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Sobriety is the Best Kept Secret
This is a picture of me in my sober badass shoes. My daughter took the picture a few years ago to help me tell a story. I don’t usually sit around in my back yard wearing cutoff shorts and high heels. Usually, I’m barefoot! But this day was special! I’ll tell you more about that in a minute.
But first …
I was hanging out laundry yesterday, leaning out the window looking at my pots of flowers below and reveling in the sunshine on my face. I was in a state of absolute peaceful bliss. Simple-minded me. Four years alcohol-free.
When I first stopped drinking it was difficult to really feel that sort of absolute peaceful bliss.
Those of us who drink routinely end up with the wires crossed in our brains. Our neuropathways get re-routed by the addictive nature of the drug to only feel really good when alcohol is involved. We begin needing alcohol to feel calm. Needing alcohol to feel happy. Needing alcohol to feel joy.
Addictive drugs are parasitic.
Using them habitually causes you to NEED them which causes you to use them more which increases the need of them. It is a vicious cycle.
When I stopped drinking habitually I started to feel better quickly because I was no longer poisoning myself, but it took a while before my brain was free enough for life to genuinely become it’s own reward.
When you stop drinking, if you put one foot in front of the other, if you don’t drink, no matter what, Life DOES eventually become it’s own reward. Once you’ve been sober for a good long while and your brain has had a chance to completely rewire you will feel joy simply because the sun is shining on your face and on the flowers below.
Stick with it !
Sobriety is its own reward!
If you’re sober curious you can come read more of the story of my sober evolution here and an explanation of my sober badass shoes here inside our private community. We are actively talking through the sober thing there every day privately and anonymously. People supporting people who are trying to change their lives. Away from the sometimes commercial and always busy noise of social media.
Why should you Rethink the Drink ?
There is a ton of misinformation out there about alcohol and alcohol addiction. Just like the big oil companies spend a fortune distracting us from the realities of climate change and how we might turn things around if we invested in green, the alcohol industry spends a fortune trying to convince us that the problem with alcohol is NOT our problem but someone else’s.
How many times have you seen the statistics that 10% or 15% of the population has a problem with alcohol followed by the suggestion that you shouldn’t worry, MOST can drink daily! it’s healthy and safe.
But this is the reality :
Alcohol Related Deaths are up 100% in Twenty years
The alcohol industry thrives on filling the media with the message that people are the problem, not the drug that they push as the elixir of life and love.
Most of us associate alcohol addiction with physical dependence. But you can be addicted to alcohol even if you only drink heavily a few days a week. You can be addicted even if you only have a few drinks daily. The addiction is neurological.
Read up on it to understand why you are struggling.
Reading about the science of addiction really helped me in my first sober months. Check out Alcohol Explained by William Porter, the first five chapters are linked into this inspiring post You Have to Do Your Part : One Year Sober
Drink in knowledge.
Understand why it’s hard to stop Drinking and you can beat it.
Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome
One of the causes for dopamine deficiency includes alcohol withdrawal. Continuous use of alcohol in daily life results in impairment of dopamine levels in the brain. When a person becomes addicted to alcohol, the brain areas producing dopamine are depleted. The person in such cases has to continue use of alcohol to feel pleasures of everyday life. Otherwise, they develop Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome.
Low dopamine (e.g. dopamine deficiency): causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment options
Dopamine and Its Effects on Addiction and Recovery
Alcohol-Free !
Join me ?
If you’re “sober curious” … If you are drinking too much too often and want to stop or take a break…or if you have stopped drinking and are trying to stick to sober! Talk to Us.
Start where you are right now
Whether with determination or overwhelming fear
Or everything in between
Tell us your story if you’d like to
And we’ll listen, virtually near
It’s anonymous, a safe space
To say what you need to here
It’s helpful to leave self blame at the door
If its not serving you anymore
From a heavy and maybe weary heart
To a fresh start
You could find out soon
Life could bloom with BOOM
Be proud because you’re taking the first steps
Just do the next right thing
And then the next
ODAAT
You could say it’s like having friends in your pocket
Support on your phone
We’ll be your safety net
You don’t need to do this alone
We are an independent, anonymous and private community who share resources, support and talk it through every day. It helps to have a community behind you in a world where alcohol is the only addictive drug that people will question you for NOT using
You can read more about us Here And join Here
community support 24-7 or sign up and sign in here
Don’t let the shame of the stigma keep you from saying
“I think I have a problem with drinking”
“I must go forward where I have never been instead of backwards where I have”.
Winnie the Pooh
2 responses to “Sobriety is the Best Kept Secret”
[…] Many people with a drinking problem feel as though drinking is the best thing in their lives — the one, needful, non-negotiable thing. And they’re right to think so because this is what it has become. But it has not become the best and most important thing in your life on its own merit (i.e. because drinking really is that wonderful). It has become the most important thing in your life by eating away– diminishing, destroying– all the other important things in your life until alcohol is the one pleasure left. When I say this, I don’t mean that your life has necessarily fallen down around you, that you’ve lost everything. The problem hasn’t necessarily progressed that far. What I mean is that things that used to be pleasurable, inspiring, fulfilling (before you had a drinking problem) have lost their glow, their inherent beauty. related reading Sobriety is the Best Kept Secret […]
[…] Sobriety Offers Everything that Alcohol Promised – Except the Hangover! Sobriety is the Best Kept Secret […]