[sober scribbles]

making sense of sobriety

[the-final-sentence]

I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me.

Jennifer Niven, from All the Bright Places (via the-final-sentence)

[soberscribbles]

Fucking Bubbles

And on the 23rd day, I accidentally drank champagne. 

No really it WAS an accident! Keep reading. 

We did a mimosa toast to see off a co-worker who's leaving today. I joked that I would only have a "FAUXmosa" - sparking water + OJ - because "champagne gives me a headache."

(Baha - which we all know is total bullshit. Champagne is the best thing ever and the only way to drink it is  was by the bottle.)

Anyway. I was drinking my fauxmosa and it was still really satisfying and no one really cared or noticed, and then it got a bit chaotic as more people came into the conference room to say goodbye. Well I guess my glass got mixed up with someone else's because I took a drink and it was surprisingly warm. Not like, sitting in the sun warm, more like, "these bubbles are hugging my soul" warm. 

I got anxious. I put the glass down. I started to frantically look around the room for my glass and couldn't find it so I presumed the one I had just drank MUST be mine, so I took another sip. "The warmness just must be psychosomatic," I thought. 

But I'm pretty sure that second sip had champagne too. 

So I put it down and just had water.  I briefly contemplated the harm in just having half a mimosa with my bagel, but I quickly realized that once I started, I'd want another one, and another one, and soon I'd be drunk at work at 11:30 in the morning. Not classy. 

So I had one of those moments today where I definitely realized that, despite my hesitance with the label "alcoholic," I do have a problem with drinking and I handle it very differently from most people. 

So obviously I still consider myself sober after my accidental sip of champagne - I'm not questioning that part. But it's just been interesting. This week I practiced not being so isolated. I went out with friends and got ginger ale while they drank beers. NO ONE SAID ANYTHING. THERE WAS NO MENTION. ZERO. 

I was anxious as fuck - but the point is, there were no snarky remarks or comments. The reality is, people just don't care that much. And if they do (like I always did when I was out with people who were not ordering alcohol) then that is THEIR problem. 

So. I have 23 days and lately I've been either feeling anxious or totally emotionless. I'm going to go back to my home group meeting tomorrow morning. I'm hoping that will make me happy, if only for a little while. 

[heal-by-hope-deactivated2013080]

The problem is that you don’t just choose recovery. You have to keep choosing recovery, over and over and over again. You have to make that choice 5-6 times each day. You have to make that choice even when you really don’t want to. It’s not a single choice, and it’s not easy.

Marya Hornbacher (via katesmckinnon)

Needed this today. 

[fandhm]

People will love you. People will hate you. And none of it will have anything to do with you.

Abraham Hicks   (via barbieandken)

[adventurezinsobriety]

When I admitted I had a problem

It felt like this:

[soberscribbles]

one's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

henry miller

[soberscribbles]

the 20-something drunk's greatest dream and biggest obsession

[soberscribbles]

stuck

I'm just...tired. 

Sometimes I'm not up for this. 

(but staying the way I am is like a dog chasing its tail: there's a high in the chase, a wonderful hazy dizziness, but you're just going around in circles not accomplishing anything and in the end you just hurt yourself)

[iloveyoursoul]

[takecareandctrl-blog]

trying to wind down in hopes of a better tomorrow.

[tripping-tulips]

[stolen-air-catcher-deactivated2]

Sh*t 12-steppers DON’T say…

[soberscribbles]

"I think I've had enough."

Hah

[stolen-air-catcher-deactivated2]

The common denominator is that we convince ourselves that, on some level, it will be ok - we can get away with it if we drink. Sometimes we have “reasons”; breakups, success, failure at work/school, Tuesday, rain, snow, summer, weddings, funerals, but they are all rationalizations. Thing is that even if we get away with it once, if we are alcoholics, sooner rather than later, things will revert to worse than they were before. And the thing to remember is there is no guarantee we will come back.

Slipacre on r/stopdrinking (re: relapse)

[manifestabsurdity]

10:49 PM, Sunday, May 5th, 2013

 Change is so gradual that it often takes me by surprise. 

[soberscribbles]

Exactly. 

[herphany]

[soberscribbles]

pro tip

your biggest flaws can also be your biggest assets. and vice versa. 

[soberscribbles]

"Sometimes, we make our own sob stories. We believe that the world is a certain way because of what we were told or what we’ve experienced. Then, we filter the rest of our life through the lens of that belief. It doesn’t mean that we weren’t hurt. It doesn’t mean that people weren’t hurt. It doesn’t mean that our beliefs aren’t justified. It does, however, mean that our beliefs are often opinions, not truths."

Vironika Tugaleva

[soberscribbles]

6 out of 10

I spent the morning watching Lil BUB play and deaf people hearing for the first time instead of going to a meeting. 

I've been shitty about going to meetings lately. 

On the scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is "I can have one drink and be fine" and 10 is "No way, sir. I am an alcoholic," I am at about a 6.

I jump back and forth on the numbers above 5 most days. 

I know there is something fucked up about the way that I handle alcohol, but I'm still not FULLY convinced most days. There are some days, where, yes, I'm like....DUH, YOU HAVE THIS THING...THIS DISEASE...THIS ADDICTION.... OBSESSION, but if you average in the days where I either 

a) distract myself with so much work and other shit that I try not to think about having a problem 

b) think that maybe, one day, after a good hard look at myself, I'll be able to be a normal human

I'm sitting comfortably at about a 6. 

This quote sums it up perfectly, 

I think I'm nervous that I still need to PROVE IT to myself (and proving it to myself comes in the form of what? A DUI? An arrest? Spending all my money? Having sex with ANOTHER dumb, ugly stranger just because he makes me feel pretty when I'm blacked out? Pro tip: people who only like you when you're wasted are a waste of time. I wish I remembered that more often.)

So days when I take a more "examined life" route, I realize that, no, I don't need to fuck my life up anymore to "prove it" - the fact that I need to do that is an indication in and of itself, I think. And this past week was definitely a more "ignorance is bliss" way of living. Which sucked because I couldn't sleep and felt really anxious and irritable because I think it must be a one way street, meaning: once you start examining everything, it's really hard to go back to The Way It Was. 

I just gotta keep going. Because being stuck in this existential rut is no fun.

Anyone reading this who struggles with some kind of addiction, do you ever have doubts that it's real? And if so, what do you do?

How do you handle that thought?