41 Weeks of Sobriety- Setbacks

The worst week I have had in a long time.

Jan 30, 2023

Today I am 41 weeks sober. 287 days.

Sobriety

I went to my first music festival as a sober person on the weekend. Summer Salt is a small, relaxed festival that allows kids to attend. We thought it would be an excellent opportunity to do something as a family. Take a trip up to Wollongong, see some great live music, and take a bit of a break after a hectic holiday season that had running around flat out with our Airbnb downstairs.

I was particularly excited to see City and Colour. I listened to his/their album “Little Hell” a lot when I was going through some tough times years ago, so some of the songs played had a particular sentimental value.

It was a beautiful afternoon at Thomas Dalton Park, right on the beach. I was concerned it was going to be way too fucking hot to be standing in the scorching heat, especially with a temperamental five-month-old. But being right by the ocean provided us with a perfect breeze so we could enjoy the heat without it being overbearing.

Other acts included Ben Harper and Angus and Julia Stone. With the festival permitting children and the nature of the acts playing, it was definitely geared towards the older (young families and over?) demographic, older in terms of music festivals anyway. It was undoubtedly a little different to the festivals I used to go to, years ago.

I should have been excited to get away and spend a nice aro/evening with my family at a cruisy little festival, but the addict in me took me to a place I hadn’t been in a long time. It’s not that I struggled terribly or had to fight WITH GREAT FUCKING GUSTO to resist the urge to drink. It’s just that I have been cruising along so nicely of late. I wasn’t expecting a little, laid-back, almost folk festival to present me with any real challenges, but they were the most real cravings and urges I have had in a very long time.

The strangest part was it wasn’t even at the festival itself that these cravings presented themselves. It was in the car on the way there. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the monotony of driving. First, I had the thought that I could have some of those fancy zero percent beers, something I never do and don’t particularly have an interest in. Then I had the thought that maybe I could just drink. It was the first time in a very long time that I’d had such a blunt, straightforward thought about drinking. Like I had forgotten entirely that it was something I don’t do anymore.

Once I caught myself having that thought and told myself how ridiculous it was, my brain fired one last dying shot… “Maybe you should just get a bag, just do coke. You can be sober still. You just won’t be ‘clean’“. A fucking ridiculous concept because I HATED being on drugs and not being drunk, and I knew it. I used to have a rule, no lines until I’d had six beers because I would get too anxious if I weren’t drunk enough to enjoy the drugs.

Maybe it was that mental association with music festivals. In the past, I wouldn’t go near a music festival without being on drugs. When I was 19, I went to Splendour in the Grass. I had a gram of speed in my pocket. When I got closer to the gate, I saw police dogs and got scared. I thought about throwing it away, but that was worth a lot of money to me back then. So I just ate it all in one go. Intense day.

Maybe it was the association with the area. I left Wollongong a little over four years ago. I had just gone through a pretty average break-up. I was working away a lot, making good money and then spending my weekends snorting all that money into the back of my brain.

I guess it doesn’t matter. I managed to catch the thought and remind myself of how fucking ridiculous it was. I was taking a baby to a cruisy little folk festival by the beach, and we managed to have as fuckin’ lovely little time.

Initially, I was disappointed in myself for having such a thought. Like, what the fuck was I thinking? Because it had been so long since I’d had such views, I guess I was out of practice. I had to remind myself that I was not my thoughts. I can’t control them. I can only control how I react to them. So now I’m disappointed in myself for being disappointed in myself for having the thoughts because it’s nothing to be disappointed about! Say that sentence as fast as you can five times. Some real inception, disappointment, shit.

The point is, it doesn’t matter how good you are at something or how far you’ve come. Everybody has bad days. We are always somewhat vulnerable to negative thoughts. We only have so much control over when we have them too. Some might argue that we have no control over it at all, but I disagree here’s why.

Practice What You Preach

I talk a lot about getting the little things right every day. Focusing on them and the rest will look after themselves. It’s something I strongly believe in. It’s also why I think I struggled with those negative thoughts on the weekend.

Last Sunday night, I had some personal stressors that impacted my ability to fall asleep. I also made a minor adjustment to some medication I was prescribed under the guidance of my doctor. Of course, the two things happened on the same day, Murphy’s Law. I spoke about this at length in my second blog last week. Click here to read it.

I fell back into a trap where a bad night’s sleep turns into another, and another, and another. In the past, I would freak out about being unable to sleep. I have an irrational fear of being tired the following day. It’s something that hasn’t happened for some years now and something that I thought I was over. I didn’t think I would feel that way ever again.

It’s difficult to describe, you are so fucking tired, but the moment you lay down, you just know you are not getting to sleep. It’s all you can think about. Over the years, I have tried everything. You are counting breaths, counting sheep, imagining driving around my local area, all sorts of shit.

As panic sets in, time goes faster. You start to stress about how you will cope the next day. I guess since I’ve been so habituated and process driven in recent months, it was even worse this time. How can I go to the gym before work if I don’t get to sleep early enough? How will I be in a good mood for the day if I don't get to the gym and get that endorphin release? What if I get fat because I didn’t go to the gym for one morning? All the fucking dumb shit, all of it, it’s as real as it is ridiculous. It’s like you think the world will end if you have a terrible night’s sleep.

I guess I have some kind of irrational fear of being tired that I’ve never gotten over, or maybe it’s associated with the abandonment feeling I got when I was the last one in the house still awake as a child. Either way, I’ll definitely be raising it with my psychologist when I see her again next month.

Sleep, fucking, matters. It drives all that we do. Maybe this little setback is the universe punishing me for annoying everyone on Twitter with dumb polls about their sleep, which, ironically, I posted in the week before I started struggling.

The knock-on effect of poor sleep is real. I slept poorly for four nights straight. Last night (7 days later) was the first night I slept reasonably well. Until I slept poorly, I had only missed one exercise day in January. Last week not only did I go two days without exercise, but I also didn’t track what I ate. I felt like the breathwork I did every morning was less effective. I had less focus and spent a lot more time than I usually do, catching my mind wandering and bringing my focus back to my breathing. I was grumpy and in a negative mindset and made poor decisions.

I can’t help but feel like all of this contributed to the negative thoughts I had on Saturday while driving to Wollongong. I’m grateful that through the work I have done so far, I was able to dismiss them quickly enough for them not to negatively impact my trip away with my family. However, it serves as the perfect reminder that if I don’t ensure I do the little things right every day, I will find myself in more vulnerable situations.

It’s a delicate balance where you need to be mindful not to be too hard on yourself, swim with the tide, not against it, and be as malleable as you can while maintaining a solid, healthy routine full of all the good shit. I’m no expert, and I’d argue that no one will ever truly have their routine, or life for that matter, wholly dialled in because things are constantly changing.

I guess I need to look at the positives. I have recognised a couple of reasons why my sleep was poor and worked towards fixing them. Yeah, I had some cravings and negative thoughts, but I could identify them for what they were and only pay them the attention I wanted. So let’s chalk that up as a win, eh?

All I know is that we have to keep showing up each day and chipping away. Doing what we believe is right and good gives us the best opportunity for success we can.

Cheers Wankers.

41 Weeks of Sobriety- Setbacks

The worst week I have had in a long time.

Sobriety

Practice What You Preach

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