Have you ever been curious about the benefits of living alcohol free?

Before I began my own, I always wondered what where the benefits of living alcohol free for 30 days, 60 days or longer. I would Google “alcohol free for 30 days and results” and constantly read others’ success stories.

So I’m very happy to share Andrea’s recent experience of removing alcohol from her life for 30 days – and the surprising benefits she experienced in her own words!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and purchase. 

10 Benefits of Going Alcohol Free For 30 Days

Benefit 1 – Reading Lots More:

I read. A ton. When I drink I can’t read. Not like all functionality disappears, but I never got very far sipping a drink and reading at the same time. Now I’m plowing through three books:

• • When Helping Hurts
  • It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
  • The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober

Benefit 2 – Saved Lots of Calories:⁣

I have saved at least 5,100 calories. Based off of one IPA at 170 calories x one drink per day (and you know you don’t always drink only one).⁣

Benefit 3 – Lots of Hangover Free Mornings:⁣

I have had 30 blissful, fully-awake, hangover free mornings! It is such a special gift to meander out of bed at the first light of day to realize, shoot, I feel amazing!⁣

Benefit 4 – Lots of Cost Savings:⁣

I have saved $102.60 this month on alcohol (I can share the math with you later if you want).⁣

Benefit 5 – Lots of Yummy Food
⁣

Food tastes better. There is so much information out there on “pair this drink with this food,” but alcohol actually numbs your taste buds so you’re not even tasting food to the full.

Benefit 6 – Less Anxious, Sad, Angry and Tired⁣

I’m less anxious, less sad, less angry, and less tired. This one point alone is reason enough for me not to drink.⁣⁣

Benefit 7 – Weekends have changed

My weekends have changed. Instead of being led around by, “where we gonna drink today,” my outlook is “what adventure awaits us that I haven’t even noticed before?”⁣⁣

Benefit 8 – Inspiring Others

I have had a positive impact on the drinking habits of those around me. I know of at least one person who is drinking less because of my sober journey.⁣⁣
⁣

Benefit 9 – Enjoying a Wellness Journey

I am experiencing pride in the value I am placing on my own wellness. I am honoring myself with sobriety, and as I continue to walk it out, it feels more amazing. And my confidence has grown in this. ⁣
⁣

Benefit 10 – Community

I have discovered a wealth of community available on Instagram who challenge, lift up, and inspire.

The post 10 surprising benefits of living alcohol free first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

Lest you think I am starting the new year with a bad attitude, I’m here to tell you I woke up full of piss and vinegar. That could be because I am actually on steroids. I went to an orthopedic surgeon yesterday, convinced I had bone cancer, only to find that the radiating pain in my hip was probably caused by, “Years of doing what you love to do…”.

For example, hiking up hills, running on the beach and the wearing of four inch heals. That, and a lack of space between the round ball of my hip bone and the socket it fits in. I am a bit crooked. I have lost range of motion in “bound ankle pose”.  I am occasionally in enough pain to limp piteously.

When an alcoholic is in pain…

To put this in the proper perspective, I have not been to a doctor in ten years. The whole process is so rarefied, that even filling out the insurance forms seemed novel and “fun”. I asked questions. And I couldn’t help but think of the opioids lined up like fluffy, white rabbits with fangs, on a shelf somewhere. I was asked three times, even before I made it to the examining room, what I took for the pain.

My response, “Um, nothing? Maybe an Advil gelcap when it hurts really bad?” was met with looks of incredulity. It occurred to me that most people take pain medication when something hurts… As an alcoholic, it’s weird I suppose, that I have always avoided medicine of any kind. Other than the three bottles of elixir I used to drink per day, of course…

To the young man who took my vitals (excellent), I said, “I’m an alcoholic so I can’t take anything, you know, strong…” It felt like TMI, or at least like I should have had the proper name for what I couldn’t take. Narcotics? Opioids? Oxys? Corticosteroids? I’m an addiction professional for God’s sake!

