned to rely on alcohol because it makes us more fun. It makes us more outgoing, it makes us less anxious. And when we give it up, we have to grieve that there's no other way to put it the five stages of grief applied when you give up alcohol to there's a denial stage, a bargaining stage and angry phase a depression sees and finally an acceptance phase. But you're grieving a part of yourself that no longer exists, you're grieving a coping strategy you're no longer using, you're grieving this version of you, that needs to change. And that's real. And I found through my journey of sobriety that the first couple months were when the real grieving happened, because it was when I was put into a lot of situations for the first time without alcohol, or where I didn't have the choice to have a drink. And yeah, the grieving is real. So I would just say to be patient with people in your life who are at the beginning of their sobriety journey, it can be challenging. Another question I wanted to acknowledge was I received the question, What if I don't want to feel all those feelings again, I drank a lot when my mom died. I'm scared to feel all those feelings again. So this is a honest question. This is a real question. This is a reality of giving up alcohol of going sober is that you will have to feel those feelings. And as we talked about on this podcast on previous episodes, in almost every episode, is the importance of feeling our feelings. And the problem with numbing the problem with coping the problem with using alcohol, drug shopping, gambling, whatever your vices is that we are suppressing these feelings, they are not going away. So yes, when you give up your coping strategy, they will still be there. But what I can promise you is that you don't have to deal with them all at once. They tend to arise in waves. And if you allow the feelings to arise and move through it, then offer yourself some self care, take a bath, do whatever you need, take a nap. Give yourself a day where you just cry, and don't do anything, watch a movie, watch a Netflix show. You don't have to feel everything at once. And the feelings will continue to arise. But you don't have to move through them all at once. And it is hard. And as I mentioned, I didn't give up alcohol when I was in the midst of my healing. Was that the right choice? I don't know. I'll never know I can't go back in time. But when I was in the deep healing, when my memories were arising from being raped when my really close friend had died, and I was grieving the loss of an unexpected death. I didn't give up booze. I would work on healing during the day I would work on feeling a lot of feelings. And then I would know at night because there was too much. I would pick up a drink around seven. So I didn't drink all day and numb it but I would do a lot of healing work and then I would know at night because I was like okay, shut these feelings off. So I don't know if I'm a good example of sobriety, I guess is what I feel like and I feel like through this Tick tock, I've almost become like the poster child for sobriety. I'm not sure I deserve that. But that's how I feel at times because I feel like a lot of people are projecting their own sobriety onto me and this is again, my journey with My relationship with alcohol is complicated. So our is a lot of people's relationship with alcohol. That's what I've learned through this is it's not just mine that's complicated. It's not just like a switch that necessarily turn on and off. And only you will know when it's time for you to give up alcohol. And again, I invite you to think about the problems that's causing in your life. And if it out ways, how it's helping you. As I mentioned, there was a time in my life where I don't think I could have given it up. I didn't give it up till it was a little bit easier for me, until I had healed a lot of those really hard feelings. Till I had felt those feelings. And I didn't have so much suppressed underneath when I gave it up. Could Have I moved through some of the stuff quicker if I wasn't numbing on top. Yeah, I could have. Because that's what I've realized, I move through things a lot quicker, because I'm forced to heal it, I'm forced to feel it. And I'm not able to suppress and numb them and shove them down anymore, I just have to move through my feelings. For you who you don't want to feel those feelings. Again, I guess I have two pieces of advice. One, I invite you to start feeling those feelings while you drink. So not while you're drinking a glass of wine, but I invite you to start feeling them. I invite you to find a therapist, if you need one. I invite you to find a support group, a grief group, and I invite you to start healing your grief. I think Episode Three is grief, I do a whole episode on grieving. But I invite you to start feeling those feelings before you give up is don't numb every feeling that arises. I also invite you to start seeing if the problems alcohol is causing in your life. Is it really making your life better? And I also invite you to offer yourself compassion.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai