Last Drop Blog

The answers to why I am a recovering alcoholic are buried deep away somewhere. I have spent sometime digging into why I have an issue and facing this without judgement. I found it really really easy in my past to experience uncomfortable feelings and emotions and bury them almost immediately. Let’s take the morning after a rough blackout for example, I was always the kind of person who wanted to start drinking again the moment I woke up. I did not want to try and remember the actions I took the night before and sit in my thoughts, feeling like total shit. So I did what a typical alcoholic would do and turned back to the booze. A few drinks to forget. My anxiety started to get unbearable toward the end of my drinking journey. Although I started noticing this in 2018 or so, I still turned a blind eye for a few more years before taking action and making a legit effort to control/stop drinking. I drank to escape. I drank to avoid responsibilities that stressed me out. I drank to forget past memories that embarrassed me. I drank to forget that I had low self-esteem. I drank to avoid my negative internal dialogue.

Through sobriety I have learned that drinking did not make my problems go away, they simply made me forget about them. That shy, anxious, awkward kid didn’t turn outgoing, bubbly, and confident after a few drinks. He instead forgot he was shy, anxious, and awkward. Drinking did and does nothing to solve your problems. You do not just need a few drinks to loosen up. You need to look into why you feel so up tight in the first place. While there are certainly plenty of deeper issues and reasons why I am a recovering alcoholic, I was able to check off some of them through my past 9-10 months of sobriety. A lot of the reasons I already subconsciously knew, I just refused to sit with my emotions and feelings while I was drinking to accept them. I was able to discover why I have issues with alcohol through 1. removing alcohol out of my life, 2. Speaking to a doctor, close friends/family, and a therapist, 3. spending time alone to discover my true interests.

I have also discovered that because I am an alcoholic I have a pretty addictive/obsessive personality. Simply put, if things dont go the way I had envisioned in my mind I get pretty fucking pissy pretty easily. That is not healthy. I have learned to understand the kind of person I am and the kinds of things I need to do when I start feeling obsessive over things in my life. Let’s take a morning cup of coffee for example. This is how I sometimes remind myself I really do have a problem. I have mornings where I will wake up feel good, walk to the coffee shop and start feeling the caffeine buzz. I start obsessing over that feeling and loving exactly how I feel in that moment. I have started to think to myself at times “I wish I could live my life feeling like this at all times”. I have come to understand that shit, if I am addicted to a cup of coffee like this it makes sense how I was addicted to getting drunk or high. In working through my sobriety I have come to accept that you can’t live your life feeling good all the time. You can’t escape feeling sluggish, depressed, anxious because without accepting those feelings and working to understand why you feel that way you will never grow. (I think in my blog I have said that last sentence in more ways than one at least 10 times).

It is ok to have days where you have low self esteem, feel bloated, angry, depressed, anxious etc. . Not every day can be great that is just not a realistic life. Every single person that woke up today did not feel great. Emotional intelligence to me is one of the most valuable life skills anyone can work on. For me, choosing to remove alcohol out of my life has allowed me to get started on improving my own emotional intelligence. If you want to improve yourself in anyway the first step I can recommend would be to figure out why. Why did you wake up one day and think you need better for yourself? Have you felt like shit for too long? Do you consistently bash yourself for the way you look? If you are asking yourself these questions go easy on yourself! You are brave in your own right for wanting to improve. Taking those first few steps are the hardest things you can do. Take things one day at a time. Reach out for help if you need it, there is no shame in asking for it.