Then lockdown came. I started working from home, so I could sleep later and didn’t have to spend all that time walking from work to get to the bar. I just had my box of wine in the kitchen. I kept it together during the work day but was drinking every night, and all weekend every weekend. There is a lot of lost time there. But that box of wine that should have lasted two weeks was only last a few days. I wasn’t alone, my partner was there drinking whisky every night alongside me. But I knew something was wrong, deeply wrong, and this was turning into an unmanageable problem. Around this time I negotiated the termination of my work contract so I would be able to collect unemployment and have time to figure out what I really wanted to do. I was worried that I would accidentally drink that time away, as I often wound up doing during holidays and weekends, or any free time really. One afternoon after the lockdown was over I met a friend for coffee, one of my drinking buddies who also often questioned her drinking. .I told her about my concerns (for the zillionth time), but this time she recommended a few books to me. Alcohol explained and This naked mind, and 30-day sober experiment. I went home and ordered all three. I started with AE and as I was reading that I was following the 30- day sober experiment day by day. But I stopped drinking before the end of that book. I stopped while I was reading AE. It was like it all made sense. I was just stuck on this mad merry-go-round, and all I had to do was to step off. That was it. Somehow I knew inside of me that I was done. It sounds cheesy to say but it felt like this little burning fire inside me. I felt it. I knew that this time was it and I was excited. Excited to be free, excited not to drink, excited not to feel guilt and shame anymore, to have the energy to do what I wanted. I kept with the 30-day experiment, and read this naked mind and do plan to read other quit lit because I like reading people's stories and learning about sobriety. But AE will always have a piece of my heart. That was June 14, 2020. Since then, so almost six months later, my life now looks nothing like my life before.I’m finally awake. That’s the only way to describe it. I was stagnating before. Just getting through every day. Just enough to get by. Just enough with my job to get by, just enough with my partner to get by. Now I want more. I am still happily unemployed, I’m taking time to figure out what I want to do, and what my calling is.
This has given me ample time to discover what I like. I never really had hobbies before other than drinking or sleeping off hangovers, or eating off hangovers as it were. I love music again, I love reading again. I take time every day to clean my apartment a little so I feel pride in my space. I practice yoga nearly every day and other sports. I’ve learned how to knit. I’m learning Spanish. There are a million other things I want to try, and now I can. I couldn’t before. I didn’t have the energy, or interest or motivation. I feel like a whole world has opened up to me that I was only seeing in shades of grey and now I see it all in color. I enjoy my food more, I enjoy my friends more. My laughter is real now. I think a lot of my depression was linked to alcohol, but now I’m giving myself a chance to learn who the real me is. I think I still have some issues to work out, but now I can see them clearly because I know that they are real and not alcohol-fueled. I have bad days and sad days and tired days. But often it’s just a part of the day, not even the whole day.I do something nice for myself and then I feel better. I don’t spiral anymore like I used to.
I ’m still funny and I still laugh a lot at parties.
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