Flashback Soberistas blog from 7 months sober
This came up on my Facebook feed today and it made me think of us:
I’ve seen some posts and blogs recently from people feeling a bit out of step with the world and so questioning if sobriety is right for them. I don’t think any of us are immune to that.
Being sober in a world that normalises, and in fact, glamorises alcohol use isn’t easy. Sometimes I do feel exactly like a flamingo in the middle of Manchester town centre. A curiosity, a freak. Too noticeable, too out there, too pink. When I meet someone new and tell them I don’t drink. When friends say ‘so are you still off the wine then?’. When I watch TV and all the characters are necking booze like there’s no tomorrow. When someone forgets that I don’t drink anymore then is all awkward about it.
I don’t want to drink now, at seven months sober today. The thought of wine actually repulses me. The thought of getting drunk frightens me. I feel really positive and excited about my AF future. But sometimes it’s also bloody hard work being a flamingo and when other things are hard work too (in my case a baby with hand, foot and mouth who has abandoned sleep entirely, a 4yo starting school, the road being dug up right outside my house which is doing my HEAD in and, oh yeah, my actual paid work which has suddenly gone mental) it can feel overwhelming. To say the least. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to be a pigeon.
I don’t want to be a pigeon – who would when they could be a flamingo? But I want… something. I can’t even articulate what I want exactly. For sobriety to be more accepted and common I suppose. For alcohol use not to be painted in such a sparkly, positive light all over TV and social media. For me not to have to be constantly vigilant against this social conditioning as well as my own addictive voice. I know I won’t drink. I know all my current life annoyances will pass and I’ll get my bounce back. And in the meantime I’m so glad I have my sober community. Because it is better to be a flamingo than a pigeon, even if you are the only flamingo. But to be a flamingo as part of an amazing, glorious, beautiful, pink flock of flamingos? Well that can only be described as a total privilege.
If it feels like hard work being sober at the moment (and I’m talking to myself here as much as anyone!) then keep buggering on. Drinking won’t help, as long as you don’t drink you will feel better again, and this does honestly get easier as time goes on. And if you do drink, once you’re grey and scruffy again, pecking in the dirt with all the other pigeons, you’ll miss standing tall in your proud, pink fabulousness. Who cares if most of the world chooses to be pigeons? We get to be flamingos – don’t throw that chance away just to be like everyone else.
