Just hold on

It took a while for me to get used to living sober. At first, I was frantic to try and fix my moods.

When I first took the booze away and started cracking the concrete I’d laid around my emotional self… I was like a crazy emotional harridan, lurching wildly from one emotional state to another..

‘Oh my GAWD I’m SAD!!!!!!!’ I’d wail to myself and then I’d cast around frantically for something to ‘do’ about that sadness. Frantically searching for the magic cure for this terrible sadness.

‘By CRIKEY I’m ANGRY!!!’ I’d growl and stomp around looking for a cure for this anger. This anger that must be tamed, dealt with, fixed somehow.

I’d question around anyone I came in to contact with – especially the people that seemed really calm and together – ‘What do you do when you get sad or angry?’ I was desperate for them to divulge the secret that was going to solve my ‘problem’.

That ‘problem’ being that I was emotionally stunted as a result of having booze as my constant companion my entire adult life.

That ‘problem’ being that I’d never developed any proper emotional management techniques.

That ‘problem’ being that I was needing to become a fully emotional human being.

I’m still searching some of the time, but I am also much calmer. Loads of great information from very clever people has seeped in to my brain, and time passing has also helped. I've now been sober for over 14 years, and my emotions aren’t strangers anymore. All of these things have combined to calm me down and helped me to realise that sometimes the answer to life’s tricky emotions is to do nothing at all.

Just sit. Just wait. Don’t panic. Don’t reach. Feel it. Allow it. Acknowledge it. Go gently and breath…

When we booze we’re reacting, reaching , sipping, numbing, avoiding. When we first get sober we freak out! Lurch from one emotional state to another! Panic at the first sign of trouble! Of course we do.. we’re not used to living like this. It’s hard. It’s not fun a lot of the time.

But I think the longer we live sober, the more we also just begin to calm down, accept moods, wait for time to pass, breath. Relax.

That’s why it’s so important to hold on. Hold on through the tricky early stages. Hold on and trust that things will start to calm down. Picture yourself in the morning waking up very proud of yourself for getting through the night before with no drinking. It might be uncomfortable, but that’s ok. We all deal with uncomfortable emotions. If you hold on and don’t drink, eventually it will get easier.

I promise.

Love, Mrs D xxx