Six, Fucking, Months
The Party is Over- What I've Learned (so far) in Six Month of Sobriety
Today, I have been sober for six months. 26 weeks. 182 days… And the party is over.
Sobriety
I know I have gone away from talking about sobriety in great detail lately. It’s not intentional. It’s just that sometimes I feel like I can only talk about it so much. Some weeks, I genuinely don’t struggle. I feel an element of guilt when I don’t touch on it too much because I guess that’s what people came here for in the first place. But I just can’t keep prattling on with the same shit week in, and week out. The purpose of this blog has always been… me. I do it for myself. So I can process my thoughts. Clean up my mind. Make some room for whatever dog shit tomorrow is going to sling at me. I share it for accountability. I don’t know why, but people come back each week and have a read. It helps me no end. I feel obligated to remain sober in part, because I know I have to come back every Tuesday and publish this blog.
This week though, I did have a couple of moments where I thought about drinking. They weren’t major urges. More a fluttering thought. Picture this, a beautiful spring afternoon on the New South Wales South Coast. Sun is out after a month of cold, wet, miserable weather. It’s Friday lunchtime, work is all but done for the week. I’m driving home, and the warm sun comes through my windscreen, acting as a microphone glass, warming up my chest. It’s these moments where my hand brake plays up. The hand brake is where you allow yourself to consider a thought before you process it. Almost as though I forgot momentarily that I no longer drink. “Man, perfect arvo for tin”. This happened a couple of times over the weekend. I know though that it wouldn’t just be a few arvo tins in the sun, no fuckin’ chance, not at the moment.
Things are getting better, but as a new parent and general fuckin’ idiot grown-up, life just tends to feed us shit sandwiches. We don’t want to eat them, but, sometimes we just have to.
Being force-fed these shit sandwiches are what makes me use drinking as a coping mechanism. Bill’s, uncertainty, trying to stop my idiot dog from jumping the fence, rain making work hard, whatever. There’s a plethora of shit sandwiches in a cupboard somewhere and at any given time life can pin you down by shoving them down your throat. I’ve had a few lately and I can now identify that these are the reason that I think I want to drink. It’s not the sunshine, it’s not the fact that it’s Friday. Those, among others, are just the things that addiction masquerades itself as to get you right where it wants you. I’m pleased that I’ve learned to identify these triggers. It’s a very handy tool to be able to quickly dismiss these thoughts even when they do slip through the standard thought processing system. It’s like a safety net under a trapeze and I’m fucking grateful I’ve developed it.
What I struggle more with though, is sometimes I reminisce about good times I’ve had and they almost always involved drinking and/or taking drugs. As I relive these memories I catch myself smiling or feeling good, and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with making amazing memories, albeit hazy ones, whilst under the influence. Of course, there isn’t. But I still need to remind myself of that. There is something inside of me that makes me feel like shit for remembering something fondly just because I was under the influence. When this happens I get this idea that I’m sad because I won’t ever feel like that again. Sometimes, and it’s not often, I still get frightened at the concept of never drinking again. Almost like I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy myself ever again unless I drink again. I know it’s fucking ridiculous, you do too. But this is how it works. That internal conflict. That logical vs emotional brain shit.
I had both of these feelings over the weekend. We had a whole big stack of family come to visit, most of who were here to meet the young fella for the first time. It was an exciting time and I was fucking pumped for the young fella to get showered in love and affection. I want him to know he has a large family unit who all love and care for him.
Selfishly though, part of me was dreading it. Nothing to do with the people. they’re all fantastic people. This is all on me. It’s just the way of the anxious mind. They were all on holiday, they don’t drink to excess, but they like to enjoy a drink with each other on the rare occasion they’re all in the one place at the one time. I wanted that for them. It’s not their fault that I can’t behave sensibly after having a couple.
