6 years sober
if you needed a reason to be kind to yourself :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED on may 30th 2023
About 10 days ago, I reached 6 years sober.
My actual birthday is about 3 weeks after my sober birthday so this time of the year always feels contemplative for me as solar returns typically are, but especially so in the last handful of years since I have been sober from 10+ years use of ativan.
I always think about what the biggest difference for me in terms of sobriety is since the previous year.
Right now, I have no addictive processes happening - physical, or relational. I think this is the first time since I was a child that I can say this.
Gabor Mate says, don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain.
Sobriety is a complex journey in which we learn to meet our pain differently.
I would have given pretty much anything to be here in my sobriety journey 6 years ago. But that is the thing about sobriety, it is slow, and we never get to where we are going unless we continue to choose meeting our pain differently.
I find sobriety, much like healing severe developmental trauma, much like insomnia, much like autism, really lonely.
I am the loneliest I have ever been in my adult life currently.
Most of my friends are in really expansive seasons and I don’t fit in at all with my peer’s milestones, energy levels, exciting things on the horizon.
And yet, I let the loneliness exist without needing to numb it. The pain is very much there, and I meet it instead of get freaked out by it, denying it, telling it to fuck off.
Some days, I am not sure I have that much patience and I think: SURELY I WILL RELAPSE?! But then I try again. I begin again all the goddamn time.
There is no one sending me flowers, writing me cards, or even acknowledging this hard work but myself. Sobriety is a process that is done so quietly by yourself most days.
Some days, I am really mad. I feel angry that I have to muster my strength and face yet more pain. That there is no one who can save me or rescue me or make the life I have had be easier or better. That it often feels never ending and I wonder why other people don’t have as hard of a journey earth side.
But I keep meeting my pain differently.
There are so many ways I do this. And they add on every new year I spend sober.
I think the thing that is the most profound about this last sober year is I stopped being mean to myself. I just refuse to do it nowadays. Even if I could be mean to myself, it’s like I can’t help but stop myself from doing it. I figured enough people have been mean to me already, might as well not keep them alive inside of me and make their voices my own any longer. It has made me trust myself so much more, which helps sobriety feel easier. And I mean, I guess it makes total sense upon reflection, why would you trust someone who keeps being mean to you?