To the x-ray technician I said, “I wish this would just go away…” She laughed, but I meant it. Miracles occur, why not me?

Bone Daddy…

I waited in the appointed room, with my x-rays pinned to the light box like a Damien Hirst exhibit. My hip and back bones looked fragile and lacy. It made me feel tenuous. As if a wrong step might snap my underpinning and I’d clatter to the ground like old pottery.

An hour and 1/2 later, I didn’t care anymore. I had studied my infrastructure ad nauseum, and sped read six Hello magazines (Megan Markle is divorced). I played with the models of joints. I thought about Tom Hager’s cyanotypes. I looked out of the sliver of window like a prisoner on the Bridge of Sighs… I just wanted out of there.

I mean, doesn’t everyone think of Thomas Hager’s cyanotypes while at the orthopedic surgeon’s office? Thomas Hager “Departure” cyanotype photograph.

When the great man arrived, I amused myself by thinking of him as Bone Daddy. He was actually super cool. And, get this, one of the first questions he asked was, “Has there been an alcohol problem in the past?” I nodded yes. “Are you an alcoholic?” Bingo…

Apparently my dicky hip could be caused by excessive alcohol consumption. The gift that keeps on giving, right?

I performed like a trained bear in one of those sad, roadside carnivals for Bone Daddy – over-anxious to please. I bent at the waist and touched the floor. I duck stepped in place. I lay on my back while he twisted my legs like pipe-cleaners. Does that hurt? How about that? 

Stoic or scared straight?

The doctor said I was “stoic”. That most people would have been shouting at him to stop when he pushed my knee to my chest even though it didn’t want to go there. But, I don’t feel stoic. And as with each new experience I have in recovery, I tried to process.

The bottom line, is that those of us in recovery must advocate for ourselves.

I have developed a condition that begged the alcohol question, but what if I had said, no? I volunteered the information about my alcoholism to anyone who would listen, but what if I didn’t? As it turns out, I left with a dose of Prednisone mild enough for “pregnant women.” And a prescription for an anti-inflammatory that “also coats the stomach”.

But I keep thinking about the question, “On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your level of pain?” What if I had said 10? Alcoholics are used to under-reporting. How many drinks a day? One? I am suggesting we also try to accept a bit of discomfort, when the fix is potentially addictive. And don’t be embarrassed by the TMI. 

In this case, too much information is a good thing…

E2E – I’m BACK…

The post An Alcoholic Walks Into a Pain Doc’s Office… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I just read an article by William White about the difference between Relapse Prevention (RP) and Recovery Management (RM). In a nut shell, he opines that one focuses on “deficits and vulnerabilities” and the other on “assets”. RP implies we are running from monsters (waking up the ghost?). RM suggests we are “being positively drawn toward something of great value of one’s own choosing.”

The four-year experiment…

It came at a perfect time. Because, I was reflecting on the Thanksgiving weekend and my own, four-year psychosocial experiment in sobriety. And I was feeling pretty full of myself this morning. In fact, for the first time in four years, I actually broke my typical cycle. I think I have begun to trick my own brain!

Let me explain.

My son Jonathan and his girlfriend Kallie were visiting. And it was a fantastic weekend of family, hikes, great food and conversation. Even the Up North winter cooperated with unseasonable warmth (other than the 25 mph winds off Lake Michigan).

Jonathan asked me if it was still difficult for me to be with people who were drinking. He wanted to know if I still craved wine – if it was still an “issue for me”. (This asked while he sipped a Coppola Cabernet…) I answered truthfully, that I never thought about drinking anymore. It took a long while, but I have not had that out-of-nowhere, punch in the gut desire to DRINK! in about a year…

What I have done, is replace my addiction to wine with candy, coffee and food. And exercise. Hiking in the Michigan wilds has been a staple of my recovery, and I talk about it all the time. But, so has anesthetizing myself with the fast food equivalent of white wine shooters in the glove-box. That, I don’t talk about much…

Cultivating wellness…

Yesterday, Jonathan and Kallie left at 4 AM. I experienced the usual feelings one feels – tired, a bit lonely, a touch of anticlimax. And I also experienced the feelings that plague the person with a substance use disorder. That empty, bleak, icky feeling that used to send me to bed with a jumbo bottle of chardonnay and a party bag of M&Ms.

