Flashback Soberistas blog from 10 months sober (on New Year’s Day 2018)
Happy New Year lovely Soberistas! I was out last night and although I didn’t think for a minute I would drink it seemed like tempting fate to reflect on my first sober festive season any earlier than today.
And today feels like a perfect day to reflect, with the shiny new year stretching out in front of us all. Last year I started 2017 with a feeling of trepidation. I was anxious and depressed, recently started on anti-depressants but they had no hope of working properly due to the amount of wine I was pouring down my neck. This year I feel calm, centred and hopeful. Healthy (apart from the sugar thing which is the next thing to go!) and clean. Proud of myself which really is a first! The year will bring good and bad, hopefully more of the former but I feel able to cope with what lies ahead whatever it may be in a way I haven’t for the longest time.
I hope everyone has had a wonderful festive season. I had, on paper, a very similar Christmas to last year, spent with the same people doing roughly the same things, but the difference removing the booze has made is just unbelievable. Because I was sober this Christmas I had the time, energy and spare cash to:
– do a kindness advent project with my 4yo that was just wonderful and so good for us both. By Christmas Eve I felt like Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged and there’s nothing more Christmassy than that!
– at the other end of the shallowness spectrum, get my nails painted sparkly silver, then purple, then red. And buy three sparkly tops. And new make up.
– travel to Edinburgh through beautiful wintery scenery to meet three gorgeous Istas
– have a brilliant night out with my new choir friends which ended up with us all singing much to the DJs bemusement, this night just totally summed up HK’s ‘it’s awkward before it’s elegant’ mantra about socialising sober – at first I was thinking ‘oh god this is really uncomfortable I’m going to have to go home early’ (and hid in the toilets messaging BlueAngel!) but it got better and better – the opposite of how it would have gone down when I was drinking. And I remember it all!
– have another brilliant night out with my bestest girlfriends eating, drinking wine (them) and ginger beer (me), dancing and as always leaving exactly when I wanted to and driving home to my herbal tea and bed
– ‘come out’ as having quit drinking to my lovely work team at our Christmas lunch and get a really positive and supportive response from them
– go to our annual besties Christmas meal (with the OHs and littles this time), drink Carl Jung AF fizz while the others necked prosecco and have a fab time with the kids as well as the adults rather than seeing their presence as more of an inconvenience than anything else as I have in years gone by tbh. I had a real moment that afternoon when we were back at my friends house after the lunch for the usual kitchen disco. We had Michael Buble Christmas songs playing and I was cuddling my 4yo and watching everyone playing, chatting and dancing and I just felt infused with love for them all, adults and kids, and full of gratitude and what I think can only be described as festive joy. Amazing.
– just generally be present for my kids like I never have before at Christmas, especially my 4 year old who I have missed like mad since she started school. To get up on Christmas morning with no trace of a hangover and throw myself into the day with (almost!) as much enthusiasm as them was just priceless
– have a lovely chat with my Mum and really enjoy and appreciate being with both my parents without the mounting irritation I’ve often felt in the past, now they’re getting older I do feel so hugely grateful for every year they are still with us and in good health, both for me and my girls who both adore them
– spend the days between Christmas and new year properly relaxing and recharging (and indulging in far too much chocolate and cheese – no change there!)
– see the new year in sober kitchen dancing (again!) with my besties not missing drinking in the slightest, drive everyone home at 2am and get out of my car at home to see a gorgeous bright moon and have a real moment of pure gratitude at where my life has brought me this year.
So did I miss drinking this Christmas? HELL NO!! It really is just utter bullshit, marketing and conditioning, that drinking adds anything to the festive season. So many things I’ve done this last year, I’ve been nervous beforehand that they wouldn’t be as good sober – meals out, the rare nights out dancing I have, holidays, weddings and now Christmas – they’ve all without exception been better sober! I really do feel like I’ve stumbled across one of the world’s best kept secrets.
So we did it! We got through Christmas and new year. Even if you didn’t manage it totally AF, today is the first day of a brand new year so it’s a perfect day for a new start. And now we have January, the month that used to make me feel deprived and miserable but this year makes me feel like Meryl Streep at the end of Devil Wears Prada when she puts her sunglasses on, sweeps into her limo and says ‘everyone wants this – everybody wants to be us’. Which is a pretty damn good start to the year in anyone’s book.
ps I’ve just read that back and was really struck by how many times I used the words gratitude and grateful. That’s the real gift that sobriety gives isn’t it? The ability to be really present in your own life and to be grateful for all the little precious moments that make up our lives. Just pure gold and a million times better than any false high a drug could provide.
