This is such a rich share-- where do I start? I am finally beginning to understand that I don't need to apologize for who I am, and that absence of apology doesn't make me a selfish jerk. I also get easily over-stimulated in social situations. I am a warm person who can also be very standoffish. I don't like noise. Clutter stresses me out. I don't like people invading my personal space. But lately, I notice I haven't been saying, "Ohhh, that's just me being weird, you know what a neat-freak I can be [insert anxious, disclaiming giggles here]!!" Instead, I'm starting to let Kate be Kate.
And Kate is grieving the absence of drinking and everything it brought me until it turned on me. Relaxation. Festiveness. Sparkle. Lack of dance-floor self-consciousness. Sophistication. Saying yes to anything I pleased. Being one of the girls and sharing a cold one on a hot summer day. I am much better off now-- so much better off that it leaves me breathless sometimes, stunned with how lucky I am. AND I still miss drinking. My spirit is big enough to hold both truths at once and not implode. That never could have happened before sobriety either.
Gosh, I needed to hear this today. On a total last minute whim, I flew to Seattle and drove to Vancouver (by myself!) last week for the last Eras show. I had that exact feeling of wanting to reach for something once I arrived at the arena and the subsequent feeling of frustration that there was nothing I could reach for. Sure, I COULD have drank. But it would have robbed me of the experience and ruined it for me. Once that fleeting feeling passed, I settled in to the show and felt so damn grateful for my sobriety. Without it, I would have never been there to begin with.
Once again you've managed to beautifully articulate something that I've been clumsily feeling around for and been unable to grasp let alone name...
I said to my therapist last week that there's no way I want to actually pick up a drink, it's been 18 months since I've drank and I've been working on my sobriety for years so I know it's not what I want, but there is something I miss. Something about me. I miss me. The transient "me" perhaps 1.5 drinks in when I was fun and glowy and free. Unfortunately that "me" probably only existed for about 15 minutes on a night out and the rest of it was a gradual sliding down a hill towards shitsville.
Thank you for your honesty and willingness to share. I feel a lot less alone having read this.
Amazing amazing amazing share. You summed up everything I feel and hope for as I continue on my journey of recovery. But, SHIT! That actually makes me sad that I will still experience the grief of alcohol…. I thought maybe by 10 years it would fade. I hate this deep heart ache! 5 years into trying recovery and that heart ache is what takes me out every relapse. Almost 1 year sober this round and I refuse to let the ache win!
Thank you for your gift of writing— you are able to articulate everything I feel into beautiful words. I am grateful to be sober today and the wonderful women who are on the same path as me.
Oh, Claudia it’s not grief anymore. It’s nothing that heavy. It’s the fleeting feeling of missing someone you used to love. And then, it’s gone, and the rest of my beautiful life is still there. Keep going.
From a former bring-the-fun, keep-the-party-going girl: I hadn't realized that alcohol was helping me manage all that manic people-pleasing interpersonal energy that those occasions brought up in me. 💡 I think I'll be ready for that type of socializing again when I feel more secure in my ability to have boundaries and not take on other people's energy. I still have a ways to go, but that's fine, because there are so many quiet, small, not-late-night things I love to do now. Thanks again, Laura, for the insight!
I love this! I love the setting you paint with the electric crackle in the air and festive lights out on the streets, managing interpersonal vibes, shape-shifting… spot-on. Thank you for this piece before I head out to a holiday party tomorrow. Fuel to my fire! 🔥 🎄
I sooo get this. THANK YOU for posting. While don't miss drinking (9+ yrs sober), the one thing I DO miss is that feeling you've perfectly described ("the uprush of energy and possibility"). I would never trade my sobriety to get that feeling again, but I've had to accept that, for me, there seems to be no healthy way to duplicate it.
Last night I apologized to my husband for not being able to go out at night and sit at a bar like we used to, mainly because I was missing that special feeling of sitting in the middle of a place, talking to the familiar bartender and drinking and eating things that were (usually) not great for me. He's fine with all of it, we've already had a lifetime of cavorting together. It was me that was missing something, and I realized what it was: some 1/2 dance 1/2 aerobic classes I've been taking lately have shaken something loose inside of me.
I want to go to Thailand and dance freely at a seaside bar, live loosely and move my body like I used to.
I enjoy my quiet life(or at least have been telling myself that until I read this post of yours), but at the same time (since the elections and wars and everything) have really gone back inside myself and don't feel quite as comfortable being "me" out in public. Perhaps I've come to realize the place I live isn't my true soul place. Though I've known that for quite some time, this winter has really caused the feelings to set in.
Playing pickleball the other day with my weekly group I let out a wild WHOOP when the group leader called out our court assignments, so loud and enthusiastic it stopped all 15 of us in our tracks, including me. I started laughing uncontrollably and my face turned beet red, but it also broke something loose: it was the old me coming through, the goofy, often inappropriate silly and funny girl I've been pushing down for a very, very long time.
