1(6.5B, 1M) – See: Understanding the Sobriety Journal for Codex
After months of contemplation, it has become obvious to me that if I’m to make a positive contribution to the world, I must make some substantive changes to my life. Specifically, I must change my relationship with alcohol and marijuana. Okay, I admit at first blush there’s nothing sexy about that, but hear me out…
My Sobriety Journey Begins
As I begin this Sobriety Journal, I have completed 61 consecutive days of contemplative meditation (A lot sexier than it sounds).
During these short couple of months, my meditation practice has presented me with several sexy (and not so sexy) insights:
- My attachment to alcohol and marijuana is my primary source of suffering. Not sexy.
- My ability to detach from alcohol and pot will promote happiness and connectedness. Sexy.
- To completely detach from these vices will require time and patience. Not sexy.
- I can feel this healing sobriety journey pulling me forward and I believe it is worthy of sharing with others suffering from addiction, gray area drinking, and use disorder. Sexy.
- None of these insights is about me individually. They are about us and working together to rebuild a better us. Sexier than going it alone!
It’s important for you to understand that I grew up in an alcoholic household and have a brother who’s been in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for over 25 years with his wife recently joining him. So, I know alcoholism, addiction, recovery, and sobriety first hand. While I don’t currently consider myself an alcoholic, on my present trajectory, I’m going to get there sooner or later. Of this, I’m certain. Unless, of course, I take immediate action to set a new course for my life.
Use Disorder, Gray Area Drinking, or Addiction?
Today, I would describe my attachment to alcohol, particularly ice cold IPAs, as somewhere just shy of addiction and more in the sphere of an ‘entrenched habit’. And habit persists on a very slippery slope. It has a pull, a gravity, that is as subtle as it is overpowering. One might argue it is this subtlety that quietly empowers habit to take over aspects of our lives.
Habits creep in to our lives slowly and quietly, almost imperceptibly. And once firmly established, they never declare victory or call attention to themselves. Their enduring power derives directly from the illusion that you (and your EGO) are in control. They’d like you to believe that you’re the one making the decisions, but somewhere deep down, you know this isn’t true. But who wants to admit that our habits have us firmly under their spell? We resist this admission because it would mean we’ve ceded control of our lives. And that’s incredibly scary!
Habit is one way alcoholism and addiction gain a foothold in your life.
I’ve been questioning the increasingly slippery slope of my use disorder and contemplating a path toward sobriety for years now. This questioning began with a few ‘over the top’ drunken escapades over the past couple of years. Fortunately, in every case, the only one that got hurt was my EGO, and for this I am incredibly grateful. More recently, emerging health concerns (obesity, arthritis, pre-diabetes) add additional fodder to the fire and drive urgency to change. Sobriety seems, more and more, the only way forward.
The epic hangovers that frequently plagued me further drove home the stupidity of my drunken decision making, and often resulted in my taking a couple nights off. Of course, I gladly continued to smoke pot every night. Especially since it helped alleviate the hangovers. Oh, the wonders of self medicating!
I realized things were getting out of control when, in an attempt to reign in any further embarrassment, or worse, I implemented rules such as limiting myself to four beers when going out, never mixing beer and spirits, and drinking at home most of the time. This last option became prefered as it meant no drinking limits and easy access to my pot stash when I was ready to take things up a notch.
What Changed for Me
Then one day, it happened. Suddenly, I couldn’t sleep. Ever. I spent entire nights wide awake, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling. During these long nights, I prayed for the quick arrival of day so I could pound coffee and fight my way through work and life. Truth be told, drag assing through everyday was starting to take a toll.
Not yet relating my sleep deprivation to my chronic alcohol use, I did lots of research on insomnia. As you might have guessed, what I found pointed squarely to my chronic alcohol use. Looking for an easy answer, I simply adjusted my drinking schedule to accommodate lots of beer before 9pm.
I incorrectly surmised that this tactic would allow me to keep drinking and smoking pot, so long as it took place during the prescribed window. It helped a little, but it became obvious rather quickly, that I would have to go a lot further to reclaim my life. But what to do?
I decided to try meditation. I wasn’t quite ready for AA, or to rule it out entirely, but knew if sobriety was something I desired, I needed to do something, and fast. So, I did some more research and discovered that meditation has been shown to help with addiction and regression. I decided to give it a try. Plan B, AA, was waiting patiently for me in case meditation didn’t work out. I was suddenly Sober Curious.
That was 200+ days ago. Fast forward to today and I’m happy to report I haven’t had cannabis of any kind in over 6 months. Thirty-five days into my meditation practice, I simply lost the urge to use pot anymore. I simply let my marijuana flower supply run out (ushering in the end of smoking) and my edibles supply languish (tossing the last of this over my back fence). Shortly thereafter, my marijuana habit vanished. Completely. I’m not sure why or how, but that’s what happened. I like to say, mary jane divorced me. She just up and left one day, never to return. And it’s not like I don’t have ample opportunities to smoke pot.
Beer, however, remains another matter entirely. And while I can now, after six months of meditation, string together up to 25 sober days in a row, by day 20 the urge to buy a six or twelve pack becomes a frequent visitor. Sometimes, before I realize it, I’m on my way home with some IPA riding shotgun. Still, this is a huge improvement over the 1-2 consecutive alcohol free days (and zero weed free days) I was managing pre-meditation.
And now when I drink, I’m able to enjoy a couple beers and be satisfied. That’s a game changer! And, at the six month point, I’ve discovered the power of non-alcoholic beer to satiate my urge to drink.
So, I’ve revisited and updated this, the first entry in my Sobriety Journal. It now reflects the progress I’ve made over six months. What begins below is Day 0. As you progress, you’ll read about my successes and failures over this time period, and there are many of each.
This Sobriety Journal is where I’ll track my progress and regression as I endeavor to free myself from the need to pursue a buzz as an end in and of itself – something I like to call ‘buzz chasing‘.
My methodology for tracking my daily sobriety progress is contained in Understanding the Sobriety Journal.
Thanks for joining me on my journey.
– Dominic, December 19, 2022
And So It Begins – Day 0
Ugh. Now for my moment of shame. Last night I drank way too much in quite the unsexy fashion:
- 2 – 16 oz Lagunitas IPAs
- 1 – 24 oz Modelo
- 3 – 16 oz Lake Arrowhead Brewery IPAs
- 1 – Vodka La Croix Cape Codder
7.5 Drinks (the Modelo counts as 1.5) is a very poor showing for my first sobriety blog post. It demonstrates a fair amount of bad judgement. Worse, my sleep suffered badly. Most of this morning, I’ve been working through a mild headache, but, thankfully, I was able to meditate successfully.
My goal for today is a ‘zero’ (0) day and I’m feeling quite confident about accomplishing that at this point. My hangover certainly helps my motivation to get a handle on this.
Hangovers ain’t sexy. Not sexy at all.
Check in tomorrow for Dodging Addiction Bullets…
Stop trying to calm the storm. Calm yourself. The storm will pass. -Buddha
