DAY 11
Today, I am grateful that I chose sobriety. I am grateful that I am allowing myself to explore this new reality.
This morning I was thinking about how different it is to navigate the world without having to think about, need, or engage in using drugs and alcohol to alter my mood. It got me thinking just how often I WAS thinking about it— because since I made the decision to get clean and sober, I have had so much clarity, time, space and freedom in my mind.
Once I made that commitment that I was going to go ALL IN, and really try to be in recovery for GOOD, the obsession with wanting to use vanished. That doesn’t mean that everything is perfect or that I’ll never have urges to drink/use ever again.
This weekend, I had my first real “trigger” where I had a moderate urge to want to drink/use. On Saturday morning, I went to a meeting and a woman shared her intense story. Then people went around and shared; I stayed quiet.
I started noticing my thoughts going to places like, “See she’s so much worse than you. You don’t need to be here. You don’t have a problem. You’re not like these people.”
After the meeting I was talking to my sponsor and her sponsor and I said, “Quitting was easy. I have felt like I’ve been on this beautiful pink cloud!! What is hard for me is STAYING. How do I remind myself day after day that I NEED sobriety? That NOT drinking and using is GOOD for me and the most IMPORTANT choice I need to make for myself day after day?”
They told me to keep coming back and to share what I’m thinking and feeling in meetings. The fact that I wasn’t sharing was making me feel more alone, and they said that if I shared my honest feelings, that people would relate to me. Also that I needed to look for the similarities, not the differences. All of this made sense.
I went home with a big ego, feeling uncertain about everything. What do you know, later that day I started thinking… “Wouldn’t it be nice to just smoke a little weed and relax? Have a nice glass of wine?”
I recognized I was thinking this way and thought to myself, what do I need right now? I put on my shoes and decided to go to a meeting. But I had already had a meeting that day, that didn’t feel quite right to me. What would another meeting do?
I went back upstairs and changed my clothes. I put on workout clothes and looked up a nearby hiking trail on an app.
On the way driving there, I felt waves of emotion washing over me. I felt sad and started crying but didn’t know why. I began to pray and talk to God. I asked for His help and prayed to understand more of what He wants for my life. I prayed for Him to help me stay sober.
I got to the mountain and was relieved that no one was there. I headed up by myself for an hour of solitude in nature. It was a beautiful hike! I listened to music, got emotional and started crying halfway through, prayed and gained some perspective on my life.
I am so grateful that I made that choice to do something nourishing for myself, my mind, body and soul. I recognize this is the process of re-programming my brain and body to take the actions that are more in alignment with what I want and need.
As hard as it was in the moment, I am enjoying getting to know myself more deeply. I am enjoying this process of “thawing out” as I call it. I have numbed myself with drugs and alcohol for so long, that I understand this to be a process of allowing my repressed feelings and emotions come up and deal with them one by one. Everything I haven’t dealt with, I am ready to allow it to come up and work through it, whatever it is.
I know I will become stronger, wiser and more aware in this process. Each day I am gaining more clarity, more understanding, more compassion, and more humility.
I am working on becoming a better human being with God’s help.
I am not perfect by any means but I am willing to do this one day at a time, put my best effort forward, and try again tomorrow.