There are many fears newly sober people face. I like to call these the BIG F****’s. In this blog post, I’ll cover sobriety’s five big fears from the perspective of a sober newbie. These five f****’s are not the only fears we face as we begin sobriety, but rather broad categories of challenges every sober person must overcome at some point in their journey.
My main focus of sobriety has been to replace fear with faith or love.
– Steve O
For each of us, the road to sobriety is different. Some of us choose 12 step programs, rehab or medical intervention, or try to go it alone. My own sobriety journey employs a combination of meditation, mindfulness, dietary modification, journaling, informal support, subreddits, newly discovered hobbies, and exercise.
But regardless of the path we take, there are fundamental hurdles that we will all face at some point along the way. Some may be quite obvious, like FOMO (fear of missing out) while others, like friends and social circles, may be less so.
Many of the five big fears are faced before we ever quit drinking or using. They act as co-conspirators in our drive to resist change by providing convenient excuses to continue on in our self destructive behavior. These fears can persist well after we’ve managed to get some sober time under our belts.
Making peace with the five big fears is yet another way to decouple from our alcoholism and addiction. I wrote about decoupling from alcohol previously, and those concepts extend from this article. I encourage you to check it out.
So, what are the five big fears we face as we consider or enter sobriety?
F.O.M.O
Fear Of Missing Out was a HUGE fear of mine. It was, and continues to be, the biggest of the F****’s. Why? Because our entire society is centered around alcohol and the consumption of alcohol. Entire holidays, like Saint Patrick’s Day and Cinco De Mayo, are dedicated to it. Other holidays are drenched in it.
Did you know the night before Thanksgiving is known as Blackout Wednesday? Or that Fourth of July weekend is one of the deadliest weekends of the entire year? Alcohol and explosives. What could possibly go wrong?
And holidays are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to FOMO. Consider weddings, bachelor & bachelorette parties, Superbowl parties, live sporting events, concerts, birthday parties, happy hours, office parties, bar mitzvahs, dates, anniversaries, vacations, and on and on.
If you’re sober, how likely are you to go on that girl’s weekend to Napa or Vegas? What about the craft beer festival all your buddies are going to next weekend? Nope and Nope, unless you’re planning to be the designated driver.
This summer, my family and I are renting a beach cottage on the east coast. During this week-long trip, I’ll be dealing with a vacation, staying in a house located one block from a brewpub, and attending my cousin’s wedding. It’s the F***’n trifecta. And don’t think I haven’t spent a lot of time worrying about how boring the trip might be if I have to endure it sober. In fact, this will be my first sober wedding. Should be interesting. Yet, in a strange way I’m looking forward to the challenge.
What kinds of events and occasions do you heavily associate with alcohol? How does the prospect of not drinking at these events impact your willingness/desire to attend or participate?
Fun
And this brings us to the next of the five big fears: Fun. FOMO and fun go together like peaches and cream (unless, of course, you’re lactose intolerant). A big part of FOMO is missing out on fun. But fun goes a lot deeper than that.
For me, personally, I felt that once I stopped drinking and smoking pot, I’d be less fun. Less fun to be around. Less fun to hang out with.
Beyond that, drinking and getting high had become synonymous with enjoyment and having fun. I figured that even if I dragged my ass to a Cinco De Mayo party (as to not ‘miss out’), I’d be a miserable sulking sack the entire time.
In hindsight, I understand why I might have felt this way. I didn’t have much practice being social without being shitfaced, high as a kite, or, often, both. I never considered that in my comprised state, even though I was having a ball, I might not be all that fun to be around. In fact, I wasn’t. I was an embarrassing mess.
In my recent experience of being sober at social events of all kinds, I am not only not missing out on anything by not drinking, but I’m actually having more fun. I’m more engaged. My jokes and quips are well timed and well received, and, even better, I can remember all the fun I had the next morning. And I can do this without cottonmouth, a splitting headache, or guilty embarrassment.
