"Problems don’t go away once you stop drinking. You just have to find a new way to work through them."

I stopped drinking over 5 months ago. For 3 of those months, I honestly thought, ‘Fuck yes, that was easy!’  I wasn’t ‘needing’ to drink.  I felt like I gained all the time in the world.  I was getting stuff done.  I can honestly report feeling moments of euphoria after exercising or finishing a crafty project that I had put off for 10 years.  I felt like I was on cloud nine.  I was unstoppable and untouchable. Until…  I fell through the cloud at a very fast speed, heading directly for the concrete world down below.  What happened you ask?  Life.  

During the first three months, I had a naive understanding that alcohol was the cause of all my misery. This cloud that I was on (referred to as the ‘Pink Cloud’ in the Recovery World), literally reinforced this belief; I never felt more alive in my life.  Sobriety was new.  I was learning about it, and wearing it as a badge of honor.  Eventually the 'newness’ wore off, and all I was left with was myself.  My thoughts, triggers, and the ‘stuff’ that I turned to alcohol for jumped out of nowhere (or so it seemed).  I felt these thoughts were teasing me by saying, “Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw… I’m still here.  Catch me if you can!”  Instead of using stress relieving tools to cast off these thoughts (not being a good mom, wife, business owner, supportive friend), I just cried, and wanted to drink.  I was pissed that I had done so much “WORK” yet the old record in my head was playing again.  

Now that I’m on the other side of this (barely), I can say I WAS doing the work.  But I’m entering a new season of sobriety and it’s time to dig deeper.  It’s time to ask for help, it’s time to talk to others in recovery, it’s time to come out of isolation. 

Thoughts?