The issue for me is, I’m a little too scared to step too far outside my comfort zone at the moment. My routine and trying to avoid situations where people are drinking are what have got me to six months of sobriety. I feel like an asshole, but I just couldn’t allow myself to sway too far from my routine and what has been working for me for so long, to spend much time with them. I still had to work, I still had to do my weekly weekend chores to ensure I was as best prepared for the week ahead as possible. I worry that maybe one day I’ll look back on times like these and wish I made more of an effort to spend time with family and while I did make sure to catch up with everyone and spend some quality time with them all, I just worry that maybe one day I will regret my actions over the last few days. Hopefully one day I get the opportunity and courage to talk to each of them openly about how I was feeling and hope that they understand.
All of this says one thing to me. Something I’ve been getting used to the idea of for some time now. I am not and probably will never be, completely “in the clear”. This shit is going to continue to take work. Sure, I get closer and closer to the maintenance stage each day. But If I let myself believe that one day I will be clear of ever having to actively work at my sobriety, my sobriety will not last.
What I’ve Learned in Six Months of Sobriety
Given I haven’t been touching too much on sobriety in recent times, I thought it was fitting to commemorate the six-month mark by reflecting on some key takeaways from the last six months. As always, hopefully, it helps someone out there.
In my opinion, the below isn’t only applicable to sobriety. I think you could apply these lessons to any form of change you’re looking to make. I’m no fucking expert. I just feel that if I truly want to help people impact positive change in their lives, it would be remiss of me not to share what has worked for me. Some of it mightn’t be helpful to you at all, maybe all of it will be, but if even one person finds one thing I’ve written below helpful, I’m happy.
Accountability
You don’t need to go to AA to get sober. You don’t need to write and share blogs on the internet. What do you need to do? Well, that’s just it. YOU have to do what YOU have to do. I believe you need to find some form of accountability, but only you know what that looks like to you.
When I got sober, I didn’t know I would blog about it. I didn’t even know that this was going to start as a weekly Twitter thread. It just kind of happened. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I had to get sober. I think I was desperate enough to just try it. I was desperate enough to try anything and I just happened to stumble across something that worked for me. As I mentioned above, I felt accountable to the great people on Twitter who would leave supportive comments on my thread each week. The people who reached out to me in my inbox. I felt obligated to stay sober for them. Without knowingly doing so, these people kept me accountable.
As I said above, you don’t have to do the same to get sober. A lot of people have had a lot of success through AA. It’s not for me. I’m not going to give my reasons why because I think AA is an amazing organization that helps millions of people around the world improve their life. I can’t talk shit about them. It works, it’s just not for me, but it could work for you.
If you’re lucky enough to find a friend with the same desire for sobriety as you, lean into that. There is comfort in company. I think that’s why blogging about my feelings has been so good for me. I have finally realised that I am not the only one who feels the way that I do, after years and years of feeling alone in feeling the way I do. The relief that comes from that is incredible. It’s literally a physical weight lifted from my shoulders kind of feeling and I think a lot of people could understand that. It takes a lot of balls to open up about the way you are feeling, but the sooner you do, the sooner you might realise that someone right in front of you is and has been feeling that exact same way. Talk about how you feel, your friend from work, your neighbor, the person from the internet you’ve occasionally interacted with, any of them could be the exact person you need to meet to help you with whatever it is you need help with. But you will not know until you work up the courage to open up about how you feel. It's fuckin’ hard. I know it is. But I promise you it‘s worth it. Put yourself out there, find like-minded people, and use that community to keep you accountable. It’s so much fuckin’ easier in a community. I promise. Be brave.
You Are the Average of the Company You Keep
I fucking LOVE my mates. Love them. I didn’t realise until early adulthood how lucky I was to have a group of mates that I had known for so long. Naively, I thought everyone was still mates with their friends from primary school. It wasn’t until I met my ex when I was 23 that I started to understand that not everyone was as fortunate as I was. My best mate’s kids call me “Uncle Wilson”. I’m closer to some of my mates than I am to my siblings. That’s no knock on my siblings, they’re great. It just is what it is.
That’s why it was so hard for me in the early stages of my sobriety. I knew I had to distance myself from some of my very dearest friends. It wasn’t their fault. At all. They are all great people. The issue for me was because I had been mates with them through my 20s, our relationships were built around drinking. It’s just what we did. I’m not suggesting that any of these people have an issue with drinking or drugs as I did. It was that I associated those things with these people. That was my problem. I used them to tell myself that I was “catching up with friends”. friends are important. You need to maintain your relationship with friends. Subconsciously, I knew it was an opportunity to use substances to wash away my anxiety in a setting where I wouldn’t be judged or criticised for how I chose to do it. To them, just the way I’d always been. There’s no cause for alarm for them if “Wilson” is just doing what he does. I felt comfortable doing what I was doing in their company. I didn’t feel like I had to hide anything from them. I’m grateful to them for this. I feel like they have always and still do accept me for who I am, no matter what stage I am in my life.
I feel guilty to a degree because I’ve had to remove myself temporarily from some friendship circles. It’s not p[personal. Far from. It’s just common fuckin’ sense. In the company of certain people, I tend to allow myself to do shit that doesn’t align with the values I am trying to live by. These days I’ve been able to reintegrate into these circles without the temptation of drinking. the people who I thought would criticise my choices the most have been some of the most supportive. Now that I am sober, I realise that of course they fuckin’ are. They are my friends first and foremost. That means they’ll always support me in doing what I believe is the best thing to do, even if it means we can’t catch up for a little while.
I knew that if I truly wanted to make a fist of this sobriety bullshit, that if I was going to spend time with people socially, it had to be with different people or in a different setting. The last thing I wanted to be doing was locking myself in my house trying not to drink. All I would have done was think about not drinking. Which would have ultimately resulted in drinking. I needed to, initially, at least, find some other shit to lean into so I wasn’t just sitting around marinating in my thoughts. I had a rough idea of things that had somewhat worked in the past for this purpose. I’m not going to name them all this week because I’m kinda getting over the taste of their assholes. I’ve done enough ass-kissing. But I leaned harder into the local running community. I started going to the gym more and talking more with mates who trained at the gym regularly about bullshit gym bro shit. The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you throw yourself into some dumb shit that you used to be critical of. If the goal is to not drink, you just have to do whatever it takes to not drink right?
There are people I’ve reacquainted myself with and met for the first time by doing this who I simply wouldn’t be sober right now had I not done so. It’s been challenging. I have low self-esteem I have anxiety, it’s super fucking hard for me to step outside of my comfort zone and try an alternative to drinking my problems away. But it’s been worth it. I’ve met some people who have legitimately changed the direction and potentially the trajectory of my entire life. Being the humble bastards they are, they’d never take any credit for it, but without them, I’m not here writing about six months of sobriety.
Surrounding myself with individuals who conducted themselves in a manner that aligned more with the way I wanted to conduct myself has had a massive effect on my ability to remain sober. Are they all sober? Fuck no. I don’t even know that any of them are. Some of them even drink the same way my other mates do. I’m sure if the two groups met on a night out they’d get along swimmingly like this…
None of this means one friendship group is better or worse than the other. Again this is about me. I’m so selfish. This is about me and the association I make with certain people. Not the people. Initially, at least, I needed to find some people I could socialise with without associating drinking to excess with.
These days, I’m confident in most social settings with most people. Sometimes I just have to leave a little sooner than I used to and I’m okay with that.
It’s so Fucking Easy and so Fucking Hard.
It sounds cliche as shit, but this shit truly is one day at a time. I have less patience than an unqualified doctor… forget it. I want everything yesterday. I have really struggled with this concept over the years. It applies to so many things. Not just sobriety. Weight loss, fitness, progression at work, studying.
I often have to remind myself of elephant burgers. A play on the old saying “you eat an elephant one bite at a time”. It’s been difficult but I have had to try and turn my whole mindset from stressing about the future, both near and far, and trying really hard to just focus on today. Particularly in terms of sobriety. It’s a tricky balancing act between being conscious that you just have to not drink for today and spending the entire fucking day thinking about not drinking.
Gradually though, it does get easier, and the idea of just being sober for today becomes so much simpler to understand. It’s no different from what people talk about in goal setting. To get to the main goal, you have to set yourself a set of small, achievable goals along the way. I’m truly starting to understand that now. It was fuckin’ hard to understand, and it still is and will continue to be, but I know now that it works. This is how I came to the title of this section. At first, it’s really hard to stay sober for today, some days it’s harder than others. But once you can master that, weirdly, getting to six months is really fuckin’ easy. I don’t understand the psychology behind it. I’m not going to try to explain it. But as I sit here, six months sober, in a lot of ways it feels like it’s been pretty easy, only on reflection do I realise at times it’s been anything but.
Anyone can stay sober for a day. Anyone can eat well for a day. Anyone exercises once a day. I truly believe that when it comes to implementing genuine change in your life, it comes down to one day at a time. Focus on that day. Get it down pat. Repeat that day again and again. focus on that. The milestones will come.
The greatest cricketer of all time, Sir Donald Bradman always said, if you hit it along the ground you can’t get caught. He compiled hundred after hundred by hitting the ball along the ground, taking the runs on offer, and playing it safe. Boring, maybe? Not sure how the Big Bash fans would like him. But he had a clear understanding of his goal and a simple yet effective way to more often than not achieve it. Keep it simple, understand that while a marathon is 42.2 kilometers long, it’s also just one step, 30,000-50,000 times.
Don’t be afraid of that grind mentality. Small, consistent, easily repeated changes. Build momentum, and make it automatic. Focus on the process and you’ll arrive at your goal sooner than you realise. Anyone can do this shit. Anyone.
Gratitude
Gratitude has been enormous for me throughout this whole process. I’ve been trying to practice it for years. It helps to ground me, especially when I am down. No matter how bad I feel, I like to remind myself that I do have great people around me and a lot of amazing opportunities. I also understand that you can overdo gratitude and use it to convince yourself that your issues or concerns hold no merit because someone else has it worse. that’s bullshit. You can be grateful for the good things you have in your life whilst also having thoughts, feelings, and emotions that are justified.
With that, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank some people. Because, as much as I have said a stack of times that this blog is about me, I’m not here sober today if not for the support of others.
So in no particular order, for the love, care, and support over the last 6 months, the last (almost) 34 years, and hopefully into the future I’d like to thank all the people involved with the below.
My family, my extended family, The LPC, Team Crazy horse, The 2 Zoners, Fear The Ant, R4R, W4R, all of my internet friends especially those who reached out at the start and continue to do so, everyone who has subscribed to this her blog to keep me accountable and motivated, my childhood friends, school friends work friends, Substack friends, LinkedIn friends, my partner Thea, Pando and Joey and anyone else I may have missed.
Thank you all. Every one of you has helped in some way to get me to the point I am at right now. I am and forever will be grateful to every one of you. You’ve truly changed my life, hopefully forever.
I want to thank you all on behalf of my son. Not only have you changed my life, but you’ve changed his. You’ve changed the environment he was born into the and environment he will grow up in for the better. So very much for the better. You’ve helped to give him a significantly improved version of his dad and the impact that will have on his entire is truly immeasurable.
Lastly, I wanted to say thank you to my son. Hopefully, you read this one day. Thank you for arriving healthy and happy when I need you the most. For providing me with meaning and purpose when I needed it the most. You’ve already done so much more for me than I think I could ever do for you, but I’m going to do all I can to pay you back, every day for the rest of my life
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I am truly grateful to every one of you. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be sober for six weeks, let alone six months.
The party is well and truly over, and I’ve never been more ready to go ‘ome.
As the great Kostya Tszyu used to say, because he heard the great Jeff Fenech say it, “I am luffink you all”.
Thanks, guys, so much.
X
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Everything is easier in a community
Well done on 6 months Sam and on another great read, cheers