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Getting sober is simple. You want to be sober? Don’t drink.

Staying sober can be difficult, for some of us.

Life is frequently hard. If you’re fortunate, you have enough bright spots to help you keep going until the next challenge.

Often a drink helps make that challenge a bit easy to endure. Maybe it takes the edge off. Maybe it eases your social anxiety. Maybe it’s that reward after a long day or a particularly unpleasant event.

Often a drink helps make the good times even better. Raising a glass of champagne for a toast. Pairing wines with a tasting menu. Having a beer with pizza or BBQ. Sharing the highs and lows of the big game with fellow team fans.

Alcohol works great, until it doesn’t. When once you used it, it suddenly uses you.

Years ago, a friend of mine from Louisiana stated that after Mardi Gras she was giving up alcohol for Lent. Forty days with no booze! It seemed inconceivable to me. 

I never liked the label “alcoholic.” Sure, it’s a great shorthand to communicate that you have a problem drinking like a “normal” person. It also carries a lot of shame and judgement. An alcoholic in my mind has always been someone out of control. Weak. Someone to be pitied, who was ruining their life and hurting their loved ones. You know, like my father. 

I never wanted to end up like my father. And yet I did. My unhealthy relationship with alcohol looked different that his. That’s one thing I’ve learn by meeting others who share my sober journey: our stories vary. 

I drank socially for many years. Rarely I would over do it and have a hangover. Mainly it was one or two glasses with friends or loved ones for happy hour or dinner. It was never alone. It was never something I felt ashamed of doing or that I hid.

I think back on where everything started to go wrong. And like many stories, it’s both complicated and simple.  Simply put, I got in the habit of consuming a habit-forming substance daily. It started innocently enough: I was working 50 hours a week pretty regularly during my corporate job, and then raising two young kids, one of whom is on the autism spectrum and had special needs. It was tough. Frequently I felt inadequate and overwhelmed with stress. 

I remember the first time I had a glass of wine in the evening, alone, after the kids were in bed. It was just a relief to sit down and relax. The alcohol calmed my mind and muted all my worries. It was a “treat,” something just for me.

So I did that for a while. At some point, one glass became two, and stayed at two for a long time. Because two had always been my self-imposed limit. Here’s the thing with alcohol: your body gets used to it. One glass stops having the same effect, so you drink a little more. And so on  and so on.

Once I was drinking 3-4 glasses a night, I knew I had a problem. So I started to hide it. Because when you’re drinking practically a bottle of wine a night, those bottles add up. It’s hard to ignore the evidence of your consumption in the recycling bin.

Alcohol or Substance Use Disorder is more fashionable these days. I had an unhealthy relationship with a substance that was at heart unhealthy. Don’t let reports on the so called benefits of alcohol fool you: alcohol is a toxin, even in small amounts.

But at that point I wasn’t drinking small amounts. And honestly the details of my descent, while lurid, aren’t really that interesting. Neither is the fact that what happened to me happens to many people. I just happen to one of those people who got help and figured out how to turn my life around. I figured out how to not just face life but live it fully, without the blanket of booze. 

I’m not special. I have no super powers, unless you count being able to write my name in cursive on an Etch-a-Sketch.  I have learned a thing or two that help me stay sober. And I like to learn from others what works for them. Because sobriety, like life, is an ever growing, changing thing.

That is what I hope this blog is about. Me sharing what I’ve discovered and learning what works for you. I think it’s important to be able to talk openly and honestly about alcohol and our relationship with it, especially if or when you discover that relationship is one that needs to change or end.