Early Sobriety

Yesterday, on Christmas Eve my husband and I made one of those last-minute trips to our *nicer* local grocery store. The town adjacent to my "hometown" (I'm not from here originally but I consider this home-sweet-home) has a specialty grocery store. We were on a charcuterie board mission, in search of high-quality cheeses and crackers. As I peered over the (sort of) wide selection of worldly cheeses, my eyes lock onto words like "wine", "brandy", "whiskey" splashed about the cheese labels. Without thinking I picked up a cheese that read "Boozin' Ewe" an award-winning "Marisa" sheep milk cheese soaked in Wollersheim Winery Port. As my eyes scanned the package I heard over the loudspeaker, "Merry Christmas everyone, just so you're aware, we have a free wine tasting in the back! Make sure as you gather your holiday treats, you stop by our wine bar in the back of the store". This was obviously not my first time in this store, I am very aware of the free-flowing booze near the back of the store. I shift my head to look down the mile-long alcohol aisle and glance at the "lean-to" style bar and drop the cheese back into the pile of alcohol-soaked cheeses.

Rewind 624 days to my day one. The morning I woke up on that day I felt ashamed. I had been sober, openly sober I might add for 4 months leading up to my relapse. How did I let it get me again? April 10, 2020, I woke up knowing what I had to do. You can find that story under my blog post "The Moment That Changed My Sobriety".

Honestly, I have a hard time explaining what early sobriety felt like for me because I had several day ones and plenty of "sober time" accumulated by the time I finally put down the drink. I should add, relapse is only as far away as alcohol is away from my lips and that will never change. I know how fragile my sobriety can be even with how strong I feel these days so I respect the danger but don't feel overwhelmed by it.

To start, I need to preface that my entire life I've always felt a little sad. Although that might make someone feel sorry for me, I'm used to this. I learned to live with the little dark cloud that followed me. As a teenager alcohol plucked me up and made me feel euphoric, a euphoria I've never felt without an external substance like drugs. When I took my first drink, it felt like fireworks and I thought, something to fix The Big Sad! In hindsight, this was depression and anxiety. I never gave myself a chance to find out who I was or to get the help I needed. By the time I quit drinking for good, I had been using alcohol to perk me up for around 15 years. This liquid that promised freedom and euphoria became my worst enemy. Bringing me to tears, driving my depressions down to a new level, and threatening my life.

The absence of this emotional crutch at the beginning of sobriety felt impossible. I felt exposed to all of the feelings I avoided for years.

The first week of my sobriety I was going through withdrawals. I was used to this, so much so I had a routine on how to handle them myself (please do not do this yourself, seek medical advice first, you can die from withdrawals). I couldn't take time off work which was hard, I wanted to hide on my couch and watch Netflix, if I was home, I was safe. On previous attempts at sobriety, my pitfall was after work. I would drive to the gas station to pick up. The morning was when I had the most motivation and the "wine witch" would always come calling around 4pm in the afternoon. I decided to leave my credit cards at home in the morning when my motivation was high. This was one way I could avoid the temptation of picking up after work and I did this for weeks. When I safely made it home from work, I would make myself a giant bowl of ice cream and stuff it down. Is this the best route? Probably not. Did it help me at the time? Yes. (Advice: work on one addiction at a time. I have food-related issues, I worked on those later.)

Emotions came in waves. A flood of tears would hit over the slightest mishap. I burned dinner, I'm a disaster, my family hates me. I developed a routine called "Sad Ice-cream". This was when I couldn't handle what was going on at the moment and I needed to remove myself from whatever the situation was. I'd drive to the local ice-cream shop (we have about 7, we live in a tourist town), order a twist with fudge and sprinkles, then I'd get back in my car, drive away, eat my ice cream, and ball my eyes out. I remember one particular night, there was a raging thunderstorm and it matched my mood, and for some reason that brought comfort. If I sound melodramatic, you have to remember, and maybe you do from my previous posts, that I was going through a custody battle after my son was moved across the state, was quitting my well-paying job for about half of what I was making, and was being sued multiple times for financial reasons. This was all in my first year of sobriety, during the pandemic. I think a little melodrama is allowed.

