Happy Thanksgiving US friends! I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with turkey (or your veggie/vegan equivalent), family (as much as is possible) and love. I know the holidays can be a challenging time though – you may be alone and feeling blue, especially this year. You may be with people who expect you to behave a certain way today. You may be in a situation which you strongly associate with drink and you can’t imagine how you will get through the day sober.
So I wanted to give you the gift of 20 reasons that I am thankful for my sobriety in 2020 (at three years and nine months sober):
- My sober friends. Quitting drinking has brought so many wonderful people into my life. The soberverse has given me so many true and lasting friendships. It has given me a place to come where I do not feel alone. The support in my sober communities is amazing and real and it’s the reason I’m sober.
- I haven’t boozed my way through a pandemic with two young daughters at home. I haven’t been ratty with them because the disruption to our schedule was eating into wine time. I haven’t been trying to work and home school simultaneously with a hangover. SO grateful for all of that.
- Getting sober has opened up so many doors for me. I’ve discovered new career paths I’ve been searching for and not quite finding my whole life. I am living a work life that spans three separate fields and I love it. It’s messy and patchwork but it’s truly mine like my career never has been before. Because I can follow my dreams now. Plus I have extra income which really helps (see 4).
- I’m not in a financial mess during these turbulent times. And thank fuck for that, quite frankly. Enough said.
- I did not make things ten times worse for myself when I actually had COVID by either a. Trying to drink my way through it (because hot toddies are a cure-all, right?!) or b. Adding alcohol withdrawal into the mix at the beginning when I felt awful enough as it was.
- My tools for managing stress, anxiety, sadness, what-will-become-of-us existential despair – all the universal feels of 2020 in other words – Actually Work. Booze doesn’t work. We think when we’re drinkers that it’s this magic solution to everything but honestly once you’ve been sober for a bit and built up a toolbox of tools involving movement, mindfulness, rest and so on, you will realise how very wrong that is.
- I’ve felt many things this year but FOMO has not been one of them. The pubs are shutting you say? Doesn’t bother me. No in person office Christmas party? Halle-bloody-lujah!
- I am not messing with my somewhat shaky mental health (due to lady hormones in my case) by trying to self-medicate with something which, guess what – only makes it worse. I am taking three different types of medicine for my hormonal shizzle which once again Actually Work. If I was drinking I would be wasting my time and putting chemicals into my body needlessly.
- I never, ever, EVER fail to remember what I have done and wake up feeling smothered in shame having to be a phone detective to assess just how bad the damage really is.
- I don’t have insomnia any more. This year is really not a year where I would have wanted to have lots of time lying awake in the middle of the night pondering the general state of the world.
- I am fitter – as well as the simple act of not drinking being so good for me my body is stronger, I exercise a ton more, my diet is better. Fighting off a COVID infection was not fun but I was grateful every second of it for my baseline state of good physical health and strength.
- I am more able to be alone. Sure I’ve had my lonely moments this year like most of us but my own company doesn’t make me squirmily uncomfortable like it used to.
- I have better relationships with my nearest and dearest because I am so much less defensive and reactive. I can’t tell you how grateful I was about that when my mum moved in for eight weeks in the big lockdown, and when my ex moved back for a fortnight when I was sick.
- I get up on time – less stress at work, less stress on the school run, fewer arguments with the kids. So simple but gold.
- I’ve had so much to read and listen to during lockdown – through sober social media I’ve found so many amazing writers, teachers, podcasters – having an afternoon to myself is never a drag, it’s precious time for me under my weighted blanket diving into my latest obsession (Queen Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast if you’re interested)
- I am calm. I am at peace within myself. Yes the world at large makes me anxious – I’m human. But I can cope with that because me no longer makes me anxious.
- I do not have the divided loyalties of wanting to keep my loved ones safe from the virus and also feeling like I deserve the ‘treat’ of eating (aka drinking) out. Safe at home is fine with me.
- I can sit in the shit. As a drinker I was always on the run from negative emotions and discomfort. Feeling bad? Let’s drink, eat, smoke, shag, drug the hurt away. It never worked of course (is a theme developing here?). In getting sober I learned how to get uncomfortable and man has it made this year easier for me.
- I am happier. I honestly am. In so many ways and for so many reasons. For big reasons and for small ones. Because of the removal of crappy things from my life and because of the addition of good things to it. And quite simply because I’m not poisoning myself with a depressant drug on the regular. So much happier.
- I do not miss drinking one tiny bit. This is the bit that’s still hard to get my head around, even now nearly four years down the line. If someone had told me before I quit about 1-19 above I might have gone with it, but I never ever would have believed this one. I spent so much time and energy trying to keep alcohol in my life because I was convinced I would miss it so terribly when it was gone. But I don’t. I rarely think about it now (as opposed to sobriety and all it has brought me, which I think about often). When I think about drinking it is a passing, fleeting thought, rarely even nostalgic and certainly never the full blooded longing I felt in the early days. I am free of alcohol and I do. not. miss. it.
So there you go. 20 reasons I am thankful to be sober, 2020 style.
Happy Thanksgiving, hang on in there and NQTD!
Lots of love
Julia xx
