Hey y’all!
It’s that time, Sunday night Real Life Real Talk!
I hope everyone has had an awesome week and weekend! If you haven’t- I am sorry but on the bright side you made it through it and it is now over. My work week was nuts at the office and this weekend Tim and I had a lot going on. Friday night we had a fundraiser event for my work and last night we had a fancy shmancy elaborate dinner that Tim signed us up for. You can probably tell just by the way I described our last two evenings which one I preferred and which one may of given me a little anxiety.
Which leads me to the question that I am asked probably most is do you still have fun being sober? Such a good question for the wondering minds, I still ponder this same question from time to time. Is sober life boring or am I just shy and socially anxious without alcohol?
See the thing is I drank for a reason. I drank because I was never okay with who I was and alcohol gave me the opportunity to feel in such a way that I didn’t just start to like who I was, I began to love who I was.
All I have to say is whoever came up with the nursery rhyme “sticks and stones may break your bones but words could never hurt you” is full of sh*t. Words hurt worse than anything, they scar you and stay with you the rest of your life. For me they have anyways. I will never forget the group of guys in middle school that called me piggy and started the downhill battle of feeling less than. Middle school and high school were hell until I was introduced to alcohol my sophomore year of high school. My life changed. My feelings about myself changed. Alcohol gave me exactly what I needed to be okay with myself. When I drank it was like I was a completely different person. I felt wanted, I felt pretty, I felt talkative, I felt invincible.
Those feelings are what kept me wanting more. I never could get enough of alcohol because as soon as I stopped drinking I returned to that shy girl that was not okay with herself. That is why from the moment I began drinking I never drank like a normal person. I drank all the time. Alcohol gave me the confidence to do things I would of never thought about doing sober. It was like my magic juice that allowed me to live a different life. I partied hard and experienced a lot of life in not a lot of years. I thought drinking was all fun and games until it slowly kept taking over more and more of my life.
My drinking started out innocent and I had a lot of fun with this person I was able to turn into, but it is like I blinked my eyes and alcohol robbed me of many years of my life. By the end of my addiction those “fun” times all turned into a big blur and the fun was over. The fun had been over, I was dying because of that feeling I was trying to hold on to.
One of the biggest fears I had getting sober was the lingering thought that life was going to become miserable and not fun. I had this fear because deep down I knew I was very shy and what I internally struggled with. For so long alcohol was the only thing to help me with those struggles.
As you can tell by my busy event filled weekend life in sobriety is in fact not boring, it is fun, a lot of fun, just different at times. Different in a way that there are some situations and environments that are a little out of my comfort zone and cause my social anxiety to raise.
So, if you were thinking that I preferred my work event this weekend over the fancy dinner, you were right! The reason being is the people are familiar to me, I knew everyone there and I was in my element. It is not that I didn’t enjoy the dinner yesterday, I just didn’t know anyone except Tim and settings like those tend to cause some social anxiety. Being self aware of these situations allows me to pick and choose what I do to ensure I keep life in recovery fun!
After some self reflection and almost 3.5 years in recovery I have come to the conclusion that sober life definitely isn’t boring. My life in sobriety is tons of fun, I will just always be a little shy and socially awkward at times without alcohol 😉
Thanks for following along as I share my passions of digitals, decor, & designs while I shed light on alcoholism. If you have any questions or just want to chat, shoot me a message.
I love this post, thank you for explaining that sobriety can be fun! I’m 3 months sober and I’m having a hard time with feeling comfortable in social situations. I’ve always been an outgoing, bubbly person but alcohol definitely helped me to feel more comfortable in my skin. I don’t want to be a social pariah and not go anywhere but I’m struggling right now. Any tips on how to have a good time when surrounded by alcohol? Thank you!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post and following along!! I personally struggled the first few months myself and didn’t want to go anywhere because I was not used to doing anything without alcohol. But trust me, it gets easier with time.. What helped me tremendously in the beginning was surrounding myself with people I was totally comfortable with that I never needed alcohol to be around them. And for me that was my family and a couple really close friends. I started small to get adjusted and then I became more comfortable and I expanded my options on things I wanted to get out and do and people I wanted to hangout with. Another thing that helped me tremendously was focusing on myself and learning to love myself, I took this time to workout a ton and shop. And lastly, if I was feeling lonely I would speak up and tell one of my good friends so i didn’t stay in that dark spot for too long. XOXO