The Day My Sobriety Stuck
I woke up the day after Christmas 2021 to find I had wet the bed, again. You read that right. This was not the first time I, a 30-year-old, successful, educated woman, had woken up in a pool of my own urine and shame. It was always the result of a long, hard day of drinking and apparently I had done my job well the day before. Luckily my husband was already out of bed so I quickly stripped the sheets off and tried to scrub the mattress as well as I could, hands shaking, praying he wouldn’t come into the bedroom and ask me what I was doing. In the midst of trying to hide my humiliation, a thought flitted through my mind. “You never have to feel this way again.”
“Sure.” I brushed it away. I had been trying— and failing— for almost three years to cut down or stop my binge drinking. I never really drank during the week. But the weekends were a different story. Come Friday evening, party mode went on and I didn’t have an off switch. I could easily down 5 shots in an hour, 12 drinks or more over the course of the night. I blacked out a lot, said a lot of stupid shit and made a lot of idiotic decisions. Since I was regularly giving myself alcohol poisoning the hangovers were hell. But still I couldn't shake this cycle I was stuck in. Why would this time be any different?
The thought, “You never have to feel this way again” came dancing back across my neurons. It would be bliss to never feel the way I did at that exact moment again.
And that’s when it clicked. When it really clicked. The sentiment behind sobriety that I had been turning over in my hands for years, trying to make sense of, finally found its solid form in that moment.
I am the master of my own destiny.
I have the power to create my own reality.
The realization filled me up from head to toe. I am the master of my own destiny. I have the power to create my own reality. That means that I am in control, no matter how out of control I feel. That means I make the decisions that drive my life forward, no one else. That means that my reality is the direct result of my action, or lack thereof.
If I wanted something different than the path I was on— which I desperately did— then I was going to have to be the one to make the change. I knew not drinking was going to be hard, but I also knew that continuing to drink would be infinitely harder in the long run. So I finally decided at that moment that I was done drinking. For real. And that was it.
However, the road to get to that moment of clarity was long and lonesome. I spent most of 2020 and 2021 stuck at home because of the pandemic. This forced me to look hard and deep at myself because there was no escape from myself or my feelings (other than alcohol). These two years were a vicious cycle of committing not to drink and then breaking that commitment after a week or two, leading to a lot of self-hatred. I had poor impulse control, zero self-reflection and no self-trust. I realized I had to figure out how to fix these issues before I had a chance of getting sober.
So, I got to work. I read books like The Power of Now, Atomic Habits and The Four Agreements. I started journaling. I followed lots of sobriety accounts on Instagram. I learned to take accountability for my actions. I learned to speak to myself more kindly. I found a workout program I liked and stuck to it. I forgave my parents for all the trauma they caused me.
I did these things and more, little by little. And all of these little things grew and multiplied to create that moment of clarity that changed my entire life while trying to clean my pee off my mattress on a random Sunday morning.
I haven’t found it very difficult not to drink— though I’m not oblivious. I take stock of my triggers and emotions. I have strategies for if I do start craving alcohol (which has happened briefly about 3 times). I “play it forward” to make sure I see what the consequences of drinking would be. But the desire just truly isn’t there anymore.
98% of the past 6 months have been great, good or tolerable, which is a vast improvement from my life while I was drinking. Before it always felt like the sky was falling. Now my sobriety is like an umbrella providing me a safe bubble from the chaos all around.
Once I realized, really realized, the power I have over my own life and how detrimental alcohol had been to me, I found it easy to let it go.
I thought about all the time I wasted hungover. All the stupid things I said that I usually could only half remember. All the wasted money ($20k+ on bottles, beer and bar tabs over ten years?).
Mostly, I thought of all the potential I was wasting by just drinking my one precious life away…
I stopped drinking 6 months ago and I haven’t looked back. Since that was my main hobby, I had to figure out how to spend all the free time you have in sobriety. I started this blog, a long-held goal of mine, that was impossible while I was still drinking. I’ve read 30 books already this year. I spend more quality time with my husband and grandparents. I walk my dog and work out just about every day (a 30+ pound weight loss has been an added bonus!). I’ve tried new things like silversmithing and website building. My physical, emotional and mental health are in the best shape they’ve been in my entire life.
It’s true that I used alcohol as a coping mechanism and I was scared to let that go. But even more, I think I was scared that I would be “missing out” if I quit drinking. Turns out my drinking was actually causing me to miss out. On everything.
You don’t need to have a lightbulb moment like I did to be successful in sobriety, but you do have to put in the work. For myself, it was a self-guided path. For others, programs like AA and SMART are wonderful resources. Just reading a book or going to therapy is a great place to start.
The only way you will be successful in maintaining sobriety is if you identify and address the reasons you were drinking to excess in the first place. This path looks different for everyone but one thing remains the same—
