These Three Things Helped Me Get Sober.
I didn’t think much about drinking in my twenties. It was accepted as the thing you did as a young adult. In my thirties, drinking was still a lot about socializing - until it wasn’t. It became the only solution I had to relax, manage stress, and unwind after work. It was how I set aside my problems.
Over time, as much as I didn’t want to believe it, I knew it was my drinking habit that had stalled my career, started to cause distance in my marriage, and was the root cause of me not living present in the beautiful life I had worked so hard to build. It was a dark cloud, casting a shadow over me - somewhere inside of me I knew I wanted the sunshine back.
I resisted accepting that I needed to remove alcohol from my life for a long time. I spent literal years trying to turn myself into a “normal” drinker. Those were years of torment. All trying to moderate my drinking did was make me think about alcohol all of the time. I was constantly strategizing over when, where, and how much I could/should drink. It was exhausting and took up so much headspace. Headspace that I wanted to spend on things that brought me joy: my relationship with my husband, my friends and family, my dog, my career, my health, my hobbies - my life.
It was time to remove this thing that was taking so much from me. I knew I needed a new approach. So I made the decision to really do this thing. At this point I had already been reading a bunch of quit lit, and listening to sober podcasts. I had learned so much but it was time to put the knowledge into action.
Here are three things that helped me get sober.
I had to accept that it wasn’t going to happen overnight.
I didn’t become this way overnight, so I had to recognize it would take time to disrupt the status quo and transform. Progress not perfection. Slip ups are part of the process.
I started to imagine my life without alcohol.
Who was Future Me? And then I took small steps to bring me closer to her. I’d come home from work and do something else: workout, read a book, meet a friend for a walk, or swap out my usual evening wine with something NA.
I changed my thinking patterns and started speaking kindly to myself.
I was my own worst critic. I flipped the script and told myself I was worth it. That I wanted to thrive. I stopped waking up berating myself for how much I drank the night before. And I created short mantras that I would say to myself while I was brushing my teeth in the morning: I forgive you, I recognize my progress, I love you.
My Last Day 1
I reminded myself often that this is hard work, but if I really want change the only option was to keep going. It took me about 20 months and around 15 breaks until I had my last Day 1.
Everything I wanted for my life opened up when I finally said goodbye to alcohol. My marriage improved, my health was better, my income increased (drastically), and when I looked in the mirror I saw the version of Future Me that I had been envisioning all those months begin to appear before my eyes.
Future You is ready when you are.
If you are ready to make a big change in your life, ditch alcohol, and start feeling good AF, I invite you to book a free sober strategy session with me to get started.
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