I have to admit, when I got home I felt the momentary desire to eat up the frayed remains on the charcuterie plate. And I wanted to scrounge for anything containing Karo syrup. Stuffing my mouth with processed, sugary foods has been my go-to panacea to fill the void since I quit drinking.

But after a nap and a cup or two of coffee, I had the out-of-nowhere, punch in the gut desire to go for a walk. It was a beautiful, sunny day. And I had no desire to hole-up and eat. The feeling was so shocking, I didn’t quite know how to handle it. I even opened the refrigerator and looked inside to test myself. Rattled the Skinny Pop bag because I am a glutton for punishment. Nothing. 

Talk about being drawn to something of great value of one’s own choosing…

Learning positive reinforcement…

The only explanation I have is that after four years of sobriety and two years of actively trying to rewire my brain – it is working! When I had the moment to fill an empty day, I chose the positive reinforcement of a walk.

Recovery is so much more than just not drinking. So much more than looking over one’s shoulder for the next relapse. It requires an overhaul of an entire life. And positive, healthy choices after the cravings for alcohol or other drugs dissipate.

Bill White says, “If recovery is more than the removal of alcohol and other drugs from an otherwise unchanged life, then the focus of recovery support interventions should shift from a strict RP focus (a process of problem subtraction) to an RM focus on achieving global health (a process of addition) and increasing one’s potential for a both personal fulfillment and social contribution (a process of multiplication). There is a difference between the prevention of illness and the promotion, achievement, and transcendence of wellness.” Relapse Prevention, Recovery Management, Recovery Transcendence – William White

I might not be at transcendence yet…

Full disclosure. I came home from the walk and ate a bag of Boom Chick a Boom caramel and sea salt popcorn. I also watched some smutty TV. But the difference is that I was not compelled to do so. And although I am a work in progress, my brain is rewiring in the right direction. The fact is, I like popcorn. Almost as much as the choice to walk along the lake on a cold, bright new day.

E2E – We always think of your well-being…

The post Alcohol Recovery Management or How to Trick Your Own Brain… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

My four year sober anniversary came in like a lamb. I only remembered it, because Lauren sent me a text to congratulate me.  And other than being a mother (and for a while a wife) I haven’t maintained interest in many things for four years straight, so I should have been jazzed. Maybe the milestone fizzled because I drank as a hobby and later, as an avocation, for at least ten years. So by comparison it’s small potatoes.

Or maybe it’s that my sobriety has settled…

…and I’m not dealing with those punch-in-the-gut demands to DRINK anymore. So I don’t feel so full of my sober self at this milestone. It’s been six months since the last time a Bob Marley song or a walk through an airport or the smell of Aqua di Gio Pour Homme (don’t ask) has made me crave a tall, icy glass of chardonnay. Reading the words “tall, icy glass of chardonnay” doesn’t even make me salivate.

I don’t want to negate the degree of difficulty in getting and staying sober. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. There will always be a little piece of me that feels “missing”, but I am comfortable as a sober person now. And my life is so much better, I can’t even muster the resentment I used to wear like a cheap suit, because I couldn’t swill white wine anymore. I have learned there is always a worse case scenario, always something to be grateful for.

And I do not want to drink.

I work for an addiction treatment center, so I am around folks who are new to recovery all the livelong day. And at My office, in the marketing group, we are always researching the cutting edge treatments, methods and modalities available to increase the national averages for successful long-term recovery. I have found that you really have to want to get sober. No one can do it for you. I have also found you have to be ready to slay the dragon when the words, “I’m going to drink” pop into your head at inopportune times (and they will).

