Alcohol
My Renewed Sobriety Journey
After a long hiatus
As of writing this article, I am 36 days into my continuous streak of sobriety this year. I started as a sober curious person back in 2020 when my alcohol consumption went through the roof and I was waking up each day with crippling anxiety. I started with a simple google search, “How to quit alcohol,” and bingo, I was directed to a treasure trove of blogs and resources online.
With the excitement of novelty in pursuing a different journey, I started experimenting in late 2020. After a lot of trial and error the following year, and reading countless articles and quit-lit books, I finally managed a streak of 82 days in early 2022. But then the excitement faded, and I fell back to my old habits; though not with as much intensity.
I managed to maintain days and weeks of sobriety between my carefully measured drinks during the rest of 2022 (with the exception of a few terrible days in each month), up until November. Something cracked in that month, and I started the first 4 days in a continuous binge. I woke up on November 5th, 2022 with a hangover so ugly that I thought I was going to die.
Without thinking much about it and merely acting on impulse, I booked an appointment with a therapist that very evening. After spending an hour in her chamber, clearing my heart out, I finally accepted that I have a problem. After a few more sessions, I realized that I have problems, as in more than just my drinking.
So, with the help of this gentle, non-judgemental soul, I devised methods to work on my problems and approached this healing journey on a different note than just avoiding my substance abuse, and instead focusing on what’s wrong within. I did drink for a few more days that month and slowly weaned off the alcohol in December.
My quit date was set for the quitter’s day this year, so I woke up on January 1st with a knowing feeling that I did have my last couple of drinks the previous night. And that Day 1 was by far the most difficult day 1 in my sober journey.
I am 36 days sober now, and things have been different from my earlier attempts. I know I have said this before and failed, but I can feel the difference, and there’s a voice deep within my mind/heart/gut (?) that keeps telling me that this is it. But, I am not jumping ahead in time and instead am razor focussed on my program and working on it each day.
However, let me be clear that it is not any conventional quit alcohol program, instead, it is something I devised with the help of my therapist and with a little input from a couple of very influential books on addiction recovery.
And it has been helpful so far in recognizing the patterns and managing the cravings. It would not be honest of me to say that I have not had a single bad day, so yes, I have had those downs as well; though it has become much easier to navigate those now that I have help.
This is where I am at in my sobriety journey, and I will be writing more than my usual pace this year. This is both to help with my healing as well as to maintain my writing habit. Thanks for reading my ramblings, and following through until the end.
