This is an opportunity to assert for your needs, and therefore assert your worth. Just because it “seems” like things will never change, that is not actually the case. The nature of life is change, no matter what. How you feel today — no matter how boring, stifling, angering, or depressing it may be — will be different tomorrow. Your feelings will look different in a day, a week, a month, and a year, so look to the future with optimism. One of my college friends used to get drunk and aggressively challenge someone to start naming states so that he could name their respective capitals.
I’ve been where you are, as have thousands of other sober people who had to learn to have a life again after sobriety. Becoming sober isn’t just about abstaining from alcohol. It’s a subversive, hardcore choice to take your life into your own hands. It’s an opportunity to grow into your bones, and every single crap thing that happens to you on the way only makes you stronger. You are a mirror now, a flashlight of sobriety in a society that is laced with the judgment that it’s abnormal to abstain from alcohol. People will assume you drink and will be very curious about why you don’t have a drink in your hand when they do.
He would scream the answers and taunt everyone in the room. To this day, we have no idea why he was so mad. No one seriously challenged him, because no one seriously cared. Having been the person who was leery of sober people while still drinking, I totally get it. Nobody wants to party with the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Alcoholism usually gets progressively worse, and as it does, it’s harder to cut back. It’s more common for a normal person to become a problem drinker than for a glassy-eyed nightmare to effortlessly evolve into someone who has a glass of Sauvignon Blanc with dinner. Because of that, you start to calcify your routines around alcohol, and you lose track of what’s fun besides drinking.
And when I couldn’t seem to get ready in time, or when my purse was a tangle of wadded keys and gum wrappers I felt so bereft. Again, to alcoholics, drinking is obviously the funnest and only fun thing you can do. But tough shit, you have to approximate that chemical high with legitimately good experiences. There are common setbacks to getting and staying sober like withdrawal, craving, and pressure to use.
” Sometimes they stop talking to you altogether. If you’re like most drinkers, you’ve likely surrounded yourself at some point with a group of people who also drink. I’d argue that many of us gravitated to a group of friends who have drinking habits that align with our own, and we did this because we didn’t want sober friends.
Don’t worry if it’s cool or age-appropriate. If the internet has shown us anything, it’s that neither matters. But also, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and get involved in activities around your community.
The first is being sober sucks how much a person is drinking on a regular basis. Adults of legal drinking age should not drink more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men, according to the U.S. Yes, my drunk friend here loves insert person here.
It will hurt (pretty bad at first), but in time you will come to see it as the gift it is—and you won’t waste time getting to know the wrong person. When I was drinking, it https://ecosoberhouse.com/ never occurred to me that I was an introvert. I would have classified myself as someone who loved to be around people and go out with them at night. Thinking back to before I was sober, I usually had to drink to be around people. When I stopped drinking, not only did my recovery dictate that I needed lots of time to myself, lots of self-care, and lots of nights in, I discovered that I was, in fact, someone who relishes in alone time. I recharge when I’m by myself, and I deplete when I’m with others—especially big groups.
Getting sober may seem difficult, but there are strategies you can use to get and maintain sobriety. Some are structured in programs, such as the 12-step approach used by Alcoholics Anonymous and similar addiction recovery programs. But I PROMISE you, if you keep moving forward, things in your brain will start to click. And one day, it will occur to you that you’re actually happy and enjoying your life. Will eating salads and drinking water make your boredom go away? Not exactly, but it can make you feel better, which has a ripple effect on whether or not you enjoy your life.