Four things I know for sure about getting and staying sober:

1. You Simply Must Find a Passion (If You Are Able – Get Physical)

I am convinced that long term sobriety must contain a passionate interest in something outside of oneself. For me it has been writing and hiking. Seriously. I am still saved regularly by a comment on this blog or a rigorous walk with friends (or alone). I have started a walking group, and I can see the positive influence an early morning, city trek can make on a day in treatment.

And if the passion is physical, I think it works even better for quelling the cravings. Statistics show that rigorous exercise and challenging yourself will increase your chances for long term recovery.  Fill your hands with something and get the heart pumping. You can mountain climb, but you can also walk dogs at a rescue shelter or garden. Or for a double whammy, become a docent at an art museum and take the stairs.

Passion is defined as “strong and barely controllable emotion”.  Yes. Find that.

2. We Are All in Control of Our Own Lives

I hear from people all the time who say things like, “It was my sister’s wedding. They made me drink.” Or they might say by way of excuse, “My cousin died,” or “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that Kid Rock concert,, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t cancel…” This “excuse-thinking” is something I can relate to. Because I did it for years. I am reminded of the plastic bag in the movie American Beauty. Born on the winds as it dances with no direction of its own.

All my drinking stories used to begin with the words “I ended up”, as if I were not responsible for crawling out of a ditch after drunkenly crashing a golf cart. My bad? The fact is, we are not pushed around by capricious winds. We are in control of our own lives. And here’s the kicker – shit still happens, temptations abound even when you are sober.

3. Nature Has the Power to Save You (God is in His Heavens…)

One of the reasons I am so passionate about hiking, is that I am humbled by what I see in nature. There is something about standing alone on Guana Reserve beach before a storm that makes me feel large and small at the same time. In my mind, it is impossible to deny the existence of God, while rustling through the Michigan Up North in Autumn. 

In the excellent book by Interventionist Jeff Jay, Navigating Grace, he describes exactly that feeling during a solitary moment on the deck of his boat. He says, “I was standing on the deck, leaning back against the shrouds, looking up into the Milky Way, musing on the Universe. Here I lived in a tumble of stars, sharp and silent as the night, a thousand visible and a billion more I couldn’t make out… …And here I was, an infinitesimal being standing on a sailboat.” Beautiful.

Jeff (who is obviously farther up the ladder to heaven than me), says he can get that feeling on a city street too, or having coffee with a friend. But it is in a natural setting, in solitude when my path becomes clear and my troubles very small by comparison. I want you to have this feeling, no matter what you believe – this epiphany that is seeing the trees and the forest.

4. Find a Way to Be Accountable to Someone or Something

I am a card carrying loner and a natural at isolation. All my heavy boozing took place behind closed doors. A wise psychologist (who I summarily ignored and lied to at the time) once told me, “Marilyn, it is dangerous to not be accountable to something.” At the time I was newly divorced and swanning in the Exumas like I owned the place (I should have, for all the dough I threw around like a drunken sailor…). The truth is, I didn’t really listen to any good advice, and I was getting some from Kim and Dee…

I think this is where AA comes in. Or a church or another 12 step or recovery group. If you can find a community where you feel comfortable and will be missed if you don’t turn up, it is a positive move for your recovery. Create a schedule. Join a book club or a walking group.

It is also the place where mended family fences and work relationships can assist. I advise anyone who is serious about getting sober to tell every single person who is important to them they have quit drinking You would be surprised how resistant most newly sober people are to doing that…

I’m Still a Grasshopper…

In the grand scheme of sobriety, four years is not a long time. And time is certainly my sober buddy. After five years of sobriety I can feel a little more comfortable that the statistics are with me on maintaining my place on the wagon. And the longer I am sober, the smarter I feel. The more secure in my own health and wellness. Maybe I don’t have all the answers, but I have four.

I can’t say, “Whoopee! I got sober, found the love of my life, lost 20 pounds and I can do a cartwheel now!” But I can say, “I have found myself. I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing.”

And I don’t lie anymore. So that’s the truth.

