That's what drinking was about for me. Always chasing the fun. Being upbeat! Not naval gazing! Cruising my way through life! No dramas! No hassles! Everything fun all the time!!
Glug, glug, glug.
I just wanted everything to be smooth and cruisy all the time, and upbeat and fun wherever possible and alcohol helped me do that. My brother-in-law once came to stay with us for a few weeks while he was working on a film. After he went back home my sister told me that he'd remarked 'It's a party every night at their place'. I didn't register the comment as a negative at the time. Of course it is! Look how fun and cool we are!
Glug, glug, glug.
Of course what I discovered after I took the alcohol away was that I'd been using it to push aside uncomfortable emotions. Uncomfortable emotions had no place in my fun, cruisy, no-drama world. Uncomfortable emotions were such a downer, man, and so they got pushed aside constantly.
Glug, glug, glug.
So learning how to live sober for me was all about discovering that I could still be upbeat and fun and cruisy and happy without glug, glug, gluging all the time (that took a bit of time, to discover that I could still be that chatty, warm, social person without vino).
But learning how to live sober was also about learning how to live in the quiet and flat times. How to sit with those bloody uncomfortable emotions. Or just sit with nothing much going on at all except a normal busy life.
And that's the bit of sober living that I'm still working on. I'm definitely still a work in progress in this area. I can do sober events and have a great time (while wearing sequins and waving my hands in the air).. but come down from a high and head into a hard week and I lurch all over the show. I reach for crap food like bread and butter (real butter mmmmmmm) and cheese (tasty cheese mmmmmm) and lots of sugar. I get introspective and boy does that feel uncomfortable. I withdraw and kind of fret about the fact that I feel glum.
I fucking hate feeling glum and flat and sluggish and grumpy. I hate it! I want to be upbeat! Cruisy! Happy! all the time. Glug, glug..oh wait.. I don't do that any more.
Instead I'll lift my eyes to the horizon and look for the beautiful things around me. I'll burn my oils and make green juices and lie in bed with an eye mask on. I'll listen to Tara Brach if I can be bloody bothered. I might have a bath at 11am just because I want one.
And I won't drink and I'll lurch through and this will pass and everything will be ok. Yes it bloody will.
Love, Mrs D xxx
