Limping into The Holidays

Things aren't always what they seem. I'm tired of masking and limping towards a much-needed break... from myself

Dec 08, 2023

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about sobriety. It’s not intentional. I write to help myself understand my thoughts, and lately, there have just been other things I’ve felt compelled to write about.

I’ve been sober for 598 days now. Long enough for it to not be front of mind all the time. It’s easy to see this as a good thing. It means I haven’t had cravings or temptations to navigate. But this mindset can sometimes lead you down the dangerous path of complacency. It can lure you into thinking that you have achieved sobriety rather than sobriety being something you practice every day. I believe this type of thinking is what leads to relapse, particularly around alcohol.

The old thoughts of, I’ve had a long enough break now, I can control it now, I’ve learned enough about myself now to not drink for the wrong reasons, start circulating when your regular practice of sobriety meets complacency. I have implemented a bunch of regular, healthy habits that I believe are a part of my practising sobriety.

I exercise almost every single day. I am currently on a streak of 107 days straight. I’ve done daily breathwork every day this year except for maybe ten days. I write in a gratitude journal every night before bed, and I write these blogs to help me empty my brain of the stressful thoughts that used to lead me to substance abuse.

These things are all great and have been the pillars of my sobriety to date. The problem, though, is that I have been naive enough to think that as long as I do these things consistently, I don’t need to worry about my sobriety at all. It’s almost as though I believe that if I do these things, my sobriety will look after itself. This is not the case.

While they are all very helpful safeguards, they alone will not keep you sober. You have to wake up every day and choose to be sober for that day. You have to forget about how long you have been sober and start fresh again. You have to maintain the mindset that while, yes, your sober streak is worth celebrating at times, ultimately, it is irrelevant. You’re only ever a split second away from one poor choice that’ll end your precious little streak anyway, so the attention needs to shift from what’s behind you to what’s in front of you.

If someone were to look at my life over the last couple of months, it would be fair of them to assume that I am cruising along okay. Objectively, things are good. My partner has been back from maternity leave for almost four months now, and I got a significant promotion and pay rise around the same time. After a stressful 12 months financially, we finally have some much-needed breathing room, and while we are far from wealthy, we have enough to pay our bills, spend a little and save a little.

I’ve also been working with a nutritionist for the last few months. I have lost 17kgs. I’m only 1kg away from the lightest I have ever been in my adult life, so I’m not far off running PB’s again. I'm pretty bloody happy, given that a back injury in February grounded me for three months, and at times, I thought I’d never be able to run again.

The business unit I look after at work had its most profitable month in its history in November, around 40% more than the previous best. Obviously, it wasn’t all my doing. Still, for someone who regularly struggles with imposter syndrome, it was nice to feel like I contributed to the business’s success and reassured me, albeit somewhat temporarily, that maybe I know what I’m doing.

I’m growing vegetables again, which is something I absolutely love doing. I’m growing way more than we need and giving around 90% of what I am growing away to the community. Next time you’re at the supermarket, check the price of organic produce, it’s fucking insane. It feels nice to be helping people. The best part is I’ve had my son out in the garden with me, and although he’s only 15 months, and he causes more damage than he helps, he loves it, and he’s getting real fuckin’ good at putting the veggies I cut off the plants into the bucket for me.

He’s going from strength to strength in almost every other way. He doesn’t walk. He fucking runs. Everywhere. He’s such a happy kid almost all the time. He sleeps well, he’s affectionate, plays well with other kids and loves to share. I’m so fucking grateful to have such a healthy, happy baby. Even now, with these arsehole fucking molar teeth causing mayhem in his mouth, for the most part, he is just the sweetest, happiest little boy.

I live in a fucking fantastic part of the world. I’m 600m from the beach, ten minutes from work. We’ve arrived at the warmer time of the year, and Christmas is just around the corner. So yeah, things are good.

But I am fucking struggling. I am tired. Not physically tired. But mentally and emotionally drained. I feel like I am limping towards the Christmas break, and I’m worried that I could have a negative impact on my family’s holiday period because right now, I plan on spending the whole fucking 17 days off inside my house.

I mentioned everything above because I want people to understand that what they see at the surface level is only a small fraction of what’s truly happening in people’s lives.

I wrote about the unexpected suicide of an old friend lately, which, if I’m being honest, I’m still a little rattled by and haven’t ultimately come to terms with. After watching his funeral on the internet, I felt somewhat ashamed of myself for the assumptions I had made about him in recent years, which I touched on when I wrote about it. I, too, was guilty of assuming what I had seen on the surface was all there was going on. But how could I be like that when I, too, know what it’s like to be appearing to be succeeding but struggling underneath that facade? Like the duck seemingly floating on a pond, you don’t see the little bastard kicking like fuck underwater.

Sobriety has taught me the patience not to try to figure out precisely what’s causing me to be struggling right now. I do think, though, that I have lost the link between why I do what I do in terms of my sobriety and mental health. I know I haven’t been doing my breathwork as intentionally as I once did. It’s been more of a box-ticking exercise of late. Do breathwork, and sobriety is easier.

I know that, at times, I have been exercising for the wrong reasons. While I have been working hard on my poor relationship with food and exercise, as I’ve gotten fitter and less hampered by injury, I find myself motivated to exercise because I want to have a good weekly check-in with my nutritionist. This is the exact accountability I went to him for, but I know that, at times, I’m on the borderline of taking it too far. The goal is to learn to eat enough each day not to gain weight, eat good food that makes me feel good, and exercise how I want to and when I want to because I want to.