XXXOOO, M

The post Four Years Sober – Four Things I Know For Sure first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I was driving around yesterday, picking up obscure items like those things you stick to the floor of slippery tubs so you don’t fall while taking a shower and knock yourself out and drown. I saw a sign on a billboard on 28th Street. The sign read, “I Forget the Last Time I Forgot”.

Brain Teasers…

That is the kind of brain teaser I usually can’t get out of my head. And it was especially meaty, because it was in front of a sad looking import shop.  I can picture the boss saying, “Get a message up on the sign out front that will drive traffic in here.” And some poor guy, with a handful of plastic letters chose this unsuitable aphorism.

Maybe he’s a recovering alcoholic.

Because, this recovering alcoholic can relate. It occurred to me, it has been ages since I have forgotten what happened the night before, or blanked out a conversation I had or unrecalled buying a puppy on the internet. That horrible, hollow feeling when the kids are saying, “Mom. You said we were going to Disney World today. Remember?”

Why Does too Much Booze Make you Forget?

According to an article by Denise Cummins Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “When the body’s alcohol level rises too high too fast, memory functions are impaired. The hippocampus, a brain structure that is crucial for transferring information from short-term to long-term memory, is impaired at a cellular level. The resulting amnesia can be en bloc (can’t remember anything) or fragmentary (bits and pieces something can be retrieved with proper cuing).”

And females are particularly at risk for blackouts.  Dr. Cummins says, “This is because females tend to weigh less than males and have less water in their bodies to dilute alcohol levels. They also have less of an enzyme called “alcohol dehydrogenase” in their guts to break down a small percentage of alcohol before it even gets into the body. Females also are more likely to skip meals to save calories when they drink, so there is less food in the stomach to help absorb the alcohol. As a result, more alcohol reaches the brain, where it plays havoc with sensory and memory functions.”

It is not exactly clear how alcohol creates a memory “blackout“. And the amount of  alcohol required to impair  memory and potentially cause a blackout, can vary. The type of alcohol, and the amount consumed is significant. If you are pounding moonshine, don’t expect to have sharp recall of how you got home (or to someone else’s home…).  And the faster you drink, the more impact there is on the brain and memory.

Mornings are the BEST Part of Being Sober…

I have said it before, but I’ll say it again. Mornings are the greatest part of a sober life. There is nothing like opening one’s eyes and feeling clear, clean and honest. And my memory is sharp enough now, I’m the one who recalls the details and says, “Remember?”

There seem to be benchmarks in alcohol recovery. At three or four months, the effects of post-acute withdrawal (PAWS) begin to dissipate. At two years, or “advanced recovery” cravings and triggers have less impact. And at 5 years the relapse rate drops from a whopping 75 percent in the first year of recovery, to 7 percent. People who successfully complete a formal treatment program or an intensive outpatient program (IOP) have higher recovery rates than those who do not. And day by day, benchmark by benchmark, the brain rewires.

For me, at four years sober, yesterday was another benchmark – marking that I’d forgotten I don’t forget anymore. And for a minute, as I ran normal, everyday errands I remembered there was a time when I would have run the same errands with wine shooters clinking in the glove box.

Best not to forget that…

The post I Forget the Last Time I Forgot… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I told Christine that I had just experienced the “move from hell.” She said, “Your last move was ‘the move from hell’ wasn’t it?” Which is kind of true, but also made me feel like my horrible moves are somehow my fault. As if I don’t have the moxie to pack my own belongings, or the strength to navigate flights of narrow stairs while juggling breakables. Like I’m fabricating these hellish, move-a-day outcomes to make a better story.

 

I had this idea to get cute photos of me perched on boxes for this blog. That crazy Mare – recovery on the move again!  But after the fortieth trip up three flights of stairs to get my hanging clothes, I didn’t have the heart for it. So there are no pictures of before and after. Suffice to say I am relocated. And I look like I used to look when I stayed out late drinking and fell down a lot.

 

The offending daybed, now in a garage…

 

I had help…

And it’s not like I had to do it all myself. I had a moving company for the heaviest lifting. But I am sitting here with a body full of bruises and a head full of horror stories to tell. Come on, who has a 4 to 6 hour estimated move take 12 hours? Who has the smiling waif of a moving boy drop 500 pounds of wooden cabinet on the cement stairs and break it into pieces?

