What I learned about sobriety the first time around (and got to keep for this time)

Happy Sober Sunday!  I had dinner last night with the woman who was my first AA sponsor - she truly hand held me from Day 1 and through the first few days/weeks/months, and she taught me so much about living sober and maintaining a spiritual perspective.  When I got home, I surfed a few sober blogs and saw that a few folks were restarting at Day 1.  Started thinking about what Day 1 is like when it's not your first Day 1, and in keeping with my prior post about 'what I learned about relapse,' I thought it would be good to write about what I learned about sobriety the first time around.  I didn't lose all of that information, either, and it's helpful to me now.  So, in no particular order...

• Mostly what I learned in the first few weeks was how to just not drink - how to 'unhabituate' from wine o'clock and not do something I basically had done almost every day for the preceding 25 years or so, save pregnancy and the early months with little babies.  Unlearning the drink habit was very difficult; I really had to focus on substitute drinks, minute by minute attitude adjustments, 'this too shall pass' and just living through a series of teeth gritted evenings and events (all the 'sober firsts' - first work cocktail event, first biz trip, first boozy family get together, first St. Patrick's Day, you get the idea). Luckily I got sober in March so by the time the silly season came, I had enough sober references that the Thanksgiving/Christmas stuff was not horribly challenging.   This time around, I have the benefit of knowing that this too (whatever THIS is) shall pass, and that picking up a drink will not improve or solve anything, although it definitely will make it worse.  So the 'unhabituating' has seemed a bit easier.  It probably also helps that my relapse lasted about a year, after more than 2.5 years sober, so the habit was perhaps less 'ingrained' than it was when I stopped the first time after decades.  That's not to say it wasn't as difficult to confront and act on the need to stop, only that I had a shorter immediate 'habitual history.'  And I had a sharper awareness of why I wanted to be sober and that I could get and stay sober, something I didn't have the first time around.

• After I got through that initial phase of 'what, I can't drink?!  why not...it's raining, it's not raining, I am happy, I am sad, the cat peed on the couch, the cat purred, the kids are fighting, the milk is sour, that steak needs a good cabernet or it won't be edible...' (there's ALWAYS a reason to drink when you are drinking!), I started to learn about actually living sober - dealing with all the feelings, emotions, situations, responses that I had managed/eradicated with wine.  That is where things get both tricky and rewarding.  Tricky in the initial execution, because it's a shock to confront emotional situations without the ubiquitous edge-smoothing elixir; rewarding because once I lived through several challenges without numbing out, I knew it could be done.  I also knew that I was becoming a better person for it - the real, feeling, responsible adult person I was meant to be, not the person wine was letting me cheat out of living this life.  I know that real, feeling, responsible adult woman a lot better than I did when I first put down the drink in March 2011, because I lived with/as her until October 2013.  I started to like her, trust her judgment, empathize with her, forgive her for the unchangeable past and give her credit for accomplishments, hopes and dreams.  As soon as I poured wine down my throat, that woman retreated to the shadows, behind guilt, shame, remorse, disappointment and hangovers.  BUT...she didn't leave, she just got quiet and fearful UNTIL I kicked the booze out.  Once that was done, I almost immediately got back in touch with my real self, not my wino self.  The awareness I got in those 2.5 sober years didn't leave, it just got wine-logged for a year or so.  I'm grateful for that.

• I learned a LOT about the value and power of gratitude.  One of the things that really helped me string together the first few weeks, then months, then a couple of years, of sobriety was that I became very mindful of how fortunate I am, how great this life is, how many gifts and blessings I receive an a daily, sometimes hourly basis.  Sometimes big things (I am fortunate to have three beautiful, intelligent, funny, vibrant children; I make a nice living; Mr. SR is a loving husband and a good man); sometimes little things (listening to the squirrels chatter in the trees on my street; seeing a beautiful rainbow on my drive home from work; hearing birds chirp first thing in the morning and not needing to go shoot them because the chirping is killing my hangover head).  The key is understanding that a grateful heart is almost never a drinking heart.  And that booze just drowns out all the things that are truly good about this life. I saved that file from the first time around, so I don't have to 'learn' it from the beginning, I just have to refresh it and keep that thought at the forefront.

• Perspective is everything.  When I got sober the first time around, I was very preoccupied with my own situation (Look at me, going to a cocktail party AND NOT DRINKING; how could Mr. SR possibly say such a thing to me when he knows I am NOT DRINKING; these kids are beastly even though I am NOT DRINKING, how dare they), when really - NEWSFLASH - it's not all about me.  Everyone else has plenty of their own shit to deal with, and most of what they are doing is what they have to do to deal with their own shit.  They are not primarily concerned with my shit, and 99% of the time, they could not care less whether I am drinking or not.  That's my story, not theirs.  Getting some perspective on (and trying to empathize with) what is going on with the other gal, guy, or group is very helpful.  If you are feeling down, angry, crappy, grumpy, try to do understand the bigger picture and do something helpful for someone else - it's amazing how this will turn your head and probably get you right out of your own shit and back on the sunnier side of the street.  This is another file that was not totally lost, just dampened and in need of a refresh.

I could go on a lot longer with more like this, but these were a few of the fundamentals.  I suppose the bottom line is that the most important thing I learned the first time around is that for me, sober is better.  Way better, in fact the difference between life and living a wine-stained shadow of life.  I also learned that being sober is not a state of deprivation or missing out, it's the other way around. That's a lesson I get to short-circuit this time around -- it took a while

the first time around, or maybe I never really figured it out and that's a big part of why I relapsed anyway.  But I know it today, and today is what matters (another little lesson learned...).  

Anyway, I am hoping this might help me remember why I am doing this again and that Day 1 (twice this time around!) was very worth it. I also hope it helps anyone struggling with another Day 1, or a series of Day 1's.  You haven't lost everything, you just have to dust off and get back on the sober horse.  The sooner the better, because life awaits and we only get one.  Don't drown it.

Hugs,

SR