Raw Doggin’ Reality: 18 Months Above the Influence
As I’m writing this I have exactly 1 day, 4 hours, 59 minutes, and 51 seconds left on my 18-month sobriety experiment. I wanted to take a little time to reflect on the whole experience and talk about some lessons I’ve learned and how my relationship with alcohol (and other altered states) changed over the course of this year and a half without.
I had wanted to do a sober year for a while now and I attempted to do one in 2020, making it til about the second week of the quarantine and then caving, needing something to blunt the end-of-the-world-dread I was feeling. Reflecting on that time I know I made some unhealthy choices with alcohol. I remember several days when I started drinking before noon on a weekday. There wasn’t a lot going on at that time and the whole world felt like this bizarre cross between the apocalypse and summer camp. Once things started to return to a more normal state, for me this meant going back to work and having more of a schedule, I naturally drank less and returned to my habitual drinking. I mostly drank on weekends or special occasions but definitely always wanted to get a buzz. I would also drink to quell social anxiety and give awkward situations a little lubricant.
The idea of a sober year was still on my mind and since there is no “ideal” year to be sober, I decided to go all in in January of 2022. I honestly didn’t have a goal in mind other than to experiment with the idea of being sober in situations where I’m not normally sober in. I honestly probably picked the worst year to try and be sober because I had 5 weddings, 2 bachelorette trips, and an international trip. All of these things would involve people drinking and there would obviously be questions about my sobriety, however, I knew that it was really now or never to do it. After my 33rd birthday (my Jesus Year) I decided I wanted to do a calendar year and a solar year of my experiment so that I would be sober for the entirety of the JY. 15 months sober just sounded weird to me so I decided to extend it to a year and a half, just for the round number.
Reflecting on the past 18 months I can only say that sobriety is a huge gift you can give yourself at any time that you want it. Here are the biggest lessons I learned in the experiment:
Lesson 1: Being sober was easier than I thought.
I found being sober to be quite easy to be quite honest. The anticipation of sobriety leading up to the challenge and the nervousness of attending my first few events without alcohol was much worse than the actual experience of being sober at a function. Once I got used to being sober I realized I wasn’t missing out on much when it came to alcohol. I only had one person (a stranger) make an even slightly incredulous remark about my sobriety for the entire 18 months. Many people were supportive, proud of me, or on their own sober journeys. Every restaurant or bar I went to had a mocktail or NA beer menu. Even on my trip to Ireland, where I was worried I’d be laughed out of the bar for ordering a mocktail, the bartenders didn’t bat an eye at my request. I learned that alcohol doesn’t have to be a part of my culture if I don’t want it to be. I actually found it a million times harder to give up sugar, which is much more ingrained in social gatherings and tradition than alcohol is for me. I’m finding along the way many kindred spirits who don’t want to drink. Maybe it’s a reaction to binging during Covid quarantine or just growing up, but once my sober challenge gained momentum, it was easy to abstain.
Lesson 2: Sobriety is the gift of time.
The biggest gift that sobriety gave me was time. I gained SO much time these last 18 months. No evenings lost to drunkenness where I can’t remember things clearly. No mornings (and let’s be real into afternoons sometimes) lost to hangovers. No extending a bad mood into the next day by medicating with alcohol and then dealing with a hangover. It’s amazing what 18 months of no hangovers can give you. I was able to work on art, finish projects, and enjoy time with my husband, friends, and family. I got up every day feeling pretty good and this was the biggest gift sobriety gave me. This is something I’ll remember even as I return to alcohol.
My “Sobriety” SoulCollage® Card
Lesson 3: Shit is AWKWARD sometimes and that’s okay.
Drinking can lubricate social situations and that is one of the reasons many of us drink. It helps you be open and loose and roll with the flow a little more. It turns me into the life of the party. It’s also a totally fake me with fake feelings when I’m under the influence. During my sober challenge, I realized that social functions are fucking awkward a lot of the time. But the awkwardness doesn’t last. It comes in waves and ebbs and flows like everything else. There might be an awkward interaction here, followed by getting in a bit of a groove followed by more awkwardness later. At first, this was paralyzing for me as I internalized a lot of the awkwardness but I started to get more comfortable with it as I put myself in more high-stakes sobriety situations like parties, bars, and bachelorette trips. I think my awkwardness barometer is a lot more sensitive than other people’s and I’m working on not identifying with or taking ownership of the awkwardness as much anymore. I’m cool just letting the awkward waves wash over me and I am thankful I found I don’t need alcohol to get me through it.
On the flip side of this, I feel more my authentic self when I’m sober and I don’t have the post-hang anxieties of worrying about all the dumb shit I said spiraling inside my head. Like I said, I find alcohol to be a fake feeling which turns me into an altered version of myself. A lot of times, I don’t really like this version, and that dissonance can cause a lot of pain. The pain of a little bit of awkwardness was orders of magnitude less than the pain of this weird post-drinking dissonance. Something I will always remember.
Lesson 4: It’s all vanity.
I’m not going to pretend like there weren’t some benefits to being sober that appealed to my vanity. I lost 15 pounds without changing anything but drinking. That felt great. My skin, teeth, hair, and nails, all look better when I’m sober. I just look nicer and healthier, more hydrated. I feel better which shows up in my appearance. As I age, I want to age the best that I possibly can. Sobriety helps me stay youthful and makes me feel good. It’s a healthy choice that I can see tangible results of.
Lesson 5: A time to every purpose under Heaven.
I’m going back to alcohol on July 1st but I’ll never approach alcohol the same way again. There are times when I won’t drink, like on weeknights before work, when I’m making art, or when I want to do something big the next day. These are hard rules with no exceptions. There are also a lot of people I will never drink with again because drinking with them makes me feel weird. Again hard rules that I won’t break. Basically, when I drink, I want to really be able to enjoy it fully for what it is and not have to worry about social bullshit or a hangover the next day. I’m not going to act like drinking isn’t fun, because it is fun. Having a Miller High Life and listening to the jukebox at Live Wire is one of my 69 reasons to stay alive. There’s just a time and place for the fade and a time and place for sobriety. I think The Byrds said something like that.
As I finish writing this I’m staring at 67 bottles of wine we’ve saved up during my sober sojourn. We’re part of a wine club and we get two bottles every month plus some gifts or special bottles we collected over the course of a year and a half. And while I’m excited to delve into some of the bottles, I have a feeling it’s going to take a loooooong time to get through all of them. Before, a bottle of wine wouldn’t last more than a few weeks on my bar cart and now I brush away thick layers of dust on the bottles. That is something satisfying. I’m so thankful I did this and I’m so thankful for what it taught me. And I love that I can return to it and the lessons I learned whenever I want to. Sobriety is just the next mocktail away.
I’d love to know if you’ve ever experimented with sobriety and what that felt like for you. Post your story below!
