Warning: This post might be triggering for someone in early recovery. Please read at your own risk!
Sometimes I miss drinking.
There, I said it.
I’m incredibly fortunate that I don’t get cravings very often – and when I do, I can find ways to distract myself until the urge passes. Unfortunately I’m not always able to go to Target (one of my favorite distractions) or go for a second or third run of the day, but I manage to pep talk myself through. Mantras such as “You didn’t make it this far to only make it this far” and “Sobriety is my superpower” are among some of my favorites. Shoutout to the wonderful people behind the I Am Sober app for including these in the daily motivation that pops up after the app user takes their daily pledge. I am here for positive affirmations like that!
I’m also very lucky that I am so intrinsically motivated (for the most part). I have the utmost empathy for people who require extrinsic motivation. For the longest time, when it came to my drinking and eventual sobriety, I, too, required extrinsic motivation. As I said in a previous post, I was waiting for someone to save me from myself. Of course that person never came. Instead I saved myself. With the majority of things, I can normally get myself motivated or at least start taking small actionable steps. Why I was not able to quit drinking and stay sober earlier on in my 20s or when I made my first grand attempt in 2019 is unclear to me, but I try not to dwell on the “Why nots?” and instead revel in the fact that I am here, I am sober, and I am coming up on TWO YEARS, two whole years, since I last had a hangover, or woke up drenched in sweat and shrouded in shame, or posted something unnecessary on social media, six glasses deep. I am so grateful that I got out when I did – and I hope to never take it for granted or ever go back to that life.
But all of that being said, I am still human and recovering from a decade-long addiction is no walk in the park. When I was on my solo cabin trip in June, I did a fair amount of reflecting: as I was driving, as I was sitting on the cozy front porch with Fuzzy the cat, and as I was on my quest for ice cream. It was during one of these moments of self-reflection that I came up with the alliterative phrase “the rose-colored glasses of recovery.” As with most things, I am sure someone else has had this thought in their sobriety journey but for our purposes, we will pretend that I coined it. I like that it summarizes how I frequently feel when I wish I could still drink; when I yearn to be “normal” and “drink wine like a normal person”; when I take a trip down memory lane to a particularly enjoyable afternoon at a winery or the smell of a really jammy red during a wine tasting; or when I have a harrowing encounter with a black Mercedes SUV on a Friday evening on my way to go run at a nearby park and then completely lose my shit and cry for 15 minutes… In my previous life, I drank after every good day, every bad day, and every day in between. Now, I have had to learn how to cope with my emotions; how to ALLOW myself to cry after that stupid gas-guzzling machine cut me off and then went AROUND me at a 3-way intersection; how to say no; and how to look forward instead of back. It is, at times, the most difficult challenge I’ve ever faced.
My cravings are normally premeditated by something specific: as mentioned, a particularly stressful or depressing situation, or when I’m on a date. Something about the cocktail menu or the wine list, I tell you. I can smell it before it’s even on the table. I had to have known that dating sober was going to be one of the hardest things I did in this new life… Dating sober is tricky, often awkward, and yes, sometimes very isolating. As I describe in this post, I really have seen it all in the 10 months since I started dating again after the sudden break-up with my ex. I won’t belabor the point here, since you can read about it in the other post, but guys are incredibly judgmental about a non-drinker. Which I don’t understand – what’s it to you? This is MY life – but the cynical part of me thinks that it’s for the same reason that Big Alcohol wants women to continue drinking: to keep us quiet and oppressed. (If you have not read Holly Whitaker’s life-changing book, “Quit Like A Woman”, I highly recommend it!) But, as I have expressed frequently on the pages of my blog, I am lonely and I still desire to find Mr. Annie, so the sober search continues. At least “dry dating” has made me far more selective, both about whom I go out with and certainly about intimacy.
I last thought about this topic at the grocery store this past Friday, but as with most things, I “sat” on the post for a few days. I am gaining more clarity and becoming more vocal about my sobriety journey with each day that passes, which I think is a truly stellar sign. For anyone who is wearing rose-colored glasses of their own: fear not, friend. You are only human and nostalgia has a funny way of making us remember only the highlights of those summer days at the winery – and not all the money we spent or the terrible decisions we made or how we went into the office late the following day, because the post-drinking depression was too much to bear. Take comfort in the fact that you are not alone and it’s alright to wear those glasses sometimes, as long as you remember to take them off and put them back in their case where they belong.