Friendships
The third of the five big fears is friendships. So many of our relationships are based on alcohol. I grew up and went to university with my ‘drinking buddies’. And for years after we graduated, whenever we’d get together, we’d go and ‘tie one on’.
We’d go to happy hours, concerts and music festivals, or just sit around a firepit in someone’s backyard and pass joints around while pounding beer and whiskey chasers. The nights were fuzzy and the hangovers were epic! Oh, the stories! If only I could remember them…
As I got older, the drinking morphed from all night benders to more mature dinner parties or fancy dinners where we’d somehow polish off 6-8 bottles of wine while our kids had a movie night. Sometimes we’d rent a cabin up in the mountains for such affairs. Other times we’d trade off houses.
After the kids got older, it was Sunday football and other sporting events with various buddies.
In sobriety, I still attend a lot of these functions and my friends have accepted that I don’t drink or smoke pot anymore. This is made easier by the fact that I moved 2500 miles away from all of my old drinking buddies and haven’t seen them in years (mainly because of Covid).
I still have some trepidation of the day when we have a reunion and I need to face these guys sober. My understanding is that most of them are still quite hard charging drinkers and potheads. I once feared they’d judge me for sobering up. I’ve let that go.
For many entering sobriety, friendships and alcohol use are inextricably linked. Often sobriety means moving on and finding new sober friends and social circles. Fear of separation and loss are powerful emotions. The litmus test is this: if your friends support your sobriety, you can keep them. Otherwise, it may be time to say goodbye.
Facing Change
Change isn’t just one of the five big fears of sobriety, it’s a fear most people face across the various aspects of their impermanent existences.
Meditation has helped me to face and overcome Fear Of Impermanence. In fact, I’ve come to appreciate the power of impermanence in bringing about real and substantive change. Utilizing it is a major factor in my sobriety today. Rather than be permanently drunk, I’m impermanently sober. If this doesn’t make sense to you, it’s time to start meditating!
When we give up drinking and using, we change as people. That’s scary. One day we are defined by our addictions, until suddenly, in sobriety, we aren’t. We are faced with existential questions concerning our identities and futures. How do we fill all of the time previously consumed by drunken folly? How do we take care of ourselves?
Sudden and extreme change throws us off balance and can be physically and emotionally painful. Since it is in our nature to avoid pain, we actively seek to avoid change. We fear change.
The irony is that the world and our existence within it, and that of everyone and everything around us, is in constant flux. One of the many unfortunate penalties addiction inflicts upon us is the illusion of stasis – that nothing ever changes. Our own inability to grow mentally, emotionally, or spiritually creates the mirage that life is on a treadmill. It’s not. We are. And getting off is scary as hell.
But, as they say, “change is the only constant”. When you embrace sobriety, you must embrace all of the change that comes along with it. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, change can be very refreshing and revitalizing. I wish you much positive change!
The Stickiest of The Five Fears: Faith
Ah, Faith. I refer to faith as the stickiest of the five fears. Why? Faith can be such a loaded and divisive word.
In most 12 step programs, at some point we are asked to give ourselves over to a higher power. In other words, to have faith in something bigger than us. For many, this means God. For others, it’s a universal power, energy, or spirit. And for still others, it means nothing.
I believe that sobriety may be particularly difficult for those who don’t believe in the existence of a higher power. And that this lack of faith may keep them from seeking and getting the support they need to get sober. I’ve seen many start off this way only to give themselves over entirely at some point in their sobriety journey and proselytize others.
Faith means so many things to so many people, but it’s nothing to fear. I’m more aligned with Buddhist and Hindu ideas of faith, though I was raised Christian. In my own journey, it was my faith in meditation that led me to real fundamental change. While meditating, I’ve had some bizarre experiences that have me exploring my spiritual faith ever more deeply.
Faith in God, faith in medicine, faith in the process, faith in love. Whatever it is, we each need to give ourselves over to sobriety if we are to be released from addiction. Find your faith and find your freedom.