 

And who stage manages two enormous, decorative “key pieces” of furniture out of the bell tower of a refurbished church, only to have them founder on the impenetrable entranceway of the new apartment (ne historic home). And what does one do when the movers (after trying two stairways and twisting the furniture every which way but loose) look at you and say, “We don’t know what to tell you lady, but this won’t fit and we can’t put it back on the truck.” At that point, I was tired of sweet talking, cajoling and demanding. I just didn’t care. But, it’s not like putting a rickety end table at the curb for someone to dumpster dive.

 

These pieces of furniture are so large and unwieldy you need, well, a moving truck to move them. Luckily, my new landlord owns cattycorner mansions. I mustered enough charm to negotiate temporary space in his garage across the street, and got Niles and Clem to carry my behemoths to yet another location.

 

Unpacking the shot glass collection and all those flasks, again…

And why my friends do I keep packing and moving my shot glass collection? Hoisting box after box of brandy snifters and my Grandfather’s Waterford sherry flutes? And why can’t I just throw away those gag cocktail napkins, whiskey flasks and the wine glass that holds an entire bottle? I don’t think there’s any nostalgia for the days when I carried a wine goblet like an affectation. So why not toss the alcoholic’s accouterments?

 

I’d like to say this is my final move. That I will never move again. But the truth is, this move is just the next step in my resurrection/recovery (I have a fireplace!). There will be moves in the future and more stories to tell. But I need that neat, little book by the Asian woman who helps people all over the world organize their dross (keep/give away/throw away). I need to keep only those things that “bring me joy”.

 

Which reminds me, it does not bring me joy to schlep all those extra wooden hangers and the throw pillows that keep multiplying. And for God sake Marilyn, you will not be hosting a martini buffet anytime soon, so give away the martini glasses. Give them away. They do not bring you joy…

 

Today I’m not drinking, because I am moving again and keeping only those things that make me blissful…

How come you’re not drinking?

E2E I hope you are finding joy…

The post Moving the Shot Glass Collection Again… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

In the end, the reason I decided to move was because of a shower curtain rod. There were lots of reasons I can list, now that the decision is made, for leaving my apartment. It was expensive. Especially given its (admittedly groovy) industrial, proletariat vibe. I never saw anyone in the halls and isolation is not good for my psyche. And with 40 foot ceilings, it was a challenge to heat in the long Michigan winters.

Thinking, thinking, thinking…

My lease is up this month and I have spent a fair amount of time  standing in the middle of the “great room” and thinking, moving is just too hard. I have big, heavy pieces of furniture and live three flights up. There’s a bookcase so unwieldy, the previous movers threatened to leave it on the landing or cut it in pieces to make it fit into the narrow, third floor hallway. And there is the tedium of changing my address. I have an orchid. A new case of water unpacked in the refrigerator…

Two weeks ago, my shower rod fell in the middle of the night. Again. It is something I have battled my entire tenure. I don’t know whether the Restoration Hardware, linen curtain is too heavy or the rod not quite long enough, but it has never fit properly. I’ve padded the gap with paper handtowels folded into discreet squares. I have augmented those patches with damp toilet paper (the sides of the shower are slippery). And just when I think I’ve got it beat, it crashes at the most inconvenient time. And I find myself stuffing more, less discrete, wads of scrap paper into the breach and cursing my fate. Why? Why God? I might whimper, at a particularly vulnerable moment.

I never thought to buy a new shower rod, or even complain to the landlord. They supplied it after all, and every time my handiwork crashes, it takes a small swath of paint off the bathroom wall so they should want to fix it. Anyway, the last collapse was the final straw (rod?). I folded up the shower curtain, propped the curtain rod against the wall and put a towel down on the floor to catch the splatter when I take a shower. And like a bolt from above I thought to myself, it’s time to move.