This next year I'll be letting her out to play more often, just like you. Let's gooooooo 2025, no matter what it brings.
Thank you for this! I had an experience last night that surprised me. I had dinner with my husband for our 25 year wedding anniversary. I’ve been sober for nearly three years and bumped into a friend I met who was getting sober but “fell off the wagon” about a year ago. She ran over to me and was friendly and very talkative, but also clearly very buzzed or drunk. What surprised me was that I was able to talk to her without getting anxious or angry, or feeling like I wanted to run. It wasn’t super fun to talk to her because she kept repeating herself and interrupting as one does when they are drunk, haha- but I wasn’t angry or bothered. Just relieved that I was no longer there anymore - that I was no longer in the vicious cycle of drinking alcohol. I was able to get to that realization quickly and then enjoy a nice dinner with my husband, then get home and put my pajamas on and relax with reels and sour gummy candy 😀. I know life and feelings can change, feelings are fleeting, and I was so grateful to experience that first hand last night!
I was on your Tuesday meeting and realllllly needed to hear it. As many times in the past, you expressing your emotions and thoughts has helped me accept where I'm at. I'm really glad you followed up with writing it out here so I could revisit this. I wrestle with going to boozy parties for connection vs. staying away because I really don't like being around alcohol. This weekend is an annual friend's boozy party that I've gone to the last 4 years, skipped it my first year sober. I usually leave early and depleted. But feel like I need to show people I can have fun and be sober...... people pleaser anyone? I've gotten closer to actually having fun around people drinking, but if I'm honest I'd prefer not to. So this year, this Saturday I think it's a pass. Maybe it will change down the road, maybe it won't. But at least this year I'll be true to myself and do something else, even it that means just hanging out with my cat.
Your descriptions of the stages of (and before) sobriety are so perfect and evocative—and make me want to learn to be more social. And to learn to play pickleball! Thank you for all of this❤️
I completely agree about acknowledging what we do lose when we stop drinking. I empathise with that giddy feeling, for me it was also a frisson of anticipation, of possibility, but I miss drinking most when I have painful feelings that I want to numb. If alcohol didn’t work to numb feelings then I and I suspect most of us who have experienced addiction to alcohol, would not have become addicted. I choose not to use alcohol now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes want to change how I feel, particularly at this time of year. But the cost of using alcohol to do this is too high for me.
This is such a rich share-- where do I start? I am finally beginning to understand that I don't need to apologize for who I am, and that absence of apology doesn't make me a selfish jerk. I also get easily over-stimulated in social situations. I am a warm person who can also be very standoffish. I don't like noise. Clutter stresses me out. I don't like people invading my personal space. But lately, I notice I haven't been saying, "Ohhh, that's just me being weird, you know what a neat-freak I can be [insert anxious, disclaiming giggles here]!!" Instead, I'm starting to let Kate be Kate.
And Kate is grieving the absence of drinking and everything it brought me until it turned on me. Relaxation. Festiveness. Sparkle. Lack of dance-floor self-consciousness. Sophistication. Saying yes to anything I pleased. Being one of the girls and sharing a cold one on a hot summer day. I am much better off now-- so much better off that it leaves me breathless sometimes, stunned with how lucky I am. AND I still miss drinking. My spirit is big enough to hold both truths at once and not implode. That never could have happened before sobriety either.
Exactly this, Kate.
Gosh, I needed to hear this today. On a total last minute whim, I flew to Seattle and drove to Vancouver (by myself!) last week for the last Eras show. I had that exact feeling of wanting to reach for something once I arrived at the arena and the subsequent feeling of frustration that there was nothing I could reach for. Sure, I COULD have drank. But it would have robbed me of the experience and ruined it for me. Once that fleeting feeling passed, I settled in to the show and felt so damn grateful for my sobriety. Without it, I would have never been there to begin with.
✨✨✨
Once again you've managed to beautifully articulate something that I've been clumsily feeling around for and been unable to grasp let alone name...
I said to my therapist last week that there's no way I want to actually pick up a drink, it's been 18 months since I've drank and I've been working on my sobriety for years so I know it's not what I want, but there is something I miss. Something about me. I miss me. The transient "me" perhaps 1.5 drinks in when I was fun and glowy and free. Unfortunately that "me" probably only existed for about 15 minutes on a night out and the rest of it was a gradual sliding down a hill towards shitsville.
Thank you for your honesty and willingness to share. I feel a lot less alone having read this.
I’m glad 😌
Amazing amazing amazing share. You summed up everything I feel and hope for as I continue on my journey of recovery. But, SHIT! That actually makes me sad that I will still experience the grief of alcohol…. I thought maybe by 10 years it would fade. I hate this deep heart ache! 5 years into trying recovery and that heart ache is what takes me out every relapse. Almost 1 year sober this round and I refuse to let the ache win!
Thank you for your gift of writing— you are able to articulate everything I feel into beautiful words. I am grateful to be sober today and the wonderful women who are on the same path as me.
