The Sobriety Journal: Day 48 — Up and down

Emotions, like life, are cyclical. It’s normal to feel things. It’s normal to have ups and downs, undulating like waves that come into shore and then exit from where they came. Sometimes the waves crash and feel deafening and heavy, and other times you barely notice them.

Something I got used to when I was using alcohol as a crutch, is it could very conveniently — and very frequently, basically daily — numb my emotions. If something wasn’t going well, if I found myself revisiting a trauma or something sad or bad — I would simply drink. It would make that feeling go away, at least until I drank an amount where it would all come back up in a shower of tears, anger and despair that I may or may not remember the next day.

Without the numbing cloak of alcohol to soothe my every negative emotion, I’m left feeling things that I haven’t in a while. Sometimes I am sad for no obvious reason, sometimes I just am not in a good mood. I’m not a moody person, or maybe I am — at times I find myself questioning what’s normal. At the same time, life does have ups and downs and it’s okay to be a bit irritated by silly things.

I realize that I’ve also numbed some fully normal reactions and feelings because of alcohol. Because of the shame of having had so much alcohol the day before, and the day before that — it never felt okay to say ‘I have a headache’ or ‘I’m not feeling great today’ or ‘I’m tired, I’d like a nap’. I had to be a superwoman and always feel GREAT and FULL OF ENERGY and FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC because if not, someone might know that I actually felt like absolute crap because I had double-digit ounces of booze last night and that makes you feel kind of crummy.

I remember working with someone — more than fifteen years ago at this point — and the organization I worked for had a culture that was fairly centered around drinking. She was a senior manager, and she liked to share broadly that she ‘didn’t get hangovers’. It was a badge of honor for her and I remember thinking that she was really cool because of it — where others liked to use their hangovers as a mark of ‘look what I did!’, she was proudly saying ‘I got absolutely smashed and I’m here, feeling great, ready to tell the tale!’ In hindsight, I emulated her for much of my adult life to date, and I have shoved down every hangover, acid reflux, aching muscle/joint and told everyone around me that I was feeling fine and ready to go again!

But now — now I do sometimes not want to do things, not feel up to it, prefer not to. Sometimes being around people annoys me, sometimes I want to be by myself. I have an inner monologue that jokes that I’ve become a cantankerous hermit, and I know I haven’t but that I also kind of have become more introspective, more honest with myself and others about how I’m feeling. Having emotions is scary and confronting and also normal. Not feeling outstanding 100% of the time is okay. Nobody ever expected that of me except for myself, and people who wanted someone to drink with. I realize that now.

Anyways, just some weekend musings. I feel okay. I am okay. Great workout this morning, muscles hurt a bit — they’re meant to when you lift heavy. Your emotions aren’t meant to be even-keeled while your body’s doing this big thing — ridding itself from being used to the toxins you used to fill it with on a daily basis. It’s bound to take more than a minute to reset. The new normal is a work in progress. I hope you’re giving yourself some grace and enjoying your day, whatever that looks like for you. I will not drink with you today.