When Something Small Leads You to Decide Something BIG

This is typical of how I make big decisions.  All the good reasons for a life change might be clanging in stentorian obviousness and I will ignore them. Then, someone like Dee or David makes a simple comment, or a shower curtain falls and the way becomes clear.

Take how I got sober for example. After ten years of not-so-subtle prompts to quit – knocking out my teeth on a dive-bar countertop, getting divorced, falling off bar stools, the yen to drink in the morning, running short on cash, falling for another “inappropriate” boyfriend – I quit drinking for good, because my son Jonathan needed to be picked up from the airport. Go figure. He was getting in from England at midnight. Usually, I would have gotten my drinking in early, passed out, set an alarm and “sobered up” enough to go get him. When we got home I would have poured a nightcap.

Instead, I just didn’t drink. All day. And a bell went off – I thought to myself, this is enough – I’m done. For almost four years, that decision has stuck.

Is There a Moral to This Story Mare?

The moral to this story is that getting to the right decision is a good thing, no matter how long it takes. Better however, is the ability to read the signs. Change is never easy – especially when packing boxes or the pouring out of hooch is involved. But ignoring the BIG things is a form of self-punishment. In the NEW APARTMENT, I am going to be more aware of my surroundings, take better care of myself. Take note of the forewarnings.

And in the new apartment, if the faucet drips, or the shower curtain falls – boy oh boy, look out. I am loaded for self-care bear…

The post When the BIG Decision is Prompted By Something Small first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

 To help them escape when they’re blue?

In the old musical Camelot, Guinevere sings a little ditty about being sad. I can’t remember why she’s sad – something to do with cuckolding her husband and a war raging… Anyway, she is feeling blue, which is an unfamiliar sensation, and together with the king she warbles the heartfelt (yet condescending) question, “What do the simple folk do?” It is clear she doesn’t know how to handle the pedestrian feelings she’s feeling. Dance a fiery dance? Whistle for a spell?

“Simple folk,” or in my case sober folk, don’t have a panacea for sorrow or life’s difficulties. They just have to live them. After four years of sobriety, this fact is still a bitter pill for me to swallow. Figuratively speaking.

Not the best sober day…

Yesterday was not a great day for me. The internet was down in the office and my apartment after a big storm. My phone is doing something weird with my car – both of them smart as whips, but not speaking to each other at the moment. I felt distant from the world. On top of that, I had to make a personnel change at work. I think I have the reputation of being like Scrooge with the Muppets (“Our pens are turning to inkcicles…”), but there is nothing worse than dealing that kind of blow to another human being.

I found myself at a too-cool-for-school coffee shop on Lyon Street feeling weird. There is no other way to describe it. Just weird and disconnected and a bit annoyed, drinking a cup of coffee I didn’t want. My laptop was spitting out the news of the world, but I still didn’t feel a part of it all… It didn’t occur to me until this morning, that I was feeling:

1. Compassion

and

2. Separation

and

3. Inconvenience

Looking for the “simple” solution…

These were all reasonable sensations under the circumstances. It is clear I am still a bit rusty when it comes to dealing responsibly with the inevitable peccadillos of sober life. And why not? For twenty years I used alcohol to deaden my surprisingly sensitive nature. My beloved brother got leukemia and needed my bone morrow? Drink a liter of wine. My husband got fired? Run out for the biggest bottle of sweet and cheap I could find. Divorce? Wow – wine comes in screw caps – you can start drinking on the way home! Feeling socially anxious at the party? Queue up at the open bar!

I could go on. But the point, is that part of living this sober life is experiencing sorrow, discomfort and annoyance without using anything to deaden the feeling. There is no simple solution or someone I can pay to suffer on my behalf.

But, there is also great joy. And there is something to be said for accountability. I felt a bit ragged yesterday, but this morning when I woke up I felt fully responsible for my actions and okay with it all. The internet is working. The rain has stopped. And the fact is, in recovery, we do whistle or dance or hike or drink a cup of coffee when the going gets tough.

The momentary unease is a small price to pay for the simple, sober life.

The complicated sober life…

The post What Do the Sober Folk Do? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I got an email yesterday from Johnny, with some good advice. He didn’t say it, but I think he was responding to my most recent blog posts. They have not been happy-chappy, exclamatory or even particularly positive. I have not been a champion of recovery lately. I have had a case of the January blues.

Bush Pilots and Recovery

He told me to ask myself, when I am feeling anxious or out of sorts, “Is the plane still flying?” I am a visual thinker, so I love this mental image. Having spent eight years on a small island in The Bahamas, I can relate to this bush pilot’s credo. The controls might be smoking; the captain a little hung over; the landing strip a patch of beaten sand, running end to end on a tiny, coral promontory. A storm may have blown in, causing us to fly closer and closer to the Exuma Sound to get a visual. But the plane is still flying.

I start looking around at the rivets that hold the plane together. The aircraft is at least 30 years old, well worn and patched together with tarnished, old parts. I am being thrown around in the seat and the pilot says, “It’s all good mon’, tighten your belt so you don’t hit your head on the roof…” He smiles with all his teeth. I am thinking, landing in open water is not an option – there’s no one around for miles and the sharks… But the plane is still flying.

And then, tilting and bucking like something alive, the plane bumps in for a landing, all the way to the edge of the runway. Right where the ocean laps the shore. There are crashed planes rusting in the mangroves, but I am alive. And the plane was still flying, even when I was tossed like loose baggage by force majeure. Even when I had no control of the outcome.

It’s all good mon’…

I woke up this morning feeling like myself. Kim says there is no shame in a “season of taking something to soften the edges.” But I really don’t want to go there. These bouts of the blues are like a storm in the tropics.  Black, even a little frightening, but short lived…

The post When All Else Fails, Ask Yourself, “Is the Plane Still Flying?” first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

We’ve been talking about passion at work recently. Not around-the-water-cooler gossip about weekend liaisons. But the kind of passion that has you up at 6 AM testing out your hiking boots and waiting for the sun to come up. Or waking like a kid on Christmas, remembering you got those new paints and brushes. Being so excited about an  idea you can’t put it in a memo, but need to run it down the hall. Tell someone (I am famous for this by the way…)!

Passion Can Take Many Forms

Passion is defined as: a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something. This is an important definition, because when a person is active in their addiction, enthusiasm wanes. In fact, it disappears. When I was drinking, the only thing I thought about was drinking. Where would I get the wine, where would I hide the wine and when would I be able guzzle the wine…

I’ve said it before, addiction narrows your path and limits your interests. It strips you of all the things that makes you – you. Getting it back takes time and concerted effort. Recently, I have had a number of people, new to sobriety, ask me how I did it. I usually say the following things:

My motivation was keen – I WANTED to do it

Blogging and writing!

Against everything screaming in my head to the contrary, I stopped isolating

Sleepytime Tea (Extra-Strength) became my drug of choice and I went to bed at 6:00 PM

I told a few KEY people I was not going to ever drink again…

For the first time in my life I asked for help

Shaky, scared to death, but determined, I took myself to AA meetings

I walked for miles and miles (and miles) at Guana Reserve beach.

That’s it in a nutshell. But now I want to add something. I want to add: I FOUND MY (FIND YOUR) PASSION. Because, in the sober end, you will have lots of time to fill. So fill it with something you love. And the things that have stuck for me? The passions? Let’s put it this way, it is 6:30 on a Sunday morning and I am having coffee (another new passion), writing this blog and getting ready to go for a long hike along Lake Michigan.

Whether it’s yoga or opera or lasagna, I believe that the key to addiction recovery is finding passion. Sharing that passion with a friend.  Because if you want to be at your best to do this thing, it’s a natural recovery tool. If you’re jogging past a bar, and you go past the bar instead of inside, you are rewiring your brain. Telling your brain, that being outside in the fresh air, moving your body, is a better reward.

The post Is Finding Your Passion the Key to Addiction Recovery? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.