Oh, Claudia it’s not grief anymore. It’s nothing that heavy. It’s the fleeting feeling of missing someone you used to love. And then, it’s gone, and the rest of my beautiful life is still there. Keep going.
Ok. I handle do that!! Will keep on going.
i love you.
I love you!
From a former bring-the-fun, keep-the-party-going girl: I hadn't realized that alcohol was helping me manage all that manic people-pleasing interpersonal energy that those occasions brought up in me. 💡 I think I'll be ready for that type of socializing again when I feel more secure in my ability to have boundaries and not take on other people's energy. I still have a ways to go, but that's fine, because there are so many quiet, small, not-late-night things I love to do now. Thanks again, Laura, for the insight!
I love this! I love the setting you paint with the electric crackle in the air and festive lights out on the streets, managing interpersonal vibes, shape-shifting… spot-on. Thank you for this piece before I head out to a holiday party tomorrow. Fuel to my fire! 🔥 🎄
I sooo get this. THANK YOU for posting. While don't miss drinking (9+ yrs sober), the one thing I DO miss is that feeling you've perfectly described ("the uprush of energy and possibility"). I would never trade my sobriety to get that feeling again, but I've had to accept that, for me, there seems to be no healthy way to duplicate it.
Last night I apologized to my husband for not being able to go out at night and sit at a bar like we used to, mainly because I was missing that special feeling of sitting in the middle of a place, talking to the familiar bartender and drinking and eating things that were (usually) not great for me. He's fine with all of it, we've already had a lifetime of cavorting together. It was me that was missing something, and I realized what it was: some 1/2 dance 1/2 aerobic classes I've been taking lately have shaken something loose inside of me.
I want to go to Thailand and dance freely at a seaside bar, live loosely and move my body like I used to.
I enjoy my quiet life(or at least have been telling myself that until I read this post of yours), but at the same time (since the elections and wars and everything) have really gone back inside myself and don't feel quite as comfortable being "me" out in public. Perhaps I've come to realize the place I live isn't my true soul place. Though I've known that for quite some time, this winter has really caused the feelings to set in.
Playing pickleball the other day with my weekly group I let out a wild WHOOP when the group leader called out our court assignments, so loud and enthusiastic it stopped all 15 of us in our tracks, including me. I started laughing uncontrollably and my face turned beet red, but it also broke something loose: it was the old me coming through, the goofy, often inappropriate silly and funny girl I've been pushing down for a very, very long time.
This next year I'll be letting her out to play more often, just like you. Let's gooooooo 2025, no matter what it brings.
Thank you for this! I had an experience last night that surprised me. I had dinner with my husband for our 25 year wedding anniversary. I’ve been sober for nearly three years and bumped into a friend I met who was getting sober but “fell off the wagon” about a year ago. She ran over to me and was friendly and very talkative, but also clearly very buzzed or drunk. What surprised me was that I was able to talk to her without getting anxious or angry, or feeling like I wanted to run. It wasn’t super fun to talk to her because she kept repeating herself and interrupting as one does when they are drunk, haha- but I wasn’t angry or bothered. Just relieved that I was no longer there anymore - that I was no longer in the vicious cycle of drinking alcohol. I was able to get to that realization quickly and then enjoy a nice dinner with my husband, then get home and put my pajamas on and relax with reels and sour gummy candy 😀. I know life and feelings can change, feelings are fleeting, and I was so grateful to experience that first hand last night!
I was on your Tuesday meeting and realllllly needed to hear it. As many times in the past, you expressing your emotions and thoughts has helped me accept where I'm at. I'm really glad you followed up with writing it out here so I could revisit this. I wrestle with going to boozy parties for connection vs. staying away because I really don't like being around alcohol. This weekend is an annual friend's boozy party that I've gone to the last 4 years, skipped it my first year sober. I usually leave early and depleted. But feel like I need to show people I can have fun and be sober...... people pleaser anyone? I've gotten closer to actually having fun around people drinking, but if I'm honest I'd prefer not to. So this year, this Saturday I think it's a pass. Maybe it will change down the road, maybe it won't. But at least this year I'll be true to myself and do something else, even it that means just hanging out with my cat.
Thank you Laura! You amaze me with your words. This is amazing and rings so true.
Your descriptions of the stages of (and before) sobriety are so perfect and evocative—and make me want to learn to be more social. And to learn to play pickleball! Thank you for all of this❤️
I completely agree about acknowledging what we do lose when we stop drinking. I empathise with that giddy feeling, for me it was also a frisson of anticipation, of possibility, but I miss drinking most when I have painful feelings that I want to numb. If alcohol didn’t work to numb feelings then I and I suspect most of us who have experienced addiction to alcohol, would not have become addicted. I choose not to use alcohol now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes want to change how I feel, particularly at this time of year. But the cost of using alcohol to do this is too high for me.
Yep.
Thank you, Laura I need this post deep in my bones.