Losing Your Personality

Let me just set the tone here, the year is 2008, I'm FREE for the weekend (here mom, hold my child!), I'm out on the "town" (we live in the sticks, I was probably in a field somewhere), and I am feelin' my self. There's a good possibility I'm a few drinks deep already by 6pm on Friday night. I pre-game before the pre-gamers, and I take my drinking very seriously. I only have 2 days to get everything out of my system then it's back to work, back to motherhood, and back to my "run-down" life (my life was beautiful I just couldn't see it). I just spent my last dime on some good Rock Revival jeans at the Buckle with the most detail, and some Captain Morgan's Tattoo Rum, I look in the mirror at my thin eyebrows and overly bronzed cheeks and think, "Yes, I am hot AF."

I think back on nights like this and cringe. Where was my head? That was just 2008 though okay, everyone was wearing those jeans, don't judge me!

My goal with drinking was to escape. Escape a life I wasn't mature enough to handle as a teen mom, so I let loose on the weekends. Alcohol made me feel glamorous, lose my inhibitions, and highlighted all the "right" areas of my personality. How did I know this? Because of other people's reactions of course! As a professional chameleon and selfless people pleaser, my only goal was to make people laugh, smile, and love me. I needed to feel included. Always. I also lived for and prided myself on being the craziest. If someone was talking about me the next day and I was the highlight for the night, OMG, I had made it! They like me, they really really like me! Unless you were a mentor in my life, then you probably weren't very amused. I was always trying to impress the wrong people, why is that?

One time I was at a fancy soiree and at some point in my drunken cigar-soaked haze I snuck away two bottles of wine from a cooler and stowed them away in my over-the-shoulder hemp bag. Apparently, they belonged to a wonderful 80-year-old woman who had the wine imported from Africa. I then swung myself over the hotel balcony and scaled my drunk ass down the exterior of the hotel building three floors. Security waited for me in a grounds golfcart (probably forever with folded arms and deep disapproving scowls) until I reached the bottom... And then because there was an overhang, I had to fall about 10 feet just to be apprehended. Mind you I did this all in a crop top and long boho skirt... I felt successful because I didn't break the wine, that's where my mind was... These stories are the kind of stories (nearly) EVERYONE would laugh about. Ya know, except the people I embarrassed along the way and occasional apparently robbed. Whoops...

Something someone once said stuck in my head for years. I must have had a really bad hangover that day because I declared I was "Never drinking again!". They looked at me and said,

"Whatever, you're way more fun when you're drinking."

That statement hung in the back of my mind. They called me out for what I truly felt deep down, that I would never get away from this because then I would lose the fun personality that came with it. I was scared to death people were going to hate the real me if it wasn't enhanced by a chemical substance.

My drinking started at a very young age and gave my personality a crutch that I mistook for my identity. But you can't be something external you put in your body, right? It felt like it could, I needed it to be myself, didn't I?

The idea you lose your personality in sobriety is a huge misconception. With that said, you do change and you do lose "yourself" for a little bit.

Look at it this way:

You start shedding parts of you and while you're releasing the destructive pieces, some of the personality attached to that leaves too.

It's okay, let that go.

What's healthy for you will come back attached to other parts that were meant for you now.

I'm still finding myself... aren't we all? Isn't life about self-discovery and ever searching for more? There's no settling down and there is no end to the search for authenticity, you want it to be that way, trust me.

Guess what I discovered after getting sober? My personality is so multifaceted that alcohol was restricting me, giving me tunnel vision to only a small blurry view of my true self. Sobriety has opened my eyes to all the beautiful angles of my personality and I am so excited to discover more, to go deeper. Every feat I triumph over creates more depth to my character, more strength, more stillness. I don't crave attention, I purposely place my energy where it needs to be in order for me to grow.

That growth is creating value in my life that no critic could take away from me.

Alcohol was the rainstorm keeping this little seed from planting her roots in the rich soil of life.

That rainstorm has passed, my roots are reaching deep and holding on tight in preparation for my true self to sprout and soar high.

For a long time, I was afraid to let go of my old self, clinging to her as if I could change her trajectory if I just held on long enough. I'm finally learning to let go, let go of the past, let go of my old identity, and even some of the people who shaped her.

And wow, do I feel free. Isn't that the goal?

Alcohol created a cage for us for too long, let go and be free.

Best, Jen