Random Thoughts From 100 Days Sober

100 days sober. Bring on the unicorn glitter parade! 🙂

I have never purposefully quit for this long before (in 20 years of drinking), aside from during my pregnancy, and that didn’t really count cause I was counting down the days until I could booze again. I was sober but not learning or growing as a result of it. In honor of 100 days I decided to put together a list of some of the thoughts I am having about this journey so far. It ended up being kind of random…my apologies.

• I have been feeling pretty bumbling lately in a lot of my interpersonal relationships. I have been saying the wrong thing a lot, mainly in a good-hearted attempt to speak my truth. I am trying to be honest, but I think I need to take some lessons in sensitivity… or just stop talking. Being sober is a huge learning experience. I dunno, I think when you get sober you have to do a lot of introspection, and it’s pretty deep, and it’s hard to talk about it without sounding like an asshole sometimes. I guess I feel like I am in an awkward stage of my sobriety where I want to help others, but don’t have the tools to do so. I am hoping that I get better at communicating my thoughts on sobriety without sounding so weird about it. In the meantime I am going to stop talking about being sober so much and try to just BE for awhile.

• I am getting tired of focusing so much time on being sober. Like … I just want to get to the down and dirty of living my sober and totally kick-ass life. I know I need to continue to focus a good amount of time reading about sobriety, writing about my experiences, and processing daily events, but I think it is okay to stop obsessing about getting sober all the time. I am officially doing it. I give myself permission to think about other stuff sometimes.

• I am choosing to approach sobriety believing that I will never drink again, but when it gets hard I take it one day at a time. I think taking the option to drink totally off the table has helped me. I had to make a big commitment in order to get this far, and it is a lot easier to tell myself a big fat NO when I want to drink rather than letting those sneaky thoughts slip in that I can have just one, or that I really don’t have a problem. No waffling allowed. I can’t drink … it is an absolute. But some days I talk myself through cravings by going one day at a time. I mean, I can always drink tomorrow, you know? It works.

• Certain things worried the heck out of me when I stopped drinking, and now they are no big deal. I don’t miss bars like I thought I would. At first I was so sad … where would I go for fun? I have to say it is such a relief that I don’t really miss that lifestyle. I hope that one day I can go anywhere without wanting to drink, even a bar, but not yet. I am not ready. Some of my friends have stopped inviting me places, and that is okay. Some of my friends have been really great. My point is that it has been different than I expected. Better. The universe has provided me with ENOUGH, and it is a good feeling. The scariest part is just DOING it in the first place.

• I love feeling good every day. I feel healthy, free of hangovers, guilt-free, shame-free. I have a clear conscience, more motivation, and more lettuce in my pockets. My life has less drama. Overall, it is groovy to feel so good on a daily basis. A vast improvement from 100 days ago when my anxiety was absolutely through the roof.

• There are some things that will not change just because I am sober. Quite a few members of my family still have problems with alcohol, and they aren’t going to stop because of me. It hurts and I hate it, but I can deal with it. I am no longer a powerless child like I was when I first started drinking. I am not a victim. I am working on forgiveness with good boundaries intact. I am learning that I control my feelings to an extent, and that I do not control the world around me. This is a work in progress. I think this will ALWAYS be a work in progress. 🙂

I am so freaking glad that I decided to get sober. My life is SO much better already. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 100 days. There are some tough times ahead with the holidays and stuff, but I am picturing how AMAZING it will be to get through them sober. I can’t wait.