The big sweeping emotions that felt like they'd take me out subsided more and more each week that passed. The next thing I felt was a familiar euphoric feeling, this time without all the negative side effects, I was flying high above the trees yelling "Isn't life beautiful!" despite going through what was one of my most stressful seasons in life. My sobriety felt invincible, I was making leaps and bounds in my progress, things started to click. Is this what it's all about? Some of you may have heard of the Pink Cloud and if you guessed I was experiencing the Pink Cloud, ding ding! You get a gold star. The Pink Cloud made me feel like everything was DEFINITELY going to be okay and I guess I'm done with recovery, right? I felt like I had learned all there was to learn. I had a "this was fun but I'm out" mentality. Clearly, I have this "down to a science" and I don't have to work my recovery because there's absolutely no way all these old-timers are correct when they say you have to work it the rest of your life. They must've missed something that I found. (If I remember accurately, I believe this was about 6 months into my sobriety)

Remember the story of Icarus? Flying too close to the sun and melting his wings? My defiance of limitations in early sobriety bit me in the ass real hard. If I had to guess, I would say my Pink Cloud lasted a couple of months total.

As I came hurling back down to earth, I murmured under my breath, "Oh fuck".

My Pink Cloud was followed by months of experiencing: Anhedonia (my least favorite word)

Essentially it means, lack of pleasure and boy was that accurate to how I felt. Months and months of feeling either nothing, feeling too much, or feeling this longing I couldn't quite put my finger on. When I expressed my sadness to my family I was met with worry so I learned to lock it up. Medication was an option but I have a long history with medication and I don't always feel safe on them. It was not "that bad", any day sober is 100x better than your lowest day in addiction. I told myself if it lasted past spring, I would call my doctor for medication.

This low followed me for months. Slowly over time, I would let go of my daily routine that helped my sobriety, my jogs, working out, healthy diet, journaling, talking with my therapist, and talking with my sober friends. I let it go. I felt as if I was dragging on the seafloor, half awake and wishing I could just sleep. I realized this was turning into depression. I decided, okay, it's time to get on medication, Jen. I officially had over a year sober but I felt off. Where was that happy? Sure, on the outside, I looked fine. Yes, it was still 100x better than any day in active addiction. Where was this sunshine in recovery that everyone else "looked" like they were experiencing? I called my doctor. They gave me a bunch of medication, some to take as needed for anxiety, daily medication, and one to "boost" me on a bad day. I jumped in with both feet. Please bring me back, please fix me.

The daily medication came with loads of warnings of permanent damage and serious side effects so I thought, I will only go as far as I am comfortable. For a few weeks, I felt semi "normal" again. Long story short, after my second month one of those serious side effects took over and I could no longer take the medication. Was this another failure? What was sobriety supposed to look like? WHAT IS SOBRIETY SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE? I let my doctor know I was discontinuing the medication and why, he helped me taper off and asked if I'd like to try another. I told him, let me taper and give it some time. Then I will get back to you. That was around 5 months ago.

Since then I've picked up my old recovery routine, focused on my workouts, promised myself to find a new therapist, learned to communicate my needs more, started to tackle my eating issues, and continue to check in on myself daily. I've had depression and anxiety my whole life which means by now, in my mid-thirties, I have had a lot of trial and error surrounding it. Sobriety has been a game-changer for my mental health but I'm still navigating it. Right now, I feel pretty good but I keep a close watch on "The Big Sad" and know what to do when I hit a low.

Lately, my sobriety has been growing and expanding at a fast rate. To sum up this entire blog entry, recovery is a process. We go through periods of rapid growth and then sometimes we plateau. The periods in which we plateau might make us think, "am I failing at this?" The truth is, we can't fail this if we are trying. Keep trying, keep getting creative, keep moving forward. On days we are stuck, feeling as if we aren't moving forward but regardless of that, we stay the course. Those are the most valuable days. Those are the days when the most progress happens.

I wish I could say you won't have to put sobriety first but word on the street is, your sobriety has to be worked, and it has to be the center of your life so you can have a life.

We just celebrated Christmas which can be a very triggering time for a slew of reasons. Family triggers, booze everywhere, emotional triggers, overall feelings of inadequacy have a tendency to take us out.

Some days are easier than others in sobriety. One day I could feel empowered, strong, and grounded in my recovery. Other days I want to scream from the top of my lungs "JESUS F*CKING CHRIST!" in the cheese aisle on Christmas Eve at my local grocery store.

Best, Jen

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Disclaimer: Quitting alcohol can be deadly, please do not see this post as encouragement to detox on your own. I was advised by a medical professional prior to quitting and was aware of signs of DTs and severe withdrawals prior to quitting. PLEASE TALK WITH YOUR DOCTOR PRIOR TO DETOX. I cannot stress this enough.