Sober Thoughts

Am I the only sober person in the world who doesn’t like to meditate or do yoga? Sure seems that way. Seems like every other sober lifestyle blog or Instagram account is preaching the joys of meditation, yoga, lavender scented baths and walking barefoot in the rain.

OK I made that last one up. But the other 3 I see a lot.

Now there’s nothing wrong with yoga or meditation. If it is one of your interests and doing it is helping you keep sober then fantastic. I am over the moon you have found something for you.

But I wasn’t some yogi before I stopped drinking, and I’m not one now. I still like what I used to like, I still do the things I used to like to do. Stopping drinking is a huge lifestyle change as it is without changing my interests as well.

I need ways to relieve stress that don’t involve necking a bottle of wine. I need to unwind after a hard day’s work without reaching for a couple of cans. I need to get to sleep without using alcohol to knock me out. And I need to do this my way.

Stressed – Everyone has a hard day every now and then. Sometimes it can be more now than then. My job at the moment is super stressful. So when I get home and can feel that I am still stressed out I take the dog for a walk. Being outside and just free to wander around takes the edge off a bit. Then when I get back home my stress levels are way down and I am free to enjoy my night without needing to drink.

Relaxing – Got to have an outlet at some point. Can’t work all the time. Once I am done with work and any chores around the house I need to relax. This is where a lot of blogs will tell you to take a nice hot bath. Turn on some chill music. Light a candle. And just soak away.

Not for me. I kill monsters.

(video games!)

I’m currently completing my 2nd play-through of Bloodborne. Which at the time of writing this is probably about 5 years old. But still a great game.

I used to drink every time I sat down to play games but i have managed to decouple the activity from the drinking and now I can just sit back relax and kill some evil sons of bitches.

Sleeping – Sleeping was a hard shift for me. Usually I’d had enough drinks that sleeping was no issue at all (if you can actually call it sleeping). Take away the alcohol though and man I just lay there staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours before I fell asleep. Eventually it was too much and I went and researched how to get a good night’s sleep. There was a great post from the Sleep Foundation (read that here) that I took and tweaked and now I sleep better than ever.

I don’t religiously follow all 10 steps but what I try to do each night is:

• get to bed and wake up at the same time
• have a wind down hour where I just read a book
• completely black out my room so there are no lights at all
• exercise regularly so my body is ready for the rest
• And finally I do one thing that goes against the advice from the Sleep Foundation; I listen to an audiobook to drift off to. The key here though is I listen to an audiobook of something I have already read/listened to. This way I am not worried about missing anything by dozing off and I can just get lost in my imagination, with the story flowing in the background, drifting off to sleep.

And you? How do you unwind, de-stress, relax after a hard day at the old 9 to 5? Share in the comments below. Until then…

IWNDWYT – I will not drink with you today

If you’ve been to an AA meeting you know the drill. Hell if you’ve ever watched telly you know the drill.

“My name is Mike, and I am an alcoholic”
“Hi Mike”

That’s how every ‘share time’ starts in every AA meeting I have attended.

And I don’t like it.

I don’t like it because I don’t believe that I am an alcoholic. I think that word is overused and doesn’t apply to the vast majority of the people who have it thrust upon them. The definition of alcoholism is this:

addiction to the consumption of alcoholic drink; alcohol dependency.

I’m not addicted to alcohol. I am sober and have been for quite some time. The alcohol is out of my body and out of my life. So why would I get up and tell people that I am addicted still?

Sure if I were to pick up a drink again I could develop an addiction. But as of right now I am just a Non-Drinker, albeit a non-drinker with a history of alcohol abuse problems.

You might think this is a bit of a nit pick and that I am reading too much into it. Which maybe I am. But I do think there is some merit in ceasing to use the label once one has successfully recovered.

After all why is it just alcohol that has this label follow us around for life? If you quit smoking you don’t have ‘smoke-aholic’ follow you around for life. If you quit using heroin you are an ex drug addict. No it’s just alcohol that labels you for life as if you have a mortal illness.

I also think it is important to not over generalize with these things as it could affect treatment or recovery options. Someone who is actually addicted to alcohol (an alcoholic by definition) is different to someone who drinks 2 bottles of wine a night but only at the weekend. And both are different to someone who has been alcohol free for 6 weeks but still has the craving. Under the common use of the word all three of these people could be labelled an alcoholic however all three have wildly different needs when it comes to next steps and treatment strategies. Labeling all 3 as the same and having them follow the same path is not ideal for long term sobriety

Holly from HipSobriety actually has an excellent post on this very subject which you can find here. Holly makes a great point in her post. Alcohol is the only drug in the world where, when you stop taking it, you are seen as having a disease. Definitely check the post out. Holly articulates her points in a manner I am currently incapable of expressing.

So you might notice on this site that I will use a number of different terms such as Ex-drinker, Non-drinker, Alcohol abuse. Whenever I mention alcoholic it will strictly be referring to people who are addicted to alcohol.

I would love to hear others thoughts on this. Please share in the comments below.

And as always…

IWNDWYT – I will not drink with you today

What a load of crap.

That statement is full of crap and anyone who tells you that is full of crap.

If you tell yourself that then, yes, you are full of crap.

Alcoholism is an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic drinks. An alcohol dependency.

The dictionary definition

Alcoholism is not “an addiction to the consumption of some alcoholic drinks except for beer”. That would just be ludicrous.

I know many people with drinking problems. A lot of them have beer as their main drink of choice. I, myself, would drink beer the majority of the time and can say definitively that I had a drinking problem.

To say that these people do not have a problem because beer is their drink of choice is frankly as dangerous as telling them that they should just have one or two.

Beer, wine, spirits. It doesn’t matter which you choose they are all alcohol and drinking too much of any of them can be a problem.

Sure some recovery courses will recommend switching from hard ales to beer. But this will normally be part of a tapering program where the desired outcome will eventually be no alcohol.

If you are able to drink beer without going overboard or suffering any problems, then great. You may not have a drinking problem. But don’t tell others that beer drinkers can’t be alcoholics. It’s just not true.

IWNDWYT – I will not drink with you today

We all slip from time to time. I have “quit drinking” probably a dozen times. It has never usually lasted more than a month or so before now. And even now I can only be sure I won’t have a drink today. Who knows what tomorrow might hold.

Maybe you slipped last week and are disappointed your “counter” had to reset. Maybe you slipped last night and need to get back on the path today. Maybe you are slipping right now.

To everyone who has had that slip, or lapse in sobriety:

You may have failed. But you are not a failure.

A lapse does not have to lead to a relapse.

You have slipped but you are not down.

Pick your phrase. They all boil down to the same message. Do not let one drink or one night of drinking send you back to where you started. Don’t think “Oh I have already failed now may as well give up”. No, you haven’t failed. You only fail when you quit trying.

When you fall you pick yourself up, see why you fell, learn how not to fall next time and try again.

So let’s try again.

IWNDWYT – I will not drink with you today.