My sleep hasn’t been the best either, primarily due to reasons beyond my control. My son is teething. He needs me. My partner and I are doing a great job of taking turns being sleep-deprived.

I’ve been spending a bit of time away from home, too. We have been travelling for weddings and Christmas parties for three of the last four weekends. Although we love seeing our friends and families, and we understood that this would be something we would have to do when we chose to move away, it can get a little taxing when you travel so regularly, especially with a toddler.

I’ve also been doing a fair bit of travelling for work. Again, it’s part of the role, but it just so happens to coincide with a period where we are doing plenty of travelling in our personal lives.

On Tuesday this week, I had to head out to the Snowy Valley region (Tumut, Tumbarumba, etc.) to scope some work. It was five hours of travel each way, and I was looking at about 10 hours of scoping work. I packed a bag for the night but didn’t book anywhere to stay. I planned to see if I could return home that night if I had a good run.

I woke up at 3 am, went for a run, popped into work to map out my route, and took off around 7 am. I wanted to avoid staying away. I always prefer to wake up at home than in a cheap motel five hours from home. I had allocated two days to finish the work, so I knew I could afford to sleep in the following day if needed.

At about 4 pm, I was getting a bit tired, and I knew that if I wanted to stay somewhere, I would need to book soon or risk missing out on getting in somewhere. While I was weighing up the pros and cons of staying away, one thought that came to my mind was, “Why not just book a room, go and unpack your shit, have a shower, head to a nice pub, have a few quiet beers, get suitably pissed then head back to your room with a few more beers and drift off to sleep” something I used to love to do, particularly in small country towns. Sitting in a shitty pub, getting drunk, by myself. Then I responded to that thought with, “yeah, maybe, it sounds pretty good, but I still think I’d prefer to get home.

Moments later, I did a mental double-take. Momentarily, I had forgotten entirely that I don’t drink anymore. Usually, when I have a thought like that, this mental wall comes up and reminds me of it. But not this time. It scared me because it was almost like I had no control over my thoughts and, for a split second, had forgotten that I get to choose what I do with those thoughts. As I mentioned at the top, a split second is all it takes to undo every skerrick of work I have put into the last 598 days.

It’s also a timely reminder that this sneaky little fucker can get you at any time. You are never entirely free from it. It will leave you alone for a while if you’re doing the right things, but it’s always ready to pounce the moment you let your guard down.

The thing is, I’ve done the family Christmas thing for the year already. I didn’t struggle one bit. I was far less anxious than at similar events a year ago. Others drinking around me didn’t bother me, and I enjoyed occasions. It was never parties that got me into trouble. It was drinking and using drugs alone where the really dark shit happened, and that is exactly when I was at my most vulnerable earlier this week and had those unwanted thoughts.

I didn’t drink. I finished scoping my work at 8:30 pm. I got home at 12:30 am. I was up with my son at 5:30 am because I knew I didn’t have to do much work that day, and it was probably more important for my partner to get more sleep. I tried. It was the closest call I’ve had in a long time, but luckily, it didn’t get me.

I’ve learned over the last couple of months that I need my time at home. I need my weekends. I’m starting to understand the ADHD trait of masking truly and just how much I do it. From the moment I leave my house to the moment I get home, I feel like I need to be some version of myself depending on where I am going and what I am doing.

Work me, extended family me, me for when my mother-in-law, who is staying in the unit downstairs at the moment. Even socially, the version of myself that I present to one group of friends can be different to the version I present to another. None of them are the real me. It’s stressful and exhausting, but like my friend who took his own life recently, I find it too difficult to be my authentic self around other people, which is probably a whole other blog in itself.

I enjoy my work. I never wake up on Monday dreading going to work anymore, which I am grateful for, as I know many people do. But only since I’ve been sober have I truly discovered the benefits of weekends. In recent months, my weekends have been hijacked by some events that, while I enjoy them, take a toll on me. So, not only am I spending more time wearing a mask, but I’m spending less time than usual with the mask off and allowing myself to breathe.

Sobriety and the things I do to maintain it has had an immeasurably positive impact on my life and the lives of those around me over the last 598 days. I wouldn’t change a thing. But it takes effort and energy to achieve anything, and exerting effort and energy will wear you down, especially if you’re not making time to do the things you need to do to keep yourself okay.

So, these holidays, I’ll be turning inward. I’ll be limping my way in, prioritising myself and my family. Don’t be afraid to be selfish with your time these holidays. We work 48 weeks of the year and only have four weeks off. That’s less than 10%. I have wasted so many years’ worth of holidays doing dumb shit and returning to work the following year feeling worse than when I left. Don’t let other people pressure you into using your precious time on shit that doesn’t serve you.

We’ve had bushfires, floods, three years of COVID-19, and interest rate rises on top of our regular stress. Be kind to people. Looks can be deceiving. The person you’re hounding to come to the pub who seems reluctant might be the duck who looks calm but is kicking like crazy underwater on tired legs. Maybe they’re just trying to get to the bank to lie down and spend some time with their mask off.

Cheers Wankers.

Limping into The Holidays

Things aren't always what they seem. I'm tired of masking and limping towards a much-needed break... from myself

Discussion about this post