365 Days Alcohol Free
I recently celebrated 365 days or one year without alcohol. This year was rough with a wedding, house hunting and moving. Although I wanted a drink several times with the home buying process and the moving and unpacking, I stayed strong. For me remaining sober is not about saying “I have not had a drink in X amount of time”, it is about not becoming the person that I was before. That person did not care about anything but having a drink. Every event that I went to revolved around getting a drink there or leaving early so that I could get a drink. When I was drinking I was not a good friend, daughter, sister, mom or wife. Drinking consumed my life.
One of the most important things that I have realized in this year of sobriety is that anyone going through sobriety needs a good support system. I have a great support system to lean on when times get hard and I want to pick up a drink. I do not attend meetings or have a sponsor and that is not for everyone. I have found a community on an app that is full of people that are going through the same journey that I am. These are people that understand how I feel and what I am going through.
I have had to learn to make changes in my life starting with my routines, what I do in my free time and who I spend time with. I try to avoid putting myself in positions that would make me want to drink. There has only been one situation that I have been in where I felt like I wanted to drink. My husband took me to California for my birthday and we were sitting in the bar/ dinning area of the hotel. During the day it was calm and quiet but as the day turned to night the music started to get louder and it became more of a bar scene. As everyone else was becoming more intoxicated I was starting to feel the urge to have a drink as well. My husband was ready to go up to the room at that point. I told him later that I was wanting a drink while we were sitting there and was going to ask him to go up to the room had he not asked first. He is a very big part of my support system and never pressures me to drink and when we go out he tells people proudly that I do not drink.
One thing that I was not prepared for on this journey was the dreams. I find myself having dreams that I drank and wake up feeling so guilty. When I reached out to people I was told that it may be due to times of the year when I would typically drink. I drank on a daily basis but I would drink more around family and out in the open for my birthday or certain holidays which is around the time that I was having the dreams. I have not had any drinking dreams since September and am happy about that.
The app that I use to track my sobriety and talk to other people in the sobriety community is “Sober Time”. I am not sure if it is available on every platform but I know that it is a free app on Apple.
