One year sober

Last night, as I was cooking dinner, I had to stop for a minute and just think about how this night one year ago was so different. One year ago, I had to be taken to the hospital. On October 11, 2017, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. I was diagnosed with pancreatitis and part of my recovery included being put on a 72-hour fast. During this time, I was extremely sick and constantly vomiting. It was horrible.

The reason why I got pancreatitis was because I had been drinking too much alcohol. At that time in my life, I was drinking every day. Sometimes, I would drink a whole 6-pack of beer by myself in a day – and want more. My drinking was really bad. I managed to get through the next day all right but after the sun went down, I was drinking again. It was every single day (when I wasn’t sick) and it was pretty bad.

I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was an alcoholic. I didn’t think I had a problem. But I was, and I did.

Getting pancreatitis put me through hell. I thought I was going to die and then, while in the hospital, I was so sick that I was miserable.

Alcohol did that to me. And if I didn’t stop drinking, it would either happen again or it would find some other way to kill me. Just like it killed my father.  And so, on October 12th, as I lay in my hospital bed, I resolved to never drink again. Of course, the doctor counseled me about this and was very supportive about stopping drinking. I also had to meet with a social worker and a counselor. They were both extremely helpful and supportive.

Since that day, I have not been drunk ever again. I have tried the nonalcoholic beers a couple of times, but they made me sick. So I ultimately decided to avoid those, too. At some point, I decided that I wouldn’t even drink the N/A stuff.

The first month of not drinking was pure hell. I had temptations to drink REALLY bad. I craved the taste of beer, of relaxing with a cold one, and being a “social drinker.” But I knew that if I started drinking again, I could not stop myself. It was not something I had any control over. It was VERY hard to get through that first month being sober, but I did it. I made it through.

The remaining months were hard too, but I found that, as time passed, the craving for the “taste” of alcohol lessened. But I still get tempted to drink every day – mostly because of stress or anxiety. Drinking numbed me to my pain and made me just “disappear” from the world.

But these days, I have learned how to deal with stress in a healthier way. I have learned how to deal with pain and anxiety in ways that don’t involve waking up with a hangover.

I am also sleeping a lot better now. I no longer wake up feeling like I got ran over by a truck like I used to when I was drinking. I wake up feeling rested and refreshed.

When I was admitted to the hospital, I weighed 222 pounds. I wanted to lose 10 of those pounds in a year and I managed to do that at some point, but then I gained back a few of those pounds. I am still working on losing weight but I am grateful for the weight I have lost so far. I really think all that weight I was carrying around came from drinking so much alcohol. I eat healthier now and I drink a lot of water. I am following my own fitness plan and otherwise try to maintain an active lifestyle. Before, I’d be on the computer for HOURS every day. Now I’m not on the computer so much and that’s another thing I am happy about. So if I keep this up, hopefully I will lose the extra weight and get to where I want to be in a physical sense. I am just glad that I am now able to look down and see my feet again! It was a while that I couldn’t do that.

But I am also learning the importance of self-care and self-love. In the past, I didn’t love myself. I actually hated myself for being such a “loser” and for being so ugly and stupid. At one point, I wished I was dead. As a teen, I had suicidal ideation really bad and even once tried to slit my wrist. When my alcoholism got out of hand and I was really going downhill with it, those thoughts and feelings returned. I felt worthless, unlovable and useless. But becoming sober took all that away. It was like I saw myself differently. I loved myself, flaws and all! I felt like I was someone worth fighting for and worth saving. And I realized that it’s okay to love myself, too. Even if other people didn’t. I learned it was okay to put value on myself and make myself – my health and my life – a priority.

So I made it a rule to start taking better care of myself. In the past, I didn’t care about what happened to me. And I didn’t care how other people treated me.

But now I do. I value myself and I love myself. And I take care of myself now, too.

Part of this self-care includes removing toxic things and toxic people from my life. In the year since I stopped drinking, I lost some people. They walked out of my life and wrote me off. But I have to do the same when it comes to people who think it’s okay to bully me, criticize me, crush me and treat me like garbage. I can’t allow those people to be a part of my life anymore. If they don’t respect me enough to treat me with decency or love me enough to understand that I won’t take any bullying kind of treatment, then I just can’t keep them in my life. I can’t have those kinds of people in my circle.

The new me doesn’t allow that kind of treatment anymore. I am no longer anyone’s punching bag or a target of someone’s bullying. I stand up for myself now and I fight for myself now. I only want to be treated kindly, respectfully and with compassion, because that is what I give to others in return.

And just as I expect better of myself now, I expect better of my life, too. I want better things and not continue to live with broken, worn-out things. My standards are higher now. Sometimes I wonder if those high expectations leak into my relationships with other people and, if they are, maybe that isn’t so terrible because it’s part of setting boundaries in keeping toxic, negative and hurtful people away.

I do not write as much anymore these days. These days, I have new goals and new plans. However, I will return to the writing at some point, but only when I am ready.

The biggest lesson I have learned in this one year is that recovery takes time. You cannot rush it and you cannot allot a certain amount of time to it. It can take a very long time to recover from addiction. I have to remember to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Just take it one day at a time. Try to get through the day sober then just keep doing that.

I still battle temptation. It would be so easy for me to go buy booze and get drunk again. But I know if I let myself go back to the old ways, I would have a VERY hard time stopping it. This is why I can’t give in to the temptation. If I give up, then I’ll be lost again.

And drinking again would be like throwing away ALL of the good things that have happened for me since I became sober. Some awesome and amazing people have come into my life and I don’t want to lose that connection. I got a wonderful job, and I don’t want to lose that, either! Plus, my kids are happier now that their mom doesn’t drink anymore. I especially don’t want to lose THAT!

I may be a new person now but some parts of the old me is still around. For example, I still love to read, I still love to drink coffee, I still love the water (oceans, rivers, lakes), I still grieve the loss of my parents, I still love to travel, I still love wolves, horses and dogs, I still love learning about history, and, of course, I still love my kids more than anyone and anything. My kids are my world. They mean EVERYTHING to me. And that love for my children is just one of the things that keeps me going to make sure I don't start drinking again!

Sometimes I wonder if I would ever go back to the old me but then I think about how chaotic and horrible life was when I was a drunk and I realize that things are better now. A LOT better. I never would have imagined the happiness, peace and thrill I now get knowing that I beat that demon into the ground and went after the life that I was meant to live. Life is different now. I am different now. And I think I would like to keep it that way.