Hopefully from the title of this article you’ve got the Righteous Brothers song stuck in your head, but sadly this post isn’t about great songs from the 60’s. This one is about the loss of that social crutch called alcohol and how we needed to numb everything we didn’t want to feel. Stress, anxiety, grief, sadness, anger, depression and so on and so on.
Why am I talking about this? Well, I’m beginning to think about why I started drinking.
Was it because I enjoyed the taste? Not really, I never actually enjoyed the taste of any alcohol when I first drank it, so had to opt for those sickly-sweet alcohol pops until my taste buds adapted.
Was it due to peer pressure? In all honesty I think this had an impact on my decision. At the point I started my first job when I was 16, I made friends who were older than me. They went out and drank, so if I wanted to fit in (and I did) then I needed to follow suit and down those cheap nasty shots.
Was it to become more extrovert? If you’d have asked me 6 months before I quit booze if I was an extrovert, I would have said yes. As I write this, I am 7 months into my sober journey and I can honestly say I am not. I’m an introvert who works incredibly hard at being an extrovert. My lively, bubbly persons was helped with a lot of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I can meet a new person sober and generate conversation easily, I am definitely my mother’s daughter. But I have moments of anxiety when I really struggle being around people and get so emotionally drained, I just fall silent and want to go home. This one has been an absolute revelation to me because I always judged myself in such a different way.
Was it because I didn’t know any other way? The clincher, I think! All I’d known was that when you were an adult you drank. Whether it was the influence of TV shows, seeing my own parents or friends and family. To be a grown up you meant you got to enjoy drinking alcohol.
So, after considering all of this I began to wonder why I now found life more difficult since going sober. I’m a women in her 40’s and with that brings a lot of pressure and hormones, especially because of the dreaded perimenopause. In my old life I had a great method to numb how I felt, I just drank a few wines, and all of my hormonal anger and anxiety would melt away. Now I had to sit there with my feelings, ashamed at how I’d just snapped at my husband, with no tools to work it out.
This got me thinking; had I regressed back to my teenage self and now I had to work out how to manage life? For me this is a yes! I’ve loved the social events I have attended sober, but wowzer do I tire easily and feel emotionally drained. I don’t have the capacity to look after myself and tell people I’m ready to go home and leave at a reasonable hour, because I was always the last person to leave. I feel like I’m boring now because I’m not up dancing all night, singing from the top of my lungs. But I could never have done that no matter my age, it was alcohol that gave me the energy to stay up all night and numb the aches from my attempt to twerk.
Most importantly I have no way of dealing with the emotional roller coaster of life and that can be incredibly scary. If you’re nodding in agreement and you’re hoping for a how to list, then sadly I don’t have one. My current method of dealing with pesky feelings is simply to wait them out. Get up and exercise, clean, walk, ring someone, anything that doesn’t involve me sitting there and bawling my eyes out. This isn’t meant to be easy I think, because the reality is that life isn’t easy. But have you considered that whilst you’ve been numbing the bad feelings, you’ve also numbed the good ones?
The Revelation!
Yes, we’ve not only removed anything negative from our lives, but we’ve also done the same with anything that feels good. If you’re like me, after the hangover has subsided and your mates text you with memories of your crazy antics from the night before, you may feel a whoosh of happiness. But what about actually on the night, because in all honesty I cannot remember many of my nights out, who I went out with, what was said or what happened.
But since going sober I can remember it all, the laughter, the conversations, the craziness and most importantly the feeling of love and joy in my heart. After a week of birthday parties, sober meet ups and spending time with family, I realised that after every occasion I came home with the biggest smile on my face. This got me thinking, ‘why does this feel so unusual to me’ because I’ve had busy fun weeks before. The reality is I was feeling it all, there was no numbing down, I experienced the rollercoaster of emotions, but they were all positive and I LOVED IT!
I look forward to trying new experiences now because I know I’ll be filled with nerves at first, but then have that woosh of joy when I’m there.
The reality is that none of us are prepared to be adults, we’re not given a user manual on life. So, we deal with it in the best way possible and in our old lives that was with our drug of choice. Now it’s time to start thinking bigger, because if we want our sobriety to stick, we have to open ourselves to all of the emotions.
My new tool kit involves.
- speaking to my husband about how I’m feeling (it will surprise you how much it helps),
- meditating to attempt to calm my brain,
- exercising to boost my endorphins in a positive way,
- journalling to try and get the thoughts out of my head and
- a regular sleep routine, because you’ll be amazed how restorative sleep helps sort the thoughts in your head.
Hopefully you’ve reached the end of my ramblings and remember I’m not a trained professional. I am simply someone who is struggling like you and hope that my thoughts may help in some way. If they do or you have any opinions on what I’ve said, or you have anything I can add to my tool kit then please comment below.
Remember one day at a time! And keep strong!