Last Drop Blog

The first 30 days of my sobriety.

I am no expert. I have not gone to treatment or AA. I am not a doctor. I am however 41 days sober as I write this. 30 days was a great achievement for myself. It is the longest I have been sober in years and I mean years. I tried sober months, weekends, taking it easy, a few beers and go home, mixing in water, eating a big meal before drinking. You name it, I have tried it when it comes to controlling my drinking. I failed my past two attempts at sober October. This time it was different. I think I just really abused my body bad enough to say I am getting to 30 days. It started after a work trip to… of all places, Nashville. Not an ideal place to be working on your sobriety. I didn’t set any guidelines for myself on this work trip. However, I do recall saying “I will be proud of myself if I come back from Nashville having not had a sip of alcohol.” This did not happen. Let me preface this by saying that this was my second work trip with this company and on the first one I blacked out night one. Just woke up in my hotel room with nothing going on in that old head of mine and stumbled my way down to a 9am meeting with a bottle of Pedialyte waiting for me from my boss. This just so happened to be a few days after ending a short lived relationship and I wasn’t in the best headspace. Fast forward a few months and mix in several blackouts along the way, I am in Nashville. I really tried not to drink. I told my co-workers I would go out with them and party one night. I did. I blacked out. A video circled around after of me shitfaced dancing around the bar. A missed call from a co-worker asking where I had gone. 6-7 hours of zero memory probably roaming the streets of downtown Nashville. That was kind of it…. I just realized that I will never be a person who can go out and just get buzzed or just the “perfect” amount of drunk. If I had two beers you might as well call me an uber and send me home because it was soon to be blackout number 278 of my life. Thats not an exactly accurate number, but I would not be shocked if its something like that. So I got back to Boston (my home city) and I just kind of sat with my thoughts. I joined a reddit thread r/stopdrinking and made a post and anonymously told this community that I was done. I have had enough and at the spry age of 24 I am stopping drinking. And I stopped. And I haven’t had a drink since then. It’s been hard…. really really really hard. I was bored as shit and still am. I realized my entire social life was centered around drinking. I realized I truly don’t have that many close friends around me (physically at least). I realized the only time I spoke to women with the intent of dating or expressing interest in them I was drunk or close to it. I realized that part of me is still that shy baby faced 16 year old junior in high school I referenced in my first blog “My name is Will…”. As you can imagine all of these realizations hitting you after what I would describe as an on and off 8 year bender can be a lot to take in. I have been down and anxious for a lot of these days. I have looked to exercise and sleep to assist. I have journaled nearly every day. I have looked to youtube videos, podcasts, books, online communities. I realized I am not the only person in their early 20’s that has a problem with alcohol. I also realized I can use this “boring” sober time to share my journey, my story, my reasons why. And maybe, just maybe, I will help someone. I will meet new friends